Text: Peter Johansson
Editing: Christer Lundstedt
Photos: Christer Lundstedt, Peter Johansson
Videos: Christer Lundstedt
Tuesday 31st of December
07.11 During the night's dreams in the room here at Hotel Archimede Ortigia (https://archimedehotels.it) in Siracusa, Christer has met a talking cat. Today this year ends. It's time to wrap up and sum up.
07.59 Now that our bodies have been rinsed with shower water and cleaned with soap, we will fill the inner parts of our bodies with breakfast.
08.42 It was a good but not particularly stable breakfast. It was initially eaten in the dark before the man from the reception came by and pressed a light button hidden from us. Now there will be a little peace and quiet before check-out.
09.15 Now it's time to end the peace and quiet. We are going on our journey.
10.06 At the check-out from Archimede Ortigia, we were wished a Happy New Year. We also said goodbye to the hotel parrot, who is sometimes indoors but in nice weather is allowed to keep his cage out in the sun. Now we are on the Intercity train to Rome. Luckily, we won't be going that far. The Rome travelers won't arrive until late tonight.
10.59 We have both seen and Christer has also taken pictures of the snow-capped volcano Etna. Last time we were on the island, we had planned a visit up there. It didn't happen. We never found the funicular that goes up the mountain.
11.37 This train journey is almost over. What will we do when we arrive in Catania? It's a bit early for check-in.
11.50 Now that we are sitting on cold benches/chairs at the Catania Centrale train station, we are once again thinking about what we will eat and where it will take place. We need to kill time before checking in at our hotel and we want to have lunch finished before we get to our room.
14.09 With less than ten hours left of the year, we will soon set out to revisit Catania, which we visited during our trip in 2004. Will we recognize ourselves?
14.26 Our temporary home has been left and we are heading towards the center of Catania by the nearest possible road. Catania is the second largest city in Sicily and has 298,680 inhabitants.
16.50 On our continued walk through Catania we have passed a sleeping fish market, incorrectly parked cars that were towed, churches and police with and without cars. Now we are at an ice rink in Piazza Manganelli and are thinking about our next move.
17.01 We are now sitting on the steps of the church called Chiesa di San Biagio in Sant'Agata alla Fornace, right next to the Roman amphitheater. Singing can be heard and it is getting dark. Plans for the rest of the day and year are being made.
20.25 Here in the room we look through the selection on our TV. We are watching the New Year's speech from San Marino. It is not often that you watch TV from that country.
Wednesday 1st of January
The last breakfast of the year.
Peter is eating breakfast at Hotel Archimede Ortigia.
We say goodbye to the hotel parrot.
On the platform in Siracusa.
Beautiful views of Etna.
Christer takes the train from Siracusa to Catania.
We got off the train in Catania.
Peter takes the first steps in Catania.
La fontana del Ratto di Proserpina.
We are eating Arancina al Ragù at Nafè.
Somewhat unexpectedly, we stay at Archimedes Suites by Receptio.
A train has stopped at Piazza Stesicoro.
Anfiteatro Romano di Catania, amphitheater from the 4th century BC.
Via dei Crociferi, Catania.
Statue of the popular Cardinal and Archbishop Giuseppe Benedetto Dusmet.
Basilica Cattedrale di Sant'Agata, Catania.
Agora Hostel was considerably nicer when we visited in 2004.
The University of Catania at Piazza Università.
Piazza Manganelli offers ice-skating.
The starters have arrived at Delhi Indian Restaurant.
The main course of the Indian New Year's dinner.
New Year's speech from San Marino.
It's not a cigar, it's a cannoli.
The New Year's drink is prepared.
00.06 Just like last year, the New Year was toasted to the accompaniment of fireworks and ship horns. Last year we drank Greek white wine. This year, as I said, it was limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur.
00.42 For, I think, the sixteenth time abroad in total and, I know, the second time in Italy, we have celebrated New Year. Where in the world will we celebrate New Year next? 08.12 The morning dawns here at Archimedes Suites in Catania. The new year 2025 is creeping up so slowly. Today we will continue in and on old tracks, but first we´ll have breakfast at 09.00. It has been ordered anyway. 09.11 No breakfast has arrived to us so far. Should we get to it? Has something/someone missed something? Has something been misunderstood? At least we know that our request was written down yesterday at check-in. 09.19 I've looked around the house. There's no sign of breakfast or, for that matter, staff. Check-out is in forty minutes. We'll have to have breakfast somewhere else. 09.49 We tried drinking the tap water and didn't taste anything strange this time. Coffee was made and the chemical taste came back for some reason. Now we're going to pack up. Next we're going to go to the train station to buy tickets and hopefully breakfast. 10.20 This year is not starting off well. At first there was no hotel breakfast even though we were careful to book a hotel that offered it. Now we've discovered that there's no café open at the train station either, but at least we have train tickets. Now we're going to go out and look for breakfast somewhere else. 10.37 At an outdoor table belonging to Caffè Costa, not in the Costa Coffee chain, there will be a quick simple breakfast of arancini and cappuccino.
