VATICAN TO SICILLY BY TRAIN

Night of 74
Day 75

We spent our last day in Rome, at the Vatican which is an 'awesome place' in Silvia's words, an 'awe inspiring place' in Greg's words and 'phenomenal' in my words...

The sheer grandiour of the place..and the fact that we had to walk 500 steps to the top of the cupola! And also..saw Michelangelos la Pieta which was divine..and Raphaels work as well as so much more..the ceramics etc..i tell you, a visit to St Peitra is definatly worth it! We went twice..and spending the last day in Rome was wonderful. We even got to hear a service..and hear the bells and see the guards dressed in Michelangelos design.

Just one thing, Michelangelo was certainly the blue eyed boy in Italy eh...he was so revered (and i can see why) but i always feel for Leonardo Da Vinci, who in life, must have felt so tortured...and all because he wasn't of recognised Noble blood (he was a bastard son of nobility) as Michelangelo was, and not recognised with his father's name. (da vinci is the place where he was born, not his father's name).

We arrived in Sicilly...on the old rattling train...it was such an old train! Our Eurail entitles us to go on a Eurostar train which is a really fast, new, modern train but for some reason the sleeper trains from Rome are not like this ..they're as old as the hils themselves. Unlike the Paris one we took which took 3 hours to go 800km or so....!!

Anyway...it bumbped, chugged and rocked and rolled and vibrated and swayed for 10 hours. Us in our bunk beds in a little cabin! We left at 9.30pm....on Monday night (14th) and it arrived at 7.30am Tuesday morning!!

But the weird thing is....at about 4.30am...the train suddenly stopped...for longer than a normal 3 minute stop to get off at a train station..it stopped for ages..and woke me up...and i looked out of the window...and the train was overlooking the sea..it looked gorgeous...ships everywhere!

I wondered where on earth we were!! Then...the train started going backwards! I thought..Whoa! They've missed their stop!! So backwards we go......then forwards....i look out our cabin window....and see a bloke looking in...he smiles...then waves...!! I àm in my underwear!! I thought I'd better get dressed..something is happening!

So i race out on to the main hallway of the train...pull up the big blind and look out again...we start moving backwards....then forwards....and backwards again. We're moving into a big container it looks like...so i wake Greg!

He looks out...and says..i think we're on a ferry! They loaded our train onto a ferry..and we started moving again...silently this time...with only the sound of the ships propellors!

Over the stretto de messina, the stretch of water between itally and sicilly. We didn't know that was going to happen! Being loaded up onto a ferry! Whoa.

We then arrived in Messina...a big town....(that has 100 ancestoral names in the book) and headed off again, on the train tracks..to Capo D'Orlando, my children's great grandparents were born!

It's really bizzare. The trains in Europe. So different to anything we would ever know. There are metros, where trains go under the city...there are trains where trains go over land, under tunnels and through mountains..and there are the sleepers...

We arrived in Capo d Orlando...to where we were going to do some ancestoral research...and the first thing we see is the ocean...