The Trip to Sicily

Oh man, this was quite an experience!

Let me give you a little background. In the week before Christmas 1997, The Pipes and Drums of the 1:st Royal Engineers was invited by a Sicilian merchants guild to play around the island. They brought along people from other Swedish and Danish pipe bands and had quite a ball. The stories were tall and many...

In 1998 this illustrious event was to be repeated, and more people brought in, from Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, and USA. Here follows the story of The Trip to Sicily from the perspective of one member of The Murray Pipes & Drums (namely P/S Sven Axelsson, and if you don't concur you can contact my lawyer).

Here's more information about Sicily. And here's were we went. The red dots on this map are the places were we played and stayed. As you can see, mainly in the north and eastern parts of the island.

Dec 16

The flight was booked from Copenhagen. We were told it was impossible to go directly from Gothenburg, and being the quiet, stoic northern kind of persons we are, we got on a train and headed for Kastrup Airport.

16:40 Hours
This was the time the flight was supposed to leave for Munich and then to Catania, Sicily, but no, it was one hour delayed. This meant we would miss our connecting flight, and - yes, what now? A frantic rush to the information desk got us on to a flight to Frankfurt. From there we could get to Rome, and, hopefully, to Catania early next morning.

OK, we got to Frankfurt, and after some further dealings, got on the flight to Rome, where, we were told, hotel rooms would be booked and everything would be taken care of.

23:30 Hours
The airport is closed! The only person around is the epitomy of obtuse Italians:
   - I know nothing!
   - It is not my problem!
Arrgh! Had it not been for the armed carabinieri roaming around a certain someone would definitely gotten it that night.

Finally a taxi driver told us that he knew the hotel usually used for stranded travellers like us, and that he would take us there for an inordinate amount of money. Great! We went along and ended up at Satellite Hotel in Ostia.
   - Who are you?
   - Why are you here?
   - We've never heard of you!
But finally, after much persuasion, we were allowed to stay, thank you very much!

Dec 17

Well, we got on our early morning flight to Catania, and finally we were on Sicily! Yeah! We were picked up as we should and driven to Messina which would be our base the first few days.

We checked in to our flea-bag hotel, spent a while figuring out how to work the light and the showers, and met up with the others who had arriver earlier. We had a go with the practise chanters and pads and decided that the repertoire was ok-ish. Everything was set up for our first gig. What was it going to be like?

Later
You walk 16 miles, and what do you get? Good question! At least not much of an audience. Noone could really hear us as we walked in the middle of the heavy evening traffic, but we did end up playing a few tunes on a square where we saw actual people. And they said they liked us! Likewise!

Dec 18

It seems like the hotel doesn't want us around any more. Well, good riddance! So, we were moved to Catania a little prematurely. Next stop, President Park Hotel in Acicastello, outside Catania. That's a four star hotel, and it is miles better than the one in Messina, but it is also way outside the town, so we'll just have to rely on our guides to get us around...

Dec 19

No engagements today.

Dec 20

Nothing during the day, as usual. In the evening we went to Naxos, a fairly small tourist village, half ways between Catania and Messina. A certain pattern was starting to show: Noone was actually interested in listening to us, so we were marched around the empty streets by some local policeman while the locals were hiding in the opposite part of the town. I'm sorry, but I can't help being a little cynical...

Anyways, after a couple of miles in the streets, we found a square with a bunch of people, and some kind of Christmas fair. We played here for a while and went around the fair afterwards. Our bass drummer, Marie Nordström, was kidnapped by the local boy scouts brigade, which was utterly amazed by seing a girl with such an impressive instrument and wearing a dead leopard at that. She managed to fight her way out, but it wasn't easy.

Back at the hotel we had dinner, and then some of us were asked to play for a party consisting of all the local dignitaries; judges, lawyers, mob leaders... (Actually, the Catania Rotary club.) They seemed to appreciate it, so now we know where to turn if things get difficult.
   - Oh, Godfather, I have this little problem...
   - Don't worry, I'll have it taken care of. Leave it all to me.
   - Thank you Godfather.

Dec 21

We dawdled the day away at the hotel as we we're getting used to. At around four in the afternoon we went into Catania to do a bit of running in the streets - a parade I mean.

This was probably the weirdest parade I'll ever been in: The rain was pouring down, It was really dark, and a big pipe band was marching along in the middle of really heavy traffic (I'm talking Italian traffic here!) The few people who dared to get outside this night could hardly hear us, or even see us from the pavement. And the we finished off by playing several sets standing in the middle of a roundabout with traffic all around and not a single person in sight. Weird!

Dec 22

We left around noon for Patti. It took quite a few hours to get there by bus from Catania, and, as you all know, sitting in a bus wearing full dress isn't the most comfortable thing you can do. Still, we got there eventually, and a parade of the now so familiar running-up-and-down-the-streets type followed. After some some confusion we headed for Palermo, where, we were told, would have a parade the next day.

As you can se on the map above, the distance between Patti and Palermo is about the same as between Catania and Patti, but the roads were absolutely atrocious, and even the driver, who, being a native Sicilian, was used to the conditions, was annoyed. It took innumerable hours to get to Palermo - in fact we weren't there until about 11 in the night. Some of us went out to find a sleazy bar or two, but we elderly people (over 20 that is) were happy to get a few hours sleep before tomorrow's gigs.

Dec 23

Today we had an early gig in Roccamena. That's the neighbour village to Corleone, famous from the Godfather movies. Well, we saw no mafia bosses there - in fact we saw no one at all. We were just playing to, nay, running through, the empty streets. For some reason, we were told we were in a hurry, so we must march on, double time. I bet we all set a new world record for the 3.000 yards pipe band dash. Now, after having ran through all the streets of the village, first from east to west, then from north to south - twice, we played at a local school, where we saw actual people. That was fun! The children sang Christmas carols, and we all got Christmas cake.

At this point most of us still believed we were going back to Palermo to play there. Or, possibly, over to Patti, to play there again. As usual the information was less that great. Well, it turned out that this was it - a grand total of 6 gigs in 7 days - pretty easy, hadn't it been for the total lack of information about when, where, and why to play or not. I guess it is the Italian way...

At this the final day of the engagement, we all went out for a last shopping spree, after which we were to be taken to a really great restaurant to get some really excellent food - or so we were told. Since we were going straight back to Catania after dinner, everybody had packed their stuff. So, here we are in the hotel lobby, at 8 o'clock, waiting to go to the famous restaurant. And waiting... Waiting... The man who hired us was frantically making a lot of telephone calls. Elementary, my dear Watson; he was trying to get someone to buy us. And eventually he succeeded, so at around 11 we got the happy news: Get into your uniforms and play, or you won't eat! Hooray! Just what we wanted to hear.

We managed to persuade him to take a mini band instead of everybody, so only half of us (not including yours truly, fortunately) had to unpack and redress. We were taken out to the suburbs and found the hole-in-the-wall that was supposed to be a restaurant. It was about as big as an ordinary living room. The customers who were enjoying their dinner didn't look too happy when the place filled with bawling pipes and rattling drums. Well, it wasn't our idea... Let's get on to the famed food. No, let's not. Suffice to say that it was the worst food I got during the whole stay in Sicily. It was really appalling. No, I won't say another word. Enough now...

Dec 24

We traveled the whole night back to Catania to get our respective flights at around 6 o'clock in the morning. While we were standing in line to check in at the airport, we spotted some other guys in the next line also carrying loads of strange cases and boxes. Guess what? It was the Boghall and Bathgate Pipes and Drums who were returning from their Sicilian tour. Seems that their experiences were similar to ours.

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