By train to Sicily, which is further than it looks

June & Teo Marsh5 October 2019 · 1 min read

Two bunks in a sleeper train cabin

Trip details

When: 6 – 19 Sept 2019
How long: 14 days
Who went: June and Teo, before the ring, and after
Stops: 6
Getting around: Eurostar, three more trains, a train on a ferry, a bus

Teo had read that there is a night train from Rome to Sicily which, at the toe of Italy, is split into pieces, shunted onto a ferry, carried across the sea, and put back together on the other side. He said this to me in the tone other men use for vintage cars. I said, and you want to be on it while this happens? He did. So did I, it turned out. So did, as it turned out, a woman from Catania with a basket of figs who had done it forty times and still went up on deck to watch.

A Eurostar train at a platform under an arched roof — The first train of four. Bristol to Paddington doesn't count; it was late, and we're used to it.

Two bunks in a sleeper train cabin — Our cabin on the Intercity Notte. Two bunks, one ladder, one argument about who gets which.

London, Paris, Rome, and then down the whole leg of Italy in the dark.

The legs

How we got there, in September 2019

Leg	Train	Time
London → Paris	Eurostar	2 h 20
Paris → Turin → Rome	TGV, then Frecciarossa	about 11 hours, with lunch in Turin
Rome → Palermo	Intercity Notte, the sleeper	13 hours, one of them on a boat

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There is no airport in the world where they put your plane on a boat and let you go and watch.

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Rome to Palermo, overnight

Slow trips, by train, ferry and bribery

By train to Sicily, which is further than it looks

The legs

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Slow trips, by train, ferry and bribery

The legs

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