Lyon to Milan

Lyon to Milan

By next day we had found out how, and brought train tickets so we had to go back to the airport again as the trains left from there. We wished we had known this earlier! The train was a rather dodgy one and our seats did not appeal. We would have to sit backwards in a tiny space with no leg room as the people already in the train had comandeared any available space and then fallen asleep.

Luckily there were fold down seats in the joint between the carriages and we quickly decided that these looked a better option than those we had paid for. There were four seats and only one other person, a young middle eastern looking guy wanted one so that worked out OK. Our fellow traveller did not speak much English and I am not sure he had much French either. When the ticket inspector came round checking he had no tickets or paper work like a passport. This made the inspectors job harder. No one worries at all if you have a passport when going between France and Italy but you are expected to pay for a ticket. The train was well on it’s way by this time so the young man was left in peace eventually.

It occurred to me how suspicious we are in Australia. Here he would have immediately been classified as a suspected terrorist and all hell would have broken out. As it was he was more worried than anyone else except his four mates. At every stop they leapt off the train to try and quell their nerves with cigarretes!

After that all went well. The train wound between snow covered mountains and dived into short tunnels when there was no pass. Fast flowing rivers ran down passed us literally boiling with ice cold turquoise water. Eventually we went through a fairly long tunnel and came to a halt at a small station in Italy. This turned into a long halt, apparently the train had two engines and one had broken down in an unfixable way.

Our little team of potential terrorists needed a lot of smokes to cope with this one. We also became aware of another group of fellow travellers. This group consisted of twenty or so adults mostly our age and a younger very aggetated tour guide who were on a “worlds great train ride tour”. They had a connection to make to get to Venice and she could see the likelihood of this happening slipping away.

Luckily she spoke Italian so she became the messenger for our section of the train. Apparently phone calls had been made to authorities in Paris and the train had been told that it was not allowed to continue with just one engine. The delay continued but at least everyone got a great photo opportunity as we were surrounded by snow covered peaks having only just crossed over the water shed.

I am not sure how the matter was resolved but a decision was made and everyone ordered back aboard so that we could limp slowly down the mountain to Turin. Here the train came to rest and here it stayed. All the passengers were turfed out and directed over an obsticle course consisting of numerous sets of stairs, bridges, and other surfaces totally unsuitable for large suit cases. We were in a bad position because we had very heavy luggage. 20 + kilo in each large suitcase and hand luggage not much lighter! I was slightly better off than Edd because various Italian men took pity on me and helped me with my cases but Edd had to do it alone.

We were extremely relieved to see three large modern looking coaches waiting for us. The tour guide lady was less impressed. She found out that we were being taken to the station in Milan that we would have reached if the train had not broken down. This did not suit her group at all because their next train left from a totally different station and they no chance of getting to it unless they were taken straight there. No-one listened to her pleas so I do not know what happened to them but more on central station later.

The coach drivers gave us a rather worrying introduction to Italian driving. With in seconds of setting off our driver had ignored two stop signs, and every speed limit and was talking rapidly to some one on his mobile phone. At one point he had two phones operating which left him no hands on the wheel at all , but I suppose he used his knees!

It was not much fun being dumped in the middle of a busy street once again with heavy cases to lug about so we quickly decided on a taxi and were conveyed to the hotel we had arranged in relative ease. I just hope all the other passengers had a similar happy ending.

Once in the hotel we had time to get sorted. Josh’s computer was becoming extremely useful. We had discovered a web site called bookings.com where you could book ahead on line with car hire and hotels. The hotels now all have free wireless connection so we could get on line, check our mail and bank accounts and book ahead with absolute easy. In fact it all seemed a bit too easy and we began to wonder if it was too good to be true. We had booked a car to drive in Italy at a fraction of the cost we had hired the French one for. We did discover that we had been making one fundemental mistake. Josh’s computer showed the date and day in Australia, and we were in Italy and had not actually got to that day yet! On the plus side this meant we were a day ahead of schedule rather than a day behind so it did not really matter once we had worked it out.