Syracuse

Before we made our way to catch up with Hairy and Ben for our train trip to Syracuse, we decided to check out the beach of Catania itself. The walk toward the beach showed the worst sides of Catania as there was a clear divide between the nice parts of town and the dodgy parts. Even along the main strip there would be rubbish around, but in this trek toward the beach, we were shocked at the amount of garbage that littered the roads. I think this is a recurring theme of our travelling. A lot of the locations have nice parts and dirty parts, and it is simply identifying where these locations are and avoiding them. We did not do this as we walked toward the beach, and I think it lowered my expectations for the beach considerably. Jack was completely put off by it, but luckily, I had been warned about the rubbish in parts of Italy and Europe and wasn't completely shocked by it. By the time we had made it to the beach we assumed it was going to be a disgusting mess, and the Cherry on top of the cake, a minor fire that had broken out blocking out path to the beach, ensured we lost all motivation to even go and see it. Instead we started walking to the train station to get to Syracuse, but even this was difficult, road works meant we had to run across highways and jump on buses just to get us in the right direction. Eventually, we did make it, just as the train arrived at the station.

After an interesting start to the day, we finally caught Hairy and Ben and made our way to Syracuse. We only got to experience the old town, but it was incredible. It would have been good to see how the rest of the city compared, but there were so many cool places in the old town alone that we figured it wasn't worth exploring any further out. It started with some old ruins as you first entered the old town before being welcomed by tiny streets and large cream buildings on either side. The little restaurants provided great food, and I got to try my first aranchini ball, and it was awesome. I haven't found one as good since. We made our way through the old town toward the beach before finding a secluded, yet still slightly busy, little Cove to swim at. Nonetheless, we parked up there for a few hours and continued our recovery from the night before. Eventually, we felt better and figured it was time for a spritz and a feed. We found a little bar that overlooked the crystal clear water and figured we would stay here for a few drinks before finding somewhere else for food. The food was so good in the area that the choice became a bit overwhelming, and we eventually ran out of time to be picky and had to just pick a restaurant. In the end, it was good and cheap, but there were definitely better options. By this time, we were already partly pissed so we figured we would grab a few drinks for the train ride. When we arrived at the station, there was a single carriage, banged up and graffiti'ed train that we joked might be our train. Once we figured out what platform we boarded from, we quickly realised that it was, in fact, our train. Not only this, but the train was completely full, and we were forced to sit on the ground of a dingy ass train for almost an hour. This was an interesting trip home, but we made it eventuallyRead more