Our ferry cuts through the roiling waters of the Strait of Messina under clouds that blanket all but the hems of Sicily's distant mountains. The sea passage to the Italian island doesn't want for drama.
It's governed by tidal currents so strong they inspired Scylla and Charybdis, the sea monsters in Homer's Odyssey, and is overseen by a golden statue of the Madonna at the end of Messina Harbour, arm raised in blessing. But my eye is drawn to a stranger sight: the train carriages travelling across the sea on the ferry itself.
