From Cairo to the Connemara: A Sojournal

 Pt2 - 17: FLORENCE, SIENA   Rail is hands down the smartest mode of transport in this country. The seven and a half hour journey from Sorrento to Florence could so easily have been a biblical ordeal, but it wasn’t. The changes at Naples and Rome went remarkably smoothly and, apart from Tess almost having her arm amputated in the automatic ticket barrier in Roma Termini and the unedifying spectacle of a middle-aged couple sucking face like a pair of desperate juveniles for several hours on the run to Florence, the trip passed pleasantly enough. The further north we travelled the more picturesque the countryside became, verdant green farmland studded with palatial villas and impossibly romantic medieval walled towns. As always, Tess stayed with the gear at the station while I went off to hustle up the accommodation. Call me sensitive, but I swear the first dozen or so establishments quoted me outrageous prices just to get rid of me. It was such a trend that by the time I took t...

 Pt2 - 16: SORRENTO, POMPEII, AMALFI   I like riding trains. They’re the only form of public transport which takes you behind the film set fa ç ades and right into people’s backyards, a voyeur’s view of local life. As the 9:20 for Naples trundled out of Roma Termini, past the apartment blocks and on through the suburbs, a glimpse into the tiny yards told you who lived where; from the disorder of young families strewn with swings and scooters and bicycles to the manicured plots of more organised residents to the productive patches of urban market gardeners, some with modest outdoor settings where there was just enough space; clotheslines hung with overalls, sheets, shirts, skirts and knickers. Were it not for the pocket-sized blocks and the signs in Italian we could’ve been in suburban Melbourne. Once beyond the urban sprawl the train gathered speed and raced through rolling green farmlands dotted with large hay rolls and flocks of sheep and embroidered with red tissue-pa...

Pt2 - 15:   ROME   Say it. Rome... Let it roll luxuriously off your tongue... Let it inhabit your mind... Rome... Is there a more pregnant syllable in the English language? All that history, all that drama, all that colour, all that art, all that architecture, all that plumbing! I can’t tell you how excited I was arriving on the night train from Bari back in 1977, and you may sense my excitement now as our 747-400 descended smoothly over green fields, flaps trimmed on final approach to Fiumicino. We gained an hour on the crossing in the first time zone adjustment since we landed in Cairo and, given all the places we’ve been and all the things we’ve seen over the last three months, I had to let that sink in. So it was only just after 8 when our wheels chirped on the runway and we taxied to the air bridge. Instead of the two hundred meter tarmac bus ride we’ve become used to we decanted straight into the state of the art terminal, technically the Leonardo da Vi...