On the buses

Back in “the last century,” as we saw the 20th referred to recently, when the VP Finance and I were new whelped as a couple, we travelled all over Europe by train and took public transit everywhere, or walked – or, shudders, hitch-hiked. In more recent years, we have generally rented a car, or on a couple of occasions, leased a new one from a French car maker on one of their special plans for tourists.

This was for a few reasons. Renting cars and buying gas for them in Europe grew cheaper, and the idea of driving in a foreign country – even in England and Ireland where they foolishly drive on the wrong side – less intimidating. Also, of course, driving gives you flexibility and the option to go places where it would be inconvenient or impossible to go on public transit.

At the same time, public transit, a fantastic bargain in the 70s and 80s (of the last century), became more expensive. But that trend seems to have reversed itself here in Sicily. Car rental is relatively expensive (€30 a day is cheap, and it can go as high as €70, with no special deals for a week.) And trains are relatively inexpensive. Yesterday, we took the train from Palermo (where we’re vacationing this week) to Agrigento for the Greek ruins. It’s a two-hour ride and cost us less than €17 each, return. In Canada, a two-hour return trip costs more like $70. So we’ve gone back to our earlier mode of touring by public transit.

It has not been without adventure. To get to Palermo from Catania, the island’s second city, just up the coast from Siracusa where we’re wintering, we had to change trains at a place we’d never heard of in the middle of the island called Caltanissetta. Which we thought a little odd – the two major cities, less than three hours apart by car and it was going to take almost five hours by train with the change? It’s for this reason that most people go by coach.

What the schedule failed to mention was that we actually had to get off the train at another station some way from Caltanissetta, get on a bus and drive on switch-back mountain roads to the station, a suburban stop far from the actual city. The VP Finance was about 5 minutes from going into full car-sick mode, she later told me. The drive was spectacular, though – mountain vistas with towns clinging to peaks, the autostrada built on viaducts tantalizingly visible in the valley below but never used until the last few kilometers.

When we arrived at the station, Caltanissetta Xirbi, the mountain air was decidedly bracing, the waiting room was unheated, there were no servizi (toilets) or shops and the train we thought we would be getting never came (because it was Sunday?) so we had to wait for another, half an hour later. (But it had quite an acceptable toilet – whew!)

So that was the train. Then on Tuesday, after hoofing it around Palermo all morning, walking or standing for four hours straight, we were so foot sore and tired by the time we got back to the apartment that we decided it would be a good idea to learn how to use the local bus system.

One main hub for buses is just around the corner from us, Camporeale, less than ten minutes away. We knew this because our Palermo landlord had given us directions from the train station by bus, which we didn’t use that first night. We ended up buying a carnet of tickets from the little kiosk at the square, enough to last us the week. We caught the 122 bus just as it was leaving and headed downtown for our afternoon event, a visit to the Museo Internazionale dei Marionnette (fascinating but over-priced).

Some bus stops are not well marked, but for the most part, the system is easy enough to figure out and use, and reasonably priced compared to home - €1.20 for 90 minutes of travel. You have to convalidate (time-stamp) your ticket when you get on the first bus by sticking it in a little machine. Some of the machines don’t immediately work – even the locals were having trouble – but other than that, the buses are great.

Yesterday in Agrigento, though, we had another little public transit mishap involving buses. We took a city bus from the train station to the entrance of the Valle dei Templi, where all the Greek ruins are (see pic above). Except the bus didn’t stop when it got to the entrance. It only stops on request, and we didn’t realize we were there until we were past it. Oh, well, I thought, it’ll stop at the other entrance (there are two) or we’ll ride it around again – no problem. Problem.

The bus went on a 50-minute tour of suburban Agrigento (great beach views), stopped for a few minutes at the far end of its loop and stopped again at the garage, where we had to change buses and wait while the drivers caught up on gossip and talked machinas (cars). Then finally we looped back around to the temples – an hour later. This time, I told the driver we wanted to stop there, and he did.

The whole time on the bus, I was absolutely furious with myself for not thinking of this possibility and using my half-baked Italian in the first place to tell the driver where we wanted to get off. The VP Finance found my mutterings and execrations off-putting and told me basically to accentuate the positive and latch on to the affirmative. Bah! Where’s the fun in that?

In the meantime, what started as a glorious, unexpectedly sunny day, was rapidly turning nasty. We had about ten minutes of partial sun after we got into the park with its fabulous 2,500-year-old ruins, then the clouds rolled in. Within 40 minutes it was pelting cold rain – the temperature dropped all day - and we were sheltering in the park’s cafe and paying for an exorbitant lunch.

All of which is not to say we’re rethinking using public transit. Far from it. It’s a great way to go. Honest.