When we were all ready to turn in for the night last night, Tobes was keen to check out the nightlife, making some new Croatian friends, bonding over football. His cold is still hanging around, unfortunately, but thankfully, Sam has turned a corner and is feeling back to normal. With a big day of travelling ahead of us, there was time for one last whirl around the Emperor’s palace and a visit to our new friend Antonio’s juice bar for some smoothies for the road. He and Toby exchanged Instagram details, vowing to keep in touch; Tobes offering to open a franchise of his cool juice bar in Sydney one day. ‘We’ll talk’.
No sooner had Molly left the shop, with barely a sip taken, than her vividly coloured green smoothie slipped out of her hand and spilt all over the ancient tiles, well and truly in the thoroughfare of the multitudes pounding the pavement on walking tours. The water in Ross’ drink bottle and the few napkins and tissues we had between us, barely came close to rectifying the giant, sticky, green ooze. Sam thought it would be funny to use the word ‘vomit’ out loud, freaking out the passers by. Next time you’re in Split, look for the stain- I’m confident it’ll still be there.
A quick trip back to the hotel for some spot cleaning of Molly’s white jeans and a change into some non-splattered clothes, and we were almost ready to leave. We’d booked an airport transfer to drive us the 40mins to the airport where we were scheduled to fly from Split to Catania via Stuttgart. The boys had been keen to try one of the Croatian beers our friend Donna had recommended but decided, chasing a fruit smoothy, it wasn’t quite beer o’clock. Next time.
The self-check-in required us to weigh our bags and enter the weight, which was recorded on the bag tags. Hopeful of a group tally, we sheepishly approached the check-in counter, knowing some of our bags were heavier than allowed. The saintly checker turned a blind eye, printing us all new bag tags that said ‘23kg’ and waving us through with a wink and a smile, making the ambiguous comment that we ‘owed her some cheese’. We weren’t sure if that was literal. In any case, she was worth her weight in cheese.
(Ironically, our packer extraordinaire, Mr Ross Jones, had to put his bag through the oversized luggage section!)
Our flight to Stuttgart was packed and seemed to board in a frenzy, the overhead locker directly opposite Tobes and I still wide open at take-off. Luckily everything remained in the hold and our heads were spared.
After 2 and a half hours in Stuttgart airport, some good German fare (think pretzels, schnitzels, steins of lager) and Ross being able to utilise his Year 7 German, it was time to board our last flight for the day, to Catania, Sicily.
Scattered across different rows, somehow Sammy snagged the front row with extra legroom. I swapped seats with Toby so he could have the aisle and I’m so glad I did. I was seated next to a lovely lady - Katharina - a Stuttgart local, who I chatted with for almost the entire flight. She had authored a book about Ireland in her retirement. We exchanged details, took a selfie and have promised to send one another our respective books. New friendship forged.
Our plane made a smooth landing, touching down on Sicilian soil at the designated time. We were bracing for the brakes to take effect, as you do, feeling the g-force as the wheels skid on the runway and bring the plane to a halt. In that brief period when you wonder if the plane is actually going to ever slow down, our plane seemed to be speeding up. It just kept going. There was a worried murmur amongst the passengers and then communal gasps as the nose lifted and we were back in the air. What the?
Eventually, well after our re-entry through the clouds, there was a crackle and a “this is your captain speaking…’ He informed us that the speed of the wind on the ground was excessive and would have prevented us from stopping before the runway ended. Yikes. We were ‘going around a bit’ then having another crack at landing on a longer runway. Needless to say we were praying for a safe arrival, which thankfully we got. A tentative round of applause went up for the captain.
Let’s just say Molly’s and my bag haven’t fared too well, suffering some major casualties on this trip so far. The wheels of my bag have taken a beating so I can now only wheel (wobble ) it facing one direction. Mollys bag, which she actually salvaged from a council clean-up, already bearing some duct tape when she excitedly brought it home, has had several repair jobs so far this trip. Each time we put the bags on a plane, they come back a little worse for wear and when we collected Molly’s from the Catania carousel, one of the wheels was missing completely. It might be time to visit a bag shop.
Sam had been petitioning to be our designated driver here, confidently taking the wheel of our minivan. The double-landing and wait for bags had meant we were way behind schedule. None of us had eaten and we were all snappy and grumpy, trying to decide on whether to push through or stop for dinner. Molly found a cool little neighbourhood that contained several restaurants we could go to but parking our beast of a car in the land of Fiats and smartcars proved a great feat. After driving several rounds of the narrow-roaded block, Ross suggested we park over a driveway, volunteering to stay in the car in case he had to move. We’d bring him back some dinner.
Walking in the shadow of Mt Etna, following maps, we wound our way in the dark, through the narrow, rustic, paved streets, where outdoor diners sat amongst potted plants at red-checked-topped tables, laughing and spilling out into the street. The atmosphere was amazing and unmistakably Italian. We finally found the restaurant Molly had chosen but also found they didn’t do takeaway. My grumpy pants were on. I was busy thinking of poor Rossco back in the car, the one hour drive in the dark we still had ahead of us and whether there would still be someone at the hotel reception at midnight so we could check-in. It was hard to fully embrace this dining experience but I will admit, the food was insanely delicious.
Sam did an amazing job navigating us through tollways, roadwork, crash zones and corkscrew hairpin bends, all on the wrong side of the road. He also had to park and re-park the car in the hotel as they hadn’t reserved us a space as requested. By the time we reached our hotel and climbed into bed it was almost 1am. A sleep-in is definitely in order tomorrow!
