We’re all hitting the sweet spot of the trip by now: we’re pretty much over jet-lag, accustomed to being on the road, and open to random new adventures. Today we leave Catania to take the train down to Siracusa where we have an AirBnB for four nights in the historic part of town–the island of Ortigia.
We woke up too early—why does that always have to happen??—packed up, left our place, walked to the Metro, then rode to the main train station. Honestly I do know why I got up so early, I was still shell-shocked from the crazed Napoli station and how we nearly missed our train! For the Catania train station, I wanted hours and hours to decipher this… new devilry.
Now we are here, and I am so mad at the Catania train station!!! We got here super early to deal with all the insane madness of an Italian train station, and what did we find?!? Simplicity itself: easy train schedules all over the place, no crowds, track numbers posted everywhere —a child could figure out this place. I am so mad!!
I mean, look at this nonsense! Clocks on the wall, what the hell are they displaying those for?!? And train schedules–with times AND track numbers?!? Ir’s almost like a trick, this is too easy!So what do you do when you show up ‘way too early for your train? You have some nice mid-morning beers out on the patio 😀Outside on our platform–labelled and everything!View of Mt Etna from the train—check out the graffiti on the left, in Catania even the train windows have graffiti lolMade it to OrtigiaThat’s our lunch table under the awning to the left… and way to the left you can see our giant pile of luggage all stacked up because we can’t check in for a couple more hours yet lolRobert and Sam got bizarre pizzasMatt and I each ordered a specialty hamburger, simply because the guidebook called them out here as being the pride of the restaurant. They look great, right? Well they sucked lol Matt thinks he got a touch of food poisoning from his!The inside of the restaurant was pretty cool thoughBack out on the street with all our luggage, checking out menus along the way hahaHere’s where we’re staying on Ortigia!This is our AirBnB, from street levelThis place is really comfortable!And has great views from each bedroom!Heading out exploring!We are very impressed so far by Ortigia!This narrow alley does actually constitute a two-lane highway herePomegranate treeI do love all the tropical plants everywhereSpeaking of burgers…. which one of these is not like the others 😀ScreenshotI always get a kick out of how obsessed Europeans are with Nutella
We have an aggressive goal for dinner: a place famous for seafood which is off the island, so we have to walk all the way into Siracusa to find it.
Here’s crossing the strait between Ortigia and SiracusaAnd then we found our dinner place, Sapuri e… Amuri! Apparently the dot dot dot is part of the name lolThe menu is kind of…. adventuresome lolWe pretty much opened the placeSomeone ran over my fish!!! Haha the sea-bass was amazing, I would literally eat this every day if I couldDinner was such a successThis is the episode you don’t show the kiddos….Dessert was some amazing lemon thingie which we all sharedNow a long hike in the dark all the way back up Ortigia to the airbnbStreets are all so scenic!!There’s the gang ahead of me, we’re pretty anxious for bed by now
And so ends our first day in Ortigia. To quote McDonalds, I’m Lovin It!
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