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Luckily enough, I woke up around 4-5 AM. Why Lucky? Because I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the very special thing about this train ride: it goes on a boat.

Yes! There are no bridges between mainland Italy and Sicily, so the train climbs aboard a ferry, and on the other isde is reassembled and leaves from the boat to the tracks. It’s pretty freaking cool if you ask me.

At around 6 AM, the controller wakes us with a coffee, a fruit juice and some chocolate cookies. Italian night train rocks!

The railway goes all along the East coast, with a wonderful sunrise over the Mediterrannean. What a lovely day so far. I fall back half asleep for the next three hours.

I start my visit of Siracusa [Syracuse, Sicily] by completing the breakfast, and writing the blog. And by the way, I looked at some maps of Vatican City with more details, and it turns out that the 24-hour challenge may well and truly be a total fail: it seems that I slept just outside the border (against it), and that both toilets of St. Peter’s Square requires you to cross into a tiny bit of Italy. Good thing nobody else than me cares about that.

I walk around town, and although I had a very good first impression, I really don’t like it now. It’s a super stressful city. Like a miniature Paris but sunny and with the sea. I’m glad to leave with the replacement bus to Pozzallo.

Sicily’s countryside is very nice, and lightyears away from what I saw just a few days ago in Switzerland! Dry dry dry, scarce vegetation… This year, with all the different climates, landscapes, biomes, weather that I saw, it feels like 72 seasons have passed instead of two.

Pozzallo is a much smaller place, and much calmer. I go directly to the ferry terminal, as I never quite know how long it takes to embark. Turns out it was quite fast (except when security checked my bag twice in the X-ray machine, while intensely discussing the results in Italian), and I was on board the hilariously named Saint John Paul II two hours before we left.

We finally set out to sea at 19, with the sun slowly setting over the water.

It was pitch black when we disembarked in Il-Marsa [Marsa, Malta].

Hello Malta!

The 36th country of the Great European Train Tour, but also the 42nd country I ever visited. I didn’t realize it yet, but it’s also my last « new » country of this adventure: I’ve been to all four remaining ones before. The ferry terminal also marks the new Southernmost point of the trip! It’s been a while since we broke a cardinal record, eh?

I didn’t realize because I’m in a hurry. I walk as fast as I can uphill (Malta is NOT flat!) and somehow I catch the bus, avoiding half an hour wait. It brought me just in front of the hostel in Tas-Sliema [Sliema], where I can finally take my first shower in two days, and the first change of clothes in about four days. That felt GREAT.

I got chatting with Ian, a nice British guy sharing my dorm, and fell asleep late.