Riding the rails in Sicily

[Long Train Runnin']

In a bizarre case of being in the right place at the right time I have another extended stopover in Cantina I have roughly 28 hours to play with in this case. I am landing at around 2pm on a Saturday and leaving at 8PM on Sunday. I have already booked my hotel to be 1 block from Catania Centrale station which seems to have a wide variety of rail transit available. Riding the very short Metro system seems easy enough, but I am looking for some advice on taking a slightly longer journey. I've spent a couple hours trying to google my through some of this stuff, but even seat61 is leaving me with a few questions. It seems like on trenitalia's website you can't book local trains more than 7 days in advance. I'm also having difficulty finding published timetables online. Most travel sites seem to try and steer you away from taking trains on the island as the busses are a faster way to travel, but obviously I'm in no rush, and aside from the cuisine the only other thing I want to do there is ride some trains. From what I can gather there are trains that leave every half hour to Messina although trenitalia's website doesn't match up to that. Does anyone have insight or know where I can find some more information?

 

[Bob Dylan]

Ask the Corleone Family's Travel Agent in NY, they know Sicily!!! LOL

Sorry, can't help, never been South of Naples but it sounds like a fun trip!

 

[John Bredin]

This thread caused me to look at the Wikipedia entry on Catania. I laughed at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovia_Circumetnea, which reminded me of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumvesuviana. Clearly, the Italians don't shrink from the fact that they have cities next to a volcano, they embrace it. :giggle:

Can you imagine California calling BART the "Trans-Hayward" or the High-Speed Rail line the "Trans-SanAndreas"? :blink:

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Well after reading the limited resources on Seat 61, and Lonely Planet I decided obviously the best plan is to not have a plan. I did find bus that would take me from the Airport to the main train station for 1 Euro. My hotel is walking distance from the the train station, so I will ride the laughably short Metro system, and take ride out to Messina where there are supposedly trains every half hour between these two cities.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Just got back about an hour ago from a Catania to Messina run. Very nice views as the tracks basically hugged the coastline the entire time. The equipment could have been nicer though. The regional train was some Alstom EMUs. Wish I took a different train back, as some of the other trains had coaches that had windows you could open. That would have been cool, but oh well. Still a fun afternoon riding through some totally new territory for me.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Did you see Michael Corleone anywhere? LOL