Honestly, you probably are, and I wouldn't blame you -- this is a retail blog, not a travel blog. I'll see if I can speed things up a bit (but I already said that yesterday and it didn't really work out that way).
Catania is probably best known for being next to Etna, which I hadn't seen the previous couple days due to the weather. The top of the main city park had a nice view of it this time, with just some small clouds around the top (some of which may have been steam coming off of the highly-active volcano).
I haven't posted about botanical gardens on here since my Portland trip (I can't believe that was nearly 5 years ago already!), which was also the last time I tried to do a travel series. I love places like this, especially conservatories, and it was particularly neat to see all of the cacti just growing on their own outdoors here. Even outside of formal gardens, there are cacti growing wild all over Sicily, which is crazy to me since they're strictly indoor plants where I'm from!
I still had time to kill after that, so I went on a short joyride on the Catania Metro, a very short system that has surprisingly nice, brand-new trains -- which is all the fancy full-color LCD screens on the first train were telling you. (The second one had proper maps and next stop information, which is a nice surprise for Italy.)
The main plan for the day was to ride the Circumetnea Railway, a narrow-gauge line that (as the name implies) loops around Etna (though it only makes about 3/4 of the circuit). This line largely seems stuck in time, operating all sorts of cute old railcars -- and some boring modern DMUs, and of course that's what I ended up on. ☹️ These did have fancy features like air conditioning, power window blinds, and next-stop displays, absolutely none of which actually worked.
Oh well, the main point was to get some nice views of Etna, and this delivered on that. We also stopped for about 10 minutes to let a herd of goats and sheep cross at one point, emphasizing just how different this line is from Trenitalia's high-speed mainlines!
For some reason, you can't do the entire loop in one trip -- all trains end in Randazzo, with nearly an hour between the train from Catania arriving and the one to Riposto departing. I figured this meant the train from Catania would turn around, and this would finally be my chance to ride one of the old trains (of which there were several at the station). Nope, it was back on the Vulcano for me.
Frustratingly, at the Riposto end, the only Trenitalia train that will take you back to Catania without waiting an hour and a half is the same Intercity that I took across the ferry. Not only is that boring, it also costs about 2.5x what a Regionale would cost on the same route! I did decide to upgrade to first class for this trip again, since it cost an entire 10 cents for the upgrade.
It's the next morning, and it's now time to take the Intercity again, back from Catania Centrale to Villa San Giovanni on the way back to Rome. This time, I stayed on the train on the ferry, both because I wanted to truly experience riding a train on a ferry (you don't get to do that every day!) and because I didn't feel like dragging all of my luggage upstairs again.
After I got off the Intercity, I watched an Intercity Night train getting loaded onto the ferry -- cool to see if from the outside perspective! I don't think this train was actually in service -- there aren't any ICN trains scheduled at this time, and I didn't see anyone on board. I'd like to take one of these night trains at some point, but I'm waiting for the new ones to be delivered, supposedly in a few years, since the current trains are quite rundown from what I've seen.
Last up (and the last of my long-distance trains for this trip) was the Frecciarossa back to Roma Termini (though the train goes all the way from Reggio Calabria Centrale to Milano Centrale, running almost the entire length of Italy). This was operated by an ETR.500, which is actually the oldest high-speed train type currently running in Italy, dating all the way back to the late 80s (though the ones currently in Frecciarossa service are a good bit newer than that). These trains are a lot nicer than the Frecciaregento I rode the other way! I bought seats in the Business Silent Area, which wasn't particularly silent (Italians don't do that very well) and which I wasn't expecting to come with giant decals over the windows, but it was still pretty nice since it's just half of a car (with the rest being home to the Executive section, which unlike first or business class on Trenitalia, costs an absolute fortune). We were a bit delayed leaving and then delayed a lot more on the way when we had to stop for an ambulance to get someone off the train (I hope they're doing OK), but that was fine -- I got to see this really nice sunset on the way into Rome, and also got a 25% refund (on the most expensive leg of the trip, so that worked out nicely) for being more than half an hour late.
Alright, that's it for Sicily -- time for Rome next!
I suppose the good news is that there are newer photos of botanical gardens on your blog than the ones from your Portland trip since there are my photos of Portland from my guest post last summer! At least your photos from Italy show the mountains and botanical gardens without the haze of a burning Kmart blurring everything!
ReplyDeleteThat modern train interior is pretty plain and white! It kind of reminds me of an Artisan Kroger front end or one of those more unfortunate applications of Safeway Modern. Oh well, I'm guessing you'd rather take that than the fake woodgrain train interior that PlazaACME posted to his blog that one time! I suppose I'm old enough to remember when airplanes didn't have entirely white walls, but I'm really dating myself there.
That is unfortunate that someone on the train needed an ambulance. It seemed like I saw a lot more ambulances in use in Italy when I was there than I ever see here. I never could get used to the sound of the ambulance sirens in Europe either so that I was unfortunate that I heard them so often, but I guess I wasn't getting the worst of it so that has to be considered a minor complaint!
