Just a couple of short train rides, first north to Brindisi for a quick connection and now I’m in Matera, one of the oldest inhabited places on earth. One source I read claims that it’s the third longest inhabited place on earth. How they know that is beyond me, but in any case, civilization has been in this spot for around 7000 to 8000 years. A long long time! It was afternoon when I arrived, so I only had time…
When I said in my last post that I was going to spend a whole day on a bus, I meant a whole day. I had to make my way from Sicily in the west all the way to the Salentine Peninsula (Italy’s boot heel) in the east. I left Catania about 930am. The most exciting thing that happened was the ferry crossing from Sicily to the mainland. About 530pm I arrived in Taranto for a four hour layover. So…
It really doesn’t seem that far on the map, but it took nearly five hours on the train to get from Agrigento to Catania, on Sicily’s east coast. Catania, like most of Sicily’s cities was originally a Greek city, going all the way back to the 8th century BC. The first thing I noticed while walking to my hotel, however, was the remains of the 2nd century Roman theatre. Most of it is buried underneath the modern buildings, but this…
My eleven hour train ride from Naples turned out to be just the rest I needed, and it rained most of the way, so it was a good day to avoid that. Finally around 7:30pm I arrived in Palermo in Sicily and found my hotel for the night, slept, and then hit the streets first thing in the morning. Just a little sidenote, Sicily has what has got to be one of the craziest flags in the world. The three…
Strap in everyone, this is gonna be a long one. I left Spoleto in the wee dark hours of the morning and made my way down the narrow streets to the train station. Once the train started I promptly fell asleep and didn’t wake up until everyone had almost disembarked at Rome’s main terminal. I guess I was tired. I quickly got up and figured out where my connecting train was and about two hours later, I arrived in Naples…
