“So how does the train get to the island of Sicily?” asked Tom Gordon one of Rob’s work colleagues while we were still in Canberra. Answer: “On the Ferry“. It was a new experience for both of us and the whole palaver took about 2 hours, added to a 8 hour train journey. So while interesting, hardly efficient. Why not end one train journey at the Ferry and begin another on the other side? We’ll go to one suggestion later.
It’s a lovely train journey from Salerno near the Amalfi coast, to Palermo in Sicily, following the coast, if you can get a seat on the right hand side you’re looking at the seaside most of the journey.
Sicily. One of Alex’s regular facebook friends, and veteran traveller Martin Corben says it’s the real Italy for him. There was a great moment when we were waiting for a boat trip and there was a lot of yelling going on, Alex looked with slight concern and bewilderment (and let’s remember Alex comes from a pretty rowdy lot), the woman selling tickets caught her eye and shrugged her shoulders saying: “He’s Sicilian.”
The moment we got off the train in Palermo it felt less touristy than other places we’d been in Italy, a bit edgy.
To explain Palermo to us we decided to enlist the services of guide (to the stars as we later found out) – the wonderful Marcella Amato www.marcellaamato.it.
We spent the day with Marcella who is Sicilian born and bred with degrees in politics, history and fine arts.
Marcella
Marcella our guide showed us some incredible buildings and great food. She described the 13 waves of occupation of Sicily which include the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Spanish, and the saying that goes something like “Everything changes in order to stay the same”.
The 25th anniversary of the killing of Magistrate Giovanni Falcone was being commemorated while we were in Palermo. On May 23 1992 6 people were killed in a massive explosion from under the road as his car and body guards drove across it.
Falcone fought against the Mafia knowing that he would be targeted. He viewed the Mafia as a human problem, and if the population stood together, they could not kill everybody.
Thousands of students were expected the next day to march in support of the principles that Falcone died for.
Marcella pointed out the signs on many shop windows that show that those businesses that are standing together and not paying protection money.
These shop stickers say ‘An entire population that pays the pizzo is a population without dignity.’
The ‘Pizzo’ refers to the €200 (£153) to €500 that up to 80 per cent of Palermo’s shopkeepers pay the mob monthly to avoid a smashed window, a mysterious fire, harm to family members, or a bomb under their car.
Marcella spoke of the need to bring it out into the open. Although organised crime is a very serious and escalating issue in other parts of Italy, there is a feeling that the power of the Mafia in Sicily has weakened in the the hold it has over the whole community. Nevertheless, it is still a serious issue in parts of the economy for example in major civil contracts, and it is holding the economy of Sicily back. Few outsiders are prepared to invest, for example in a new bar, or new hotel. You don’t see major Hotel chains here. It was even suggested to us later in our journey that a possible reason for the inexplicably inefficient process of putting train carriages on to a ferry was that is was under Mafia control.
The area we stayed in is undergoing a regeneration with arts hubs, bars and cafes springing up in buildings that have until recently been abandoned. It’s at that exciting point when the rents are still affordable for creative people to be able to work, and just before it becomes too fashionable and they get driven out, as is happening in places like Braddon.
Still singing Marcella’s praises, it was like spending the day with a really good friend. Lots of laughter, passion, talk of sons and daughters. Towards the end we were walking down a street and she said “this is Calvin Klein’s favourite street”. It’s a street of iron wear, bbq’s grills, buckets. Turns out she’s guided for Hilary Clinton, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Dolce and Gabbana. But she made us feel like we were her best clients ever. Ciao Bella Marcella.
Our visit to Palermo was far too short, but we vow to be back.
Ortiga, Siracusa
We met the fabulous Doris Mismetti in Roma over lunch in a beautiful Roman restaurant a few weeks ago where she engaged us by talking about food. Turns out she was heading to Siracusa at the same time as us: “We must have lunch”. We ended up spending a day with Doris and her friend Amedea. Two incredible woman, Amedea a psychiatrist, Doris who has worked for the FAO. There’s also been a documentary made about Doris, called Doris and Hong. Here’s the trailer, if you have time watch the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGjFbNLbH00. The people you meet, it really is one of the special things about travelling. We can’t tell you how much we love these woman and we really didn’t want to say goodbye. You never know we may convince them to come to Australia.
On our last evening we got talked into a boat trip. We knew it was touristy but we were tired of walking and the water seemed so cool and nice. It ended up being just us and Alessandro the 25 year old cool dude skipper. It couldn’t have been better. He played Italian love songs on the home leg.
Rob ever the pomegranate fan, couldn’t resist a fresh juice.
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Parental Gap-Year 