On Wed, 12 Jul 2017, tim... wrote:

I scheduled a two week holiday which I spent in the very south of
Italy and on the Island - travelling by train.

You were very brave (*). The sicilian railways have poor fame (slow
and unfrequent), apparently the locals prefer buses.

(*) or are you a railway fan ?

I was 24, "poor" and with zero experience of driving on the wrong side
of the road, and IME (as a pedestrian) Italy is not the best choice of
county to change that - I have still never driven there.

So more or less my age. When I just graduated I went to my first
conference (in Cape Sounion) with train Milan-Ancona, ferry to Patras
and bus to Athens.

Actually I don't drive anywhere (don't have a driving license), I have
travelled a lot by public transport anywhere north of the Alps
(northernmost spots Narvik and Inverness), and in Lombardy, Marche,
Tuscany (even when planning implied to go the bus station and looking up
the timetable).

I may be biased in not considering Sicily a public transport friendly
area. After all, in the Montalbano stories, Livia often gets to Vigata
by bus when he forgets to pick her up at the airport :-)