And home...

My hostel booking for last night was a dormitory for eight and I was very pleased to find they were under-booked so I was in  a room of three. We were an advertiser's dream demographic: a European woman in her 20s, a man who appeared to be of South Asian heritage in his 30s and me representing the old.

I was slightly more able to look up at central Zurich as I walked back to the station this morning. I enjoyed this mural of apothecaries' work and the list below of the apothecaries who worked here from 1677 to 1992. It's now an Oris watch shop.

It's a long time since I was last in Zurich and it felt almost rude to breeze in and out. I was definitely aware I'd crossed a border. Apart from different plug sockets (oops, I couldn't charge anything overnight) it was a bit of a jolt trying to understand the German around me. I've never known very much and the remnants are overlaid with ragged Italian at the moment.

Anyway, it was only ever planned as a brief stopover and I went into the familiar routine: coffee at the station then onto the train in plenty of time. I was very impressed by the waitress who spotted me in the queue with my backpack, took my order then and there, and told me to sit down while she got it ready for me. That's service.

The Zurich to Paris train was just another stage in getting home, though pretty enough out of the window. In Paris I bought myself a Navigo card with ten tickets loaded. I've been using Oyster in London for years and years, but the Paris metro was slow to introduce equivalent cards so I'd carried on buying my Paris metro tickets in carnets of 10 and I used my last ticket last autumn. Just in time - I don't think those old cardboard tickets are still valid. I was surprised to find that the pre-loaded card is also cardboard not plastic. Much better for when it needs disposing of but I'll have to take good care of it.

It was warmer in Paris than it was for most of my time in Sicily - excellent weather to sit over a slow coffee on a terrasse opposite the Gare du Nord until my Eurostar home.


Reflections
I've been musing on my 16 days in Sicily and the layers of impressions built up after overnight stays in eight places and visits to very many more than that. The strongest sensation is the sense of history. My own cultural roots are partly Graeco-Roman and they've discovered deeper bits of earth than they knew were under the stones. Sicily seems to wear this history fairly lightly. There is evidence for it absolutely everywhere and many places are freely accessible with just a small information board outside. It feels as if what is much more valued is art and certain sorts of architecture.

What did I get right and wrong?
I did all my research about where to go and what to do online in March, then booked my overnight stops and long-distance travel based on what I'd learnt. I got a lot right but, in retrospect, I needed more in-depth information - especially on the competing bus companies. Even Google maps, usually quite good on buses, often gives up and tells you to walk. 

It would have been good to know more in advance about the companies doing tours to Segesta (to get more time there) and up Etna (to see whether it's possible with someone with my level of (in)agility to get closer to a crater).

And I don't know much about what I missed, apart from the Baroque town of Noto which I could have got to if I'd known more. I wouldn't bother with Messina again, I would have stayed one night in Piazza Armerina for the Roman villa rather than two nights in Enna. I was right to cut my stay in Agrigento from three to two nights and to spend more time in Catania. 

All a reminder that it's worth buying a comprehensive guidebook as I always have in the past.