As you may have read, our relationship with Italian trains has been rocky. Late trains and trains that don't show have made us scramble to reach our destinations. It hasn't been unworkable. There are enough trains running the same routes everyday to allow us to catch a later train without too much delay if we missed the first. But, today we thought we would out think the trains and get ahead of the schedule. We thought.
Corniglia is a stop on the train system that is local. Regional trains don't stop here, only locals. To leave the Cinque Terre (CT) area, we first catch a local train to Riomaggiore, CT town #1. Regional trains stop at Riomaggiore. From there we will catch our train to Pisa, then a train to Empoli and from there to Siena. Catching the regional train in Riomaggiore is important. One comes only every four hours. Sally, always thinking about alternatives, suggested we catch an earlier train then our scheduled one to Riomaggiore. That way, we would be in Riomaggiore when our regional train came. If we took the Corniglia to Riomaggiore we were assigned by the train company and it was 5 minutes late, we would miss our regional connection. Sound thinking! Outfox the unpredictable train system. We checked the schedules and found we could catch the 8:15 to Riomaggiore, landing us there at 8:25, a full 37 minutes before our regional train at 9:02. This seemed more sensible than catching the 8:40 as assigned by the train company. The 8:40 would land us in Riomaggiore at 8:50 to catch the 9:02. If the local was even a few minutes late, which they always seemed to be, we would miss our regional to Pisa. By the way, after 3 nights in Siena, we travel to Lake Como, north of Milan. We have already looked into taking a bus and avoiding the trains.
All went well for part one of our plan. We caught the 8:15, which was only a minute or two late and landed in Riomaggiore at 8:27. Now we had a 35 minute wait for the regional to Pisa. We chatted with travelers from Chicago and Australia while waiting. At 8:50 am the announcer at the station informed us our regional train had a mechanical issue and would be 25 minutes late! Our connections at Pisa and Empoli had less than a 25 minute time window. This meant our whole set of transfers for the day were now out of whack. We tried to outfox the system, but the system won. "I fought the law, but, the law won." Who sang that?
Sally quickly decided we needed to board the next train that would move us to La Spezia, the town just outside of CT. In La Spezia we were more likely to catch an earlier train to Pisa. I thought we should just wait, catch our delinquent train and deal with the repercussions of being late as the day unfolded. We had to make a decision fast because a train stopping at La Spezia had pulled in just as the late announcement came and was sitting in front of us with open doors about ready to close. Sally pushed for jumping on board. I thought if we did, we would just end up waiting for the same late train at La Spezia that we were waiting for here. The doors closed and off it went.
The regional to Pisa was 30 minutes late by the time it arrived. We climbed aboard and began our journey to Pisa. I voiced the opinion that this had happened for a reason and that something good would come of it later in the day. Sally grinned and agreed. This set us looking for positive events all day that might not have happened if we had been on time.
One did occur just a few minutes past La Spezia. The train stopped for an unusually long time at Carrara, probably to route us on the tracks, fitting us in between the regularly scheduled trains. Our train was 30 minutes behind schedule and on the tracks at the wrong time, in the way of the regularly scheduled trains. Anyway, we were stopped right next to a building with open windows. Carrara is where the white marble preferred by sculptors is mined, the preferred marble of Michelangelo. The paved yard around this industrial looking site was stacked high with blocks of marble and inside we could see a man chiseling and sanding on a statue. Having both read "The Agony and the Ecstasy" about Michelangelo, we found this pretty exciting.
In Pisa, we found a train heading toward Florence with a stop in Empoli with only a 25 minute wait and in Empoli the train to Siena was about the same wait. All told, we were only about an hour late getting to Siena. Not bad, but not hassle free.
Siena is small, compared to Rome and Florence. We mapped out the location of our B&B and found it walking distance from the train station. Escalators move you up and about a quarter mile out from the station into Siena. From the top of these we started our walk.
It took us half an hour to get to our B&B. As it turns out, we were walking down the very road pilgrims took on their way to Rome from Europe back in the 1200s and 1300s. Pretty cool. We found our room, but because we were an hour late, our host, Claudio, was not to be found. We still had no internet due to my Vodefone snafu. This put us in a small pickle. Luckily, as I sat on the stairs outside the room scanning for unprotected wifi in the building I saw a Vodafone wifi open. It required me to pay three euro for an hour service. I signed up and after a small hassle logging on, was able to send a message to Claudio that we were here, apologize for not contacting him earlier and let him know we were waiting. His assistant, Sauro, showed up five minutes later.
The room is wonderful! Sauro spoke no English, but my training in Italian (thank you Pina) came through, and we could communicate enough to understand each other, with much laughter and gesturing.
Sally laid on the bed to rest and take a nap. I ran back up the pilgrim trail to a Vodefone store we had passed on the way into town that was closed for midday meal as we passed. I wanted to get back on line and find out what happened to my 2 missing Gbs I had purchased in Rome.
I had a very patient and kind clerk at the Vodefone store work through my issue in broken English with my broken Italian. We worked out the details and I purchased an additional 5 Gb of data, for only 19 euro. It appears I was taken advantage of in Rome, where I paid 45 euro for 4 Gb. Buyer beware. I returned to Sally, happy to be online again after a painful four day absence.
You might think, "Why is being on line so important" (although you may be like me and think "4 days without Internet!? How did you survive!?!). Well, there are no phones in the rooms, all Air B&B arrangements require the Internet. Train schedules, bus routes and all are now online. Paper ones are hard to find. Having Internet is pretty important.
We did the Rick Steves Siena town walk and introduced ourselves to the town. This is a medieval town frozen in time. The buildings come right out of the narrow streets, no sidewalks. Everything is made of Siena red bricks, although some buildings are covered in stucco or are made of larger stone. The city went car free in 1966, except for residents, which makes walking the streets a delight. The building walls curve with the streets. The main piazza is Il Campo, a huge sloping open square surrounded by 4-5 story 13th century brick buildings. It is delightful.
We hung out in Il Campo for a while, enjoying the people, then entered a sandwich (panini) shop for dinner. The girl behind the glass display case let us know their balcony overlooking the square was available. We took our sandwich up to this very narrow "shelf" just wide enough for a bench and ate overlooking the piazza from a unique and high vantage point. It wasn't long until we were joined by a group of 4, then another of 2. It was a bit crowded and we had had a half an hour of repose. We retired to the street level, stopped for a gelato and returned to our room, just 100 meters off the square, right on the pilgrim road. Our room has a couch! We enjoyed sitting, reading and writing as the sounds of the busy pedestrian street 2 floors below wafted through our open window.
Is this the 18th great day in a row!? Awesome.
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