A new year is welcomed.
The fireworks continue after midnight.
Etna is visible from Catania Centrale.
Emergency breakfast at Caffè Costa.
View of Etna near Acireale.
Inspirations for the mountain where Swedish cartoon Bamse's grandmother lives.
11.03 Breakfast ended and we returned to the Catania Centrale train station. Once there, we validated the tickets in a machine. I had to do it all over again because nothing was written on the ticket on the first try.
11.23 We are in Acireale and have had a magnificent view of the snowy and sunlit volcano Etna. 11.37 Our next host has contacted Christer. When the room is cleaned, the door code reader is activated and Christer then receives a message. 11.50 We have reached Taormina, a town worth seeing that we unfortunately had to leave out on this Sicilian trip. 11.54 Our train passes built-up and unbuilt mountains and hills. It was the mountains in this area that inspired Swedish Rune Andréasson's drawings of the mountain and the house where his cartoon Bamse's grandmother lives. 12.01 The train stopped and the door to the locomotive and the driver opened. The driver came out and got off. Is he getting off here? Should someone else take over? It's open inside the locomotive. 12.05 The driver returned and now our New Year's journey continues. 12.40 Looking out over the sea, we see the Italian mainland on the other side of the strait. 12.53 Christmas and New Year's music is playing. We are sitting by a fountain opposite the train station in Messina. We have also seen the city name in large letters. Christer has not yet heard anything more from the accommodation. Messina is an important city because the ferries to the mainland cross the Strait of Messina here. The city has a population of 217,959 inhabitants. 13.37 In the middle of New Year's Day, there seems to be little hope of finding an open restaurant for lunch. The entire city is in a dormant state where basically everything is closed. However, the room is ready to receive us.
Christmas music is played in Piazza della Repubblica.
Christer walks past an orange tree.
Messina on New Year's Day, a deserted city.
Peter in the room at Le Stanze de Piazza Cairoli.
Basilica Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Messina.
Here the victims of the 1908 earthquake are honoured.
13.54 There is no other option. We don't want to check in hungry. We will have lunch at McDonalds, the only restaurant open in the center of Messina right now.
14.17 My hamburger meal arrived quickly. Christer got his now, long afterwards. There is zero structure and order here, not surprising perhaps when the whole city seems to be having lunch here. A new check-in time will have to be arranged. We probably won't make it to the one we stated before.
14.41 Everything was consumed and we headed towards the nearby accommodation, Le Stanze de Piazza Cairoli (https://www.lestanze.messina.it). A colleague of our host appeared on the street just as we arrived and showed us the way. He thought he spoke poor English, but we didn't hear any major language errors. We are now in room 4 and are going to make ourselves at home here. We stay in a building with a view of the tree-covered Piazza Cairoli. 15.06 There are some new things happening for the first time on our travels today. First there was the first Golden Seagull lunch (McDonald's lunch) since our visit to Liverpool in 1999 and now we finally managed to get coffee from a coffee capsule machine. Previous attempts in recent years have ended in failure, to put it mildly. 15.26 Not only did we manage to make coffee, it was also delicious. Now I hope our city walk bears fruit. We want to see things, feel good and find something to eat, something for the evening and solve the breakfast thing tomorrow. 16.03 The first Messina bench break is made at the Basilica Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta cathedral. If we had been here four hours ago we would have seen a spectacular carillon show. A little further away we can see a monument and a plaque regarding the victims of the 1908 earthquake. The earthquake occurred at 05:21 on the morning of December 28, 1908 in the Strait of Messina and was followed by a 12-meter high tsunami. Here in Messina, 90% of the buildings were destroyed and 70,000 people out of the 130,000 inhabitants of the city are estimated to have died. On the mainland, 15,000 of the 45,000 inhabitants of Reggio di Calabria died. In total, between 100,000 and 200,000 people died, making it the natural disaster that claimed the most human lives in European history. One of the reasons why Messina was hit so hard was that newer buildings were not adapted to the area's high seismic activity, while several ancient buildings withstood the earthquake better. Today, it is noticeable that the city feels much newer than other cities here in Sicily. 16.21 Here in the Piazza del Duomo square, we just passed the Chinese restaurant where we ate and drank on our last visit to the city, Shanghai 2. We don't recognize ourselves, but that's where we had dinner on July 3, 2004.
