9. On to Palermo

Thursday, Oct 17th.  Today ends our the genealogy part of our trip and we head to Palermo in western Sicily to meet up with the tour that we will be taking for the rest of this trip.  We will be taking the Regionale train from Villafranca Tirrenna to Palermo.  This is basically the local so we will be stopping at every station along the way.  We checked out of our hotel and they gave us a ride to the station.  Here is a photo of Pat and Chris at the train station trying to figure out where we are and where we're going.

One of the thing you need to do on Italian trains is to get your ticket validated before you get on the train.  There is a small machine that does this but we can't figure out how it works.  Finally, I see a woman waiting for a train on the other track and so go and ask her.  She shows me and we're all set and here is our ride to Palermo, right on schedule.

It's a 3-1/2 hour ride and it starts off quietly.  Most of the seats are full but Pat and Chis get regular seats while Neal and I are on folding jump seats by the doors.  After a few stops, seats open up and we can sit with our wives.  Everything continues quietly until we get to Cefalu where hordes of high school students pile onto the train and it's standing room only and jammed.  Our ride is no longer quiet.  Finally when we get to Termini Imerese they all pile off but not before we get some more excitement.  It seems that one of the passengers has accused one of the students of stealing something and the train conductors want to check his backpack and he won't let them.  There is a lot of pushing and shoving with the conductor grabbing onto the kid's backpack and the kid hanging on for dear life.  They exit the train while this is going on so we never find out how it ends.  We arrive in Palermo right on schedule and grab a taxi to our hotel, The Grand Hotel Wagner.  Here is a photo of our hotel.

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Apparently the German composer Richard Wagner stayed at a home on this street whenever he was in Italy and so the hotel is named after him.  The hotel is eight years old and is very elegant.  Here is a photo of the sitting area off the lobby.

We check into the hotel and then meet up with our tour group in this sitting room and our guide for the tour, Nicole.  We are headed to a local restaurant by the name of Cin Cin that is run by a fellow that lived in the USA for a while and graduated from LSU.  Here is a photo of Nicole as she gives us instruction while we are riding through town on the bus.

Here is a photo of Symphony Hall and then a number of interesting looking buildings I got shots of as we were driving through town.

We had a great dinner of multiple courses and then headed back to the hotel.  Tomorrow we will be headed to Monreale, which is about 10 miles south of Palermo, to see its cathedral which dates from 1174 and is supposed to have spectacular mosaics.