Ha, that is true!
DeleteItaly's trains tend to be pretty boring on the inside, but the Frecciarossa I rode does have some early-00s flair that I quite like!
Looking through the pictures, it was throwing me off seeing palm trees in the background of your photos, as I never think to associate Italy with palm trees! Sicily is known for being one of the warmer parts of Europe, so it makes sense, but it's one of those things you don't think about until actually seeing it.
ReplyDeleteThe cacti are fun too. I wish we had more wild cacti here in FL, but all we have are scraggly little prickly pears that grow in the sandier spots.
Palm trees may not be associated with Italy the way they are with Florida, but they are native there! In fact, apparently they're native to pretty much the entire country, though I don't remember ever seeing all that many of them in the other parts of Italy I've visited.
DeleteIt was quite neat seeing all the wild cacti around Sicily! I haven't visited anywhere else with quite so many of them.
Very cool to see all of these shots – it just makes me want to go back to Europe again! I never visited Southern Italy, but it reminds me a lot of Spain with the similar Mediterranean climate and seemingly random Ancient Roman artifacts. I do feel like I remember that the Italian trains weren't as nice as ones operated by SNCF or DB, but they still got me to my destination without too much distress (I think). I was also shocked that some of the Italian train stations had the "clicky" information boards still in use. Maybe I'm picturing Milano Centrale in my head? It also could have been Venezia Santa Lucia or Firenze Santa Maria Novella. I know I really enjoyed the aesthetic of the latter!
DeleteI haven't been elsewhere in Europe, but Italy is pretty great! Italian trains are highly variable -- it used to be that you could know you were going to get a newer/fancier train if you were to take the Frecciarossa or Frecciabianca, and an older one with Frecciaregento or Intercity, but with the deletion of the Frecciabianca and Frecciaregento brands, things are less consistent now. And the Regionale has always been wildly inconsistent, though they have gotten a lot of new trains in the past few years! They are pretty reliable, though, and when my last long-distance train of the trip was delayed (45 minutes, so not too bad), they gave me an automatic 25% refund, which was pretty nice!
DeleteHmm, I don't think any of the major stations still have the split-flap displays (sadly). It would have made sense for Firenze SMN to have them, since that station still has all sorts of vintage signage and basically nothing from Trenitalia's modern wayfinding standards, but I checked Street View (most of the busiest stations in Italy have indoor Street View) and there wasn't anything there as of 2016. Milan and Venice were also all modernized as of the last time I was there (sometime in the 2010s), and I'm not seeing anything on Street View for either of them either. (Milano Centrale has to be my favorite station in Italy, and I definitely want to get back to Milan at some point!) I do remember seeing some split-flap signs in some smaller stations back in the 2010s, but I'm pretty surprised there are any left (especially in working order) these days! I need to find what station that was, since I'd love to see one of those again!
I read back over my travel journal and it looks like my train from Florence to Milan was delayed by 40 minutes which caused me to miss my next connection; I didn't get any sort of refund either, but can't remember if Trenitalia charged for Eurail pass reservations on high speed trains like SNCF did. I ended up having to take a Flixbus from Milano Centrale to the tiny airport Ryanair served rather than taking the trains. That trip taught me the lesson to always fly to my final destination rather than flying to an airport in the middle of nowhere just because tickets are a bit cheaper. My time and sanity are much more valuable! That's not a knock on Trenitalia, either, that's just the extra logistics that are part of the whole process.
DeleteNow that is going to drive me crazy. I, too, looked over the street views after reading your reply and didn't see a split-flap sign that was in use. Firenze SMN has an old departures sign across from the ticket windows that I took a picture, but it doesn't look like it was in use. I feel like I remember seeing a split-flap somewhere, I just don't know where!! It also seems like it could have used flaps over individual "pixels" rather than "cards" like many that I've seen pictures of. I took a video of a clock in a Spanish train station that used some sort of funky display, but that's all I can find.
Yeah, the old sign in Florence is really funky, and I'm not sure how it worked. It almost looks like it could have been a manual display from before even split-flap signs, but it seems to be too high on the wall for manual changes to be easy... I have no idea.
DeleteI've never used a train pass in Italy, so I don't know how that works. If you buy tickets far enough in advance, they're super cheap (especially for first class)! I'm guessing you were at Bergamo Airport, which is another place I know only through indoor Street View -- I know it as the airport where you have to walk a quarter of a mile to get from one side of a door to the other!
That sign would be a big pain to change if it were manual!
DeleteYou don't have to make a reservation for any regional trains with a pass, but you typically have to with high speed rail. I can't remember the specific case for Italy's high speed, though. I was at Bergamo! That's also a crazy street view glitch! I was pretty tired when I was navigating the airport (running on very few hours of sleep) so I don't remember much other than it being in the middle of nowhere!