Fearing that when all the seats were taken they would close the doors and force the rest to wait for the next bus, thus blowing my next and final connection and the bet, which I was rather foolishly determined to win, I made dishonourable efforts to be on board, and indeed I secured one of the last seats. As it turned out, the driver was not at all worried about people standing. Cripples, ancient ladies, pregnant women, everybody was accepted, everybody crushed into the stifling aisle. The journey was made more uncomfortable by a group of wild young Albanians spread out among the seats around me and yelling to each other over people’s heads. They seemed vaguely threatening and extremely restless, standing up to shout and sitting down hard again, bouncing and swaying to whatever music each was wired up to. The road was not of the best. Hugely overweight, the man standing in the aisle beside me rocked from side to side, grabbing at this or that, depending on the direction of the bend. This bus wasn’t made for people to stand in, and there were no handles. After a while I realised he was speaking English to two younger men beside him, with an Australian accent. It turned out he had come with his sons from Melbourne to see his father’s birthplace at Catanzaro. It seemed odd that on the same day I had met one Italian planning to emigrate to Melbourne, and then the descendants of another emigrant returning out of curiosity. Remembering a week I once spent in Melbourne, I feared the boys might find Catanzaro a disappointment.
At Catanzaro Lido, the outside of the station had been completely restyled to look like a swimming pool or leisure centre. Everything had a polished glass and cool, air-conditioned look, but alas without the air conditioning. Exposed to a day of ferocious Mediterranean sunshine, the ticket hall was truly suffocating. It was 5.45 p.m. My last train of the day was waiting on the platform. I began to wish that bet had been for money.
MUCH OF THE RELATIONSHIP between a town and the railways depends on the location of the station. Ideally, the train should stop just short of the old city centre, damaging nothing but allowing the traveller to walk from station to centre in a few minutes. The city is plugged into the national network without its intimacy being violated. Italy has many examples of this ideal situation. Venice is perfect. You cross the causeway, step off the train and immediately you are in old Venice, which doesn’t seem to have suffered as a consequence. Palermo also is good, central without being obtrusive, elegant and sober without being pompous. The stations of Turin, Florence and Rome are all likewise right there, near the civic heart of things but without clotting any crucial veins. A typical solution for smaller towns is the cul-de-sac lined with plane trees and the sleepy station waiting at the end. Porto Vescovo, Peschiera, Desenzano and scores of other stations follow this charming model. There’s a curious analogy with the cemetery here, another departure point for a different journey also to be found, in Italy, behind a quiet wall at the end of a tree-lined culde-sac. You can book your place in advance or leave matters to chance as the fancy takes you. But if you’re not carrying a valid documento di viaggio there’s no question of getting off at the first stop to avoid the inspector’s ire. Whatever the fine is, it will have to be paid.
Where the train can’t deliver you to within walking distance of your favourite cafe, public transport is essential. Verona’s main station is on the wrong side of two busy circular roads and a maze of interconnections for fast traffic leaving town. It’s not a happy location. But buses leave every few minutes to take you straight to the grand Roman amphitheatre in the central square. Ticket purchases are easy, and there is a strong and immediately perceptible flow between town and railway that suggests a healthy integration between individual needs and collective endeavour.
Not so Crotone.
‘Do you know Crotone?’ I asked the pretty girl sitting opposite. I had seen from Google that the station was quite a way out of town.
She did she said. She lived a few miles away.
‘Do you know how I can get to the centre from the station?’
She frowned and reflected. ‘I think there’s a bus,’ she said. ‘I think you sort of walk for a while and then you find a place with buses.’
It wasn’t encouraging.
The older woman beside her leaned across.
‘Sometimes there’s a taxi.’
Imagine!
But I had won my bet. As the wheels squealed to a stop, I texted, ‘Caro Giuseppe, the Englishman was right! In Crotone. Only twenty minutes late. Evviva!’
Ominously, he texted back, ‘Carissimo Tim, on arrival in Crotone any cause for celebration, however small, is welcome. Buona fortuna!’
So much for my triumph over the Sicilians.
The two-carriage train was onward bound to the small coastal resort of Sibari, some fifty miles north, along the Gulf of Taranto. On the platform a handful of people got off to be met by waiting relatives. The usual
