Take the strain

I’ve just got back from a long weekend visiting Liz in Italy. I’ll write something about the visit soon, but first a word about the French… merde! Those work-shy-cheese-eating-surrender-monkey-striking-railway-upsetting French… we love ‘em. I took the train to Italy, well, three trains, two overnight. First from Oviedo to Barcelona (12 hours or so) which went without a hitch, my first time using couchettes, or litera as they call them here. Six to a compartment, six narrow bunks and thin blankets and cotton sheets. I did get to talk to a maoist gnome (or rather I was talked at by a maoist gnome… but that’s for a future post… the one about the people you meet on trains) but I also slept quite well. After a day in Barcelona I got another trai… waitaminnit… that sign says (in Catalan and in Spanish) Due to a French train strike the service to Milan will be by bus. BUS! Bloomin’ French….

I ended up having to explain about the strike to a few rows of disgruntled non Spanish speakers (Japanese, Canadian, American) all of whom had just followed directions and gestures and now found themselves inexplicably on a coach. And not a coach like those lovely Argentine ones, oh no… Ordinary, upright seats, no blankets. It was an uncomfortable night, and we were woken early by the flashes of the Japanese as we drove through the Alps at dawn. It looked lovely but I would have preferred a bed. And the coach took a couple of hours longer than the train would have… so fifteen hours of cramped neck ache…

The third train was from Milan to Padua (Padova as the Italians misspell it). Milan station is the single most perfect example of facist architecture I’ve ever seen. It’s enormous, and designed to impress. ‘Well, at least he made the trains run on time’ sprang to mind. This train was late… only by ten minutes but that’s enough to be a metaphorical two fingers to Il Duce in my book. I met Liz at the station in Milan, she had arrived from the airport not long before I decoached stiffly.

Still, the return journey went without a hitch, and let me tell you, I really did miss out on a bed on the outward leg. The trenhotel Salvador Dali had four proper beds to a compartment, wide enough to roll over without peril, propper mattresses too, not just hard cushions. It’s a fine thing to go to sleep as you roll into Turin, and to wake up as you roll out of Girona and head to the bar for a freshly made coffee (hello british rail operators: even the trolley car in italy had an espresso machine) and a sandwich made with fresh bread. The only downside is the fact that it took me two days, but if you have time, it’s the only way to fly.