Peter is taking notes at Piazza Antonello.
Orange trees in Messina.
Declaration of love to the city in Piazza Unione Europea.
Municipio di Messina, the town hall.
Stele della Madonna della Lettera stands at the Strait of Messina.
The ferries to the mainland.
16.34 Sitting on a bench by the Senatoria Fountain (Fontana Senatoria) next to Messina's town hall, we have picked, peeled and eaten an orange each.
16.45 Now that we have seen the memorial statue to those who fell in the First World War and the large "I love Messina" sign in front of the town hall, we look out over the narrow Strait of Messina that separates Sicily from the Italian mainland. One thing that is visible is a statue of the Virgin Mary, Stele della Madonna della Lettera. 17.54 Without success, we have searched the city center for any shop, store or other form of food offering. We went from one closed shop to another. Finally we gave up and went home. Christer bought some drinks from an Indian man in a mini-shop opposite the accommodation before we went up. We didn't manage to buy any breakfast, though. Now we're winding down and figuring out where we're going to have dinner tonight. 19.26 It's getting to be time to choose the first dinner restaurant of the year. When we've found one and made it there, it's important that not too many people are seated there before us. 20.15 We've found and sat down at Farine Pizzeria and are currently waiting for the menus. 21.41 It was a perfect meal, the highlight of the year. That's what we needed. Now we're going to wind down and prepare for tomorrow. Where are we going to have our breakfast? Plus, we have to buy new train tickets. 22.19 After Christer has traditionally cut his hair a little, we will now drink some evening coffee and taste/eat a small pastry we received as a gift at check-in.
Colourful locomotive on Piazza Cairoli.
Dinner tonight will be at the pizzeria Farine.
Good food and drinks tonight.
Thursday 2nd of January
08.45 Sometimes it's good to sleep in. This is one of those days. Today, this Thursday, we won't be seeing previous visited parts of Sicily. It's time to see something new.
09.14 Fabrizio, our future host, has called and suggested that we call the accommodation an hour before we check in. There's not much to argue about that decision. 10.10 We said goodbye to the room here at Le Stanze de Piazza Cairoli and then headed towards the train station. On the way there, we passed the Hotel Touring where we stayed in July 2004. From that visit, we remember, among other things, that the room was full of mosquitoes. At the station's café, Mokà Cafè, there was a shortage of space. It was a bit of a shame because we were curiously looking forward to meeting a very aggressive man who allegedly works there according to reviews on the internet. Instead, we went to Central Bar. Here we wait with our coffee for our ordered sandwiches to arrive. 10.31 Soon we will leave on a new train towards a new place for us. Up until now we have mostly revisited places we have already visited. Now we will break new ground for us. We will travel west. 10.54 Today's journey began with a long tunnel journey through the Tunnel de Peloritana, to say the least. It is the longest train tunnel in Sicily and is 12,817 meters long. 11.00 The train has stopped at the station in Milazzo, a good distance outside the city center. From here you can take a boat to the Aeolian Islands, a group of volcanic islands consisting of Lipari, Salina, Vulcano, Stromboli, Filicudi, Alicudi and Panarea. 11.08 Somewhat surprisingly, we have stopped in Barcellona. However, the spelling made us see that we did not end up in Spain all of a sudden. 11.21 After Christer informed the future host Fabrizio that we would check in as soon as possible after arrival, our train tickets were checked by a conductor.
We look out towards Piazza Cairoli.
Late breakfast at Central Bar.
On board the train, ready to leave Messina.
We get off the train in Cefalù.
Climb a beautiful staircase and then we arrive at our accommodation.
Peter at the reception at Cortile Umberto I.
