28 hours on a train, a missed connection, Italian ogling and a tent.

We hopped back on a train and made our way past the amazing sea side cities of Cannes (where all the stars go once a year for the film festival that is held there) and through the beautiful Monte Carlo scenery, it was gorgeous, clear blue sky, crystal blue water that sparkled like diamonds and houses tucked into the cliffs over looking the ocean, just gorgeous. I wanted to hop off there and stay for a week or so, but somehow I get the distinct feeling that we would NOT be able to afford this!

We shared our carriage with two other people who were a lovely elderly Italian couple who did not speak a word of English, and seeing as we don’t speak a word of Italian it made our journey a rather quiet one. Towards the end of the train travel however we all sort of thought “blow it” and tried to “chat” It was a huge game of charades and was rather funny in the end! The lady, who’s name was Maria, became VERY VERY excited as I mentioned my name was Emily. She clutched her chest and sort of made this gasping noise that for a second I mistook for a heart attack but then she started frantically pointing at herself repeating “Maria Emily! Maria Emily!!” She said this so frantically/excitedly that I had to nod and try to calm her by saying “Ci, Emily!” from then on it was like we were long lost twin sisters, she offered me orange and then made an extra effort to ‘talk’ to me, which was sweet but rather tiring, bless her.

When we booked our train tickets the agent gave us a 15 minute time frame to get from one train to the connecting one in Milan, we thought it was cutting it fine, but trusted the agent… silly silly us! We got in at 3.04pm, our connecting one was at 3.05pm… we looked at the board, we got in at gate 12, we had to connect at gate 3… we ran and ran, pushing through the crowd, our thongs flip-flop echoing as we ran along the smooth polished, may I add SLIPPERY floor tiles, our back packs jiggling on our backs… and we made it to gate 3… to see our train pulling away. We screamed, we yelled, we ran beside it banging on the side, we ran up to the door and tried to pull it open but it was locked… we watched in dismay as the train picked up speed and took off faster than we could run… we let out yells of frustration. As we turned around we saw that we were not alone, there were at least 15 people in the same boat as us, all swearing and looking mightily annoyed. We found an innocent train man and we all bombarded him with questions, the poor thing looked so over whelmed and confused, but bless him, answered all our questions. It wasn’t a big deal in the end, we just had to show our pass at the next train going to Venice and hop on, easy we thought, and there was one in just over an hour, so it was okay… Well, the next train came and we went to carriage 3 like we were told, apparently there would be a conductor there to help us with our questions and we could sit, which was such a load of crock! The conductor was not at all interested in helping us and our seats did not exist, instead, we had to sit on the very dirty floor of a carriage for 1.5 hours before the conductor came through looking disgusted and said “seat, there, sit” pointing towards a carriage. Thanks mate. So we moved and had a seat for all of half an hour before arriving into Venice.

First thought of Venice was “industrial” There were many cranes, large industrial buildings about, shipping buildings etc, but when you get into the heart of the city you can’t help but we in awe. It’s very impressive and grand.

We were very hungry by now so we stopped a little pizzeria and had a pizza each (very yummy I must say!) and a slice of Tiramisu to share, it was a nice way to start our Italian visit. After this we made tracks to our accommodation which is actually half an hour out of the city, but the place have a shuttle bus that goes every hour, so that’s great. We arrived to find that our “two person dorm, with tent roof” was in actual fact, a two person tent. I was so tired by now, so hot, so over it all that I sat on my wee little camp bed and cried. At that moment I wanted to go home. 28 hours on a train, missing our connection by seconds, being ogled by an Italian man (he really liked my boobs and made gasping, whistling, impressed noises as he passed me, I was alone as I was checking the departure board and Chris watched the bags, it wasn’t nice and I hurried back to Chris) sitting on the floor of a dirty train, sweaty and hot from the beating sun and now… a tent… was all too much for me, particularly when we had to then try and find the head torch so that we could see, that did it for me. I just wanted home. But then, a shower and my P.Js cheered me up and after half heartedly making my bed and then Chris’ as I’m a good wife, we fell into a deep deep sleep, so it was all forgotten and okay.