Visiting Sicily has long been on my bucket list. It’s one of the very first places I tagged as must-go when Brendan and I started planning The Trip. In fact, our visits to Rome and Pompeii were tacked on mostly because we were coming to Sicily anyway. (Also, because when we first told William about our round-the-world plans, and he pushed back hard, one of the few complaints we could address was, “And we’re not even going to, like, Rome or anything.”)
So now we’re on our way to what they call Sitalia, taking the car ferry from the toe of the boot, Villa San Giovanni to the busy Sicilian port of Messina. The Mediterranean gusts are intense (see funky hair styles in the pictures above) and everyone is speaking Italian (few tourists this time of year). Yet, somehow, all I can think of is the Steamship Authority journey to MVY.
The similarities are striking: the grumpy crewmen, you wish you could join after work for a beer; the gas fume wafts, as you navigate kids between car bumpers to the steep stairs to the deck; even an overpriced snack bar, though this one has arancini (Sicilian rice balls) instead of clam chowder.
I love that ferry to the Vineyard and all the memories and feelings it invokes. This journey is a bit different. So excited this part of the trip has finally come, but there’s also a sliver of “will it live up?” trepidation. That is natural, I suppose, anytime one approaches a bucket list item–this being my first, I don’t know for sure. For now, I’ll put that trepidation aside and just enjoy the ferry boat reminiscence, a very well done arancini, and of course some pretty sweet views.