12.11 It's just fine to travel on a new track for us. Luckily the train driver and the train have traveled here before.
13.11 Once we arrived at the final destination of Cefalù, we walked from the train station to the home Cortile Umberto I Bed & Breakfast. During the short walk here, we already had time to see and feel that this is a cozy town that is easy to like. Our host Fabrizio welcomed us with a smile and a flurry of information on par with an American livestock auctioneer. Now we are in room 2 and have a balcony with a nice view of the Rocca di Cefalù mountain. Cefalù is a popular tourist resort here in Sicily and has 13,861 inhabitants. 13.30 Rooms are nice. They offer views, places to sleep and other positive things that we need. More rarely, almost never, they offer food. For this we will probably have to look elsewhere. It is time to go out to see what we can find in the way of food. 13.48 We have left the accommodation and are walking along the cozy street Via Umberto I. It is not helpful to look for restaurants in advance on the internet. Some are open but others are closed because it is not the tourist season. We'll just have to see if we can find a place that looks both open and nice. 13.57 We followed Via Salvatore Spinuzza down towards the sea. There is a lot of beauty here but no restaurant open for us. 14.23 We turned back to the street behind our accommodation. We'll have lunch at the restaurant A Paranza Cefalù (https://www.aparanza.it). The restaurant seems to be a branch of the main restaurant located in Campofelice di Roccella just west of Cefalù. We've just placed our orders. It'll be a late lunch, but it couldn't have been done that much earlier. 15.35 There were good lunch dishes that were signed off with an Americano coffee each. Now we look out over the sea and the beautiful city beach Spiaggia di Cefalù. A child calls out for mom. Why is mom usually called out? If it's an emergency, isn't dad usually stronger?
View from our balcony.
Via Umberto I, Cefalù.
A Paranza Cefalù will be today's lunch restaurant.
Peter is eating octopus for lunch.
Peaceful by the calm sea.
Spiaggia di Cefalù.
15.50 Our walk through the older parts of the town has taken us to Porta Pescara. It is not the Fisherman's Gate as I thought but simply the fishing port, but it is beautiful here.
16.15 Despite being in Sicily, we have not seen any Don as far as I know. Instead, we are at another duomo, that is, a cathedral. Here there is also an arrangement with Mary, Jesus and a few others. In this case it is a beach with a boat. The wise men have oranges with them.
16.33 It will also be something sacred during this New Year's trip. We have entered the cathedral Duomo di Cefalù. 16.45 The sound of an emergency vehicle is heard. We have walked up some steep stairs and now look out over the sea and the town. A little bit away, some little boys have thrown firecrackers, a leftover from yesterday's New Year's celebration. Now one is talking on his mobile phone with his mother. 17.11 More remains to be done today. Most of this cannot be done here where we are right now. For this reason, we are walking away. Soon it will also start to get dark. 18.06 We stopped at the DeSpar grocery store for various purchases before going home to our room. Spar and DeSpar are safe and often used stores by us. 19.15 We have relaxed in our room and watched a dubbed episode of Endeavour on TV and drank coffee. This time it is coffee without an aftertaste.
A loving couple, a boat and a calm sea.
Via Vittorio Emanuele, Cefalù.
Porta Pescara, Cefalù.
Christer in Cefalù.
Duomo di Cefalù.
Does Jesus family own the boat?
20.11 Inspector Morse and coffee are good things, but they don't satisfy a hunger for food. Soon the hunt for tonight's dinner will begin.
20.34 The restaurant La Siciliana (https://www.ristorantelasiciliana-cefalu.it) is the place for our second dinner this New Year 2025. It's a cozy place with a suitable amount of space, a suitable amount of people and so on. 20.44 A man at the next table filled his glass a third full with Sprite. Then he filled another third with beer. It's not really my cup of tea, my beer glass. 20.48 We have received our ordered dishes, Mixed Grill with potatoes as a side dish. This should be delicious. 21.40 We are home happy and satisfied after a good dinner. Now the pleasant actibities continue. Christer has seen another guest here at the accommodation. Earlier in the afternoon it was quite deserted here. 22.01 In keeping with the summer tradition, we drink some coffee at ten o'clock in the evening. 22.27 It's good to have coffee that tastes the way it should. Soon other good drinks will follow. Tonight we will indulge in it in different rounds. 22.42 On the TV in the room we are now following a mysterious sport. It is a match in the Italian league in the sport of bocce. It is a sport that is related to similar sports such as boules, boccia and petanque. 23.01 Another older tradition than our evening coffee is also in this year, it concerns the evening beer. Now it's time to try an Italian beer each. 23.50 Another newer tradition is, after a year's break, back. We drink balcony wine. It will be wine from the island, L'Oro Rosso, Syrah. To accompany the bottle of the red gold we eat Prosciutto Crudo, dry-cured ham. The only thing we can complain about is the low temperature out on the balcony. It is winter after all.
Inside the Duomo di Cefalù.
Dusk over Cefalù.
Via Giacomo Matteotti is beautifully lit.
Tonight we're having dinner at La Siciliana.
Grilled meat on the plate.
Bocce on Italian TV.
You can see 79 photos from December 31st in this photoalbum.
You can see 75 photos from January 1st in this photoalbum.
You can see 91 photos from January 2 in this photoalbum.