Train Mishap

This occurred between Rome and florence:

So we woke up slightly late on the morning of our train ride to Florence. No big deal, the bus stop was close, and we had alotted extra time anyways. Then we booked it to where we thought was a bus station. Turns out it was a train station(same cost though), so we had to wait there for a train to our main train station. Now THAT train was running 10 minutes late. So we get to the main Roman train station 5 minutes before our train to Florence departs and scramble around to find our train to no avail. Must have already left while we looked and I wasn't too adept at navigating the stations until after this experience.

So now we're wandering around the front area of the terminal looking for some representative of the train line, and some girl walks up, asks if we need help. We say yes, she takes us to a uniformed girl who runs us to the departure board and then to a platform, saying if we wait there for 10 minutes a new train will come that we can get on.  We say thanks, and she then asks for money.

Instantly I realize there is probably no train we can get on. This girl is a scammer who would have helped us if our train existed, but since it was gone she was lying and trying to get off with some money. We said no, we don't have any money, but she insisted we go to the ATM and withdraw some then since she had helped us. We said no again, and she rolled her eyes, obviously very upset, and left. Hahahaha.  We didn't expect scammers like that in train stations but lesson learned and she got nothing from us but 5 minutes.

SO. Not over yet.  I go to the front to a representative of train and I order a new ticket (i also tried to say the scammer was the reason for our being late but the rep. literally said 'when in rome' haha. O well. Worth a shot)for a train coming up in 3 hours, compare it to a departure board, figure out what platform, and we sleep and wait. An hour before it should arrive I'm checking boards and our train doesn't seem to exist. The number is slightly off from what is displayed.  A train arrives, going to our destination, but it has a different number than our ticket AND the number on the departure boards. Kill me.  So after running around for a few minutes we just say 'screw it', and get on.  Guy who checked our tickets while we were en route didn't like it, but thankfully he just let us stay with no problem even though it must have seemed like we were just sneaking on the train, and we got off in Florence. Finally. 4 hours after we should have. Since then we get to train stations so early and I'm very good at reading the boards as well.

So now I check the original ticket on Google when I get back on WiFi and the ticket I was sold was to a train number that was discontinued. So I've disputed that shit on my card and I don't expect much resistance but that's nonsense and I have the ticket as proof so good luck train-line-that-shall-not-be-named.

Venice, Italy 7/2 - 7/7

On the way to Venice we passed back through Florence at 9:30pm wndbhad to wait until 1:40am which was fine, hazards of budget travel, except for how they turned the station lights off between trains which was quite scary and seemed dangerous, so we waited in the tlwell-lit tunnels below and got eaten alive by bugs while playing cards. Then got on a 4 hour ride to Venice in a cramped cabin with 4 other guys that got delayed am extra 80 minutes and had no a/c. Sucked.  On to a 30 minute trek to our camping village. We were absolutely dead when we arrived at 10am.

Here we stayed in a camping village on the outskirts of Venice on the mainland (10min away from Venice via camp provided shuttle bus). Same company as Rome and florence, and just as nice as the one in Rome. Weather was very hot though, and we and other backpackers referred to our house tents lovingly as 'sweat boxes'. Basically being in them after 9am and before 11pm was absolute hell, which forced us to get up earlier than usual. We also utilized the pool wayyy more, one day we were there from 10am-8pm. I had tweaked my back the night before and it felt awesome to just rest a day going from pool to whirlpool over and over with intermittent meals from the camp restaurant.

Venice itself was very cool. So different to be in a place with no roads and no grass or trees. Just the canals. The street sellers that try to hand you roses so they can charge you after you take it were easily ignored, and all of the glass shops had awesome items for sale.

Just wandering around we walked across the entire city twice in a day, trying to take alleys and stay off the tourist packed areas when possible. No mosquitos here somehow, even though they swarm the camping village.

In the Marc plaza, street sellers sell pidgeon food and put it in your hand and pidgeons jump all over ur arms. Looked fun, but don't birds carry some diseases? I avoided that.

Animal of note:

Name: Kebab - pidgeon with a limp that we couldn't resist giving some of our leftover scraps that were going to go in the trash after eating some kebabs that we are now addicted to.

La Spezia, Italy 6/26 - 7/1

Here we thought we were staying in a private room in a small hostel. Turned out to be a apartment with 3 bedrooms and a landlord. We had a huge room to ourselves with a shared kitchen/bathroom. Was very very very nice, especially since we were paying so little.

La spezia is a hub fishing city that has a train network connecting to the Cinque Terre(5 Towns.) Cinque Terre is 5 small coastal towns that are very beautiful and connected by a train or hiking paths. Of the 5 we went to Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggoire.

While the coastal hiking paths were closed due to avalanches, the towns themselves were so beautiful, and we spent a day swimming in a secluded bay near corniglia after climbing to the city earlier via 365 steps. (Supposedly its 365 steps, one for each day, but I counted 379. Just sayin')

La Spezia itself is also very pretty and the people here have been the nicest of any place so far. So extremely polite to us the entire time. It was also the place with more dogs than we have ever seen(with owners this time, unlike Athens).

This is the first time I've ever done my laundry by hand and hung it on clotheslines, which I prefer so much more over laundromats because A. It's cheaper, and B. It takes way less time than standing around for 2 hours waiting for laundry to wash and dry. 10 minutes to wash and hang, then lesve it alone until u collect it the next day.

The Special Olympics were also in town but we only saw them one day parading and playing music in the market square and then never again.

Animal of note:

Name:chongo - cat we found and let in corniglia, was just chilling on a porch and looked like he had recently been in a cat fight. His wounds didn't seem very bad, I'd hate to see the other guy.

Florence, Italy 6/22 - 6/26

So now we're in florence. I don't want to say the people are generally rude here but our experience was with many rude florentians. It seemed like a very local city with certain areas devoted to tourism.

We stayed in a camping village by the same company as rome's, but of a much lesser quality. No power hookups in the tents made the common area a lord of the flies scenario where backpackers swarmed over available power sockets. Was actually kind of funny but rrally annoying as well. The bugs really got us here. Mosquito's are in force and ants are riding on their backs to parachute down on their prey. Off spray has now become a necessity as I am a mosquito magnet.  Temperatures get down in the 50s at night and we love that. Very very nice.

There's not too much to see in the city besides the duomo(church that dominates the city visually and audibly with its hourly bells), the river, piazza de Michaelangelo, the statue of David(if you care enough to pay 35euro for it(we didn't)) and some old castle ruins.

Pinocchios are also very popular in Italy.

We just so happened to be there during the festival of St. John, so there was a massive parade in the city, and our campsite was 2 minutes walk from the piazza de Michaelangelo which was the base of the fireworks show for the festival.

The fireworks were the best I have ever seen in my life, hands down. Lasting 30 minutes not only did we have a frontrow view about 100 yards from their site of launch, but we were actually close enough to get hit by shrapnel and to see a girl right next to us get burned by falling flaming pieces of spent fireworks.

Food: was okay, we had to eat at the campsite most of the time as the cities' restaurants were closing at 2-3pm evey day during 'holy week'. We had lots of pizza and once had some pretty damn good, cheap Chinese food.

Animal of note:

Name: barretta - named after the brand of meat we have her. campground cat that came to our tent so we gave her food, and then after we stopped she went to the next tent and they gave her food. She lives a pretty good life.  On our last day we were walking down the trail outside the campgrounds and she actually appeared there and we said our goodbyes :(

Rome, Italy 6/17 - 6/22

In Rome we stayed in a camping village in a private house tent. It was actually pretty amazing. It had a very nice pool(although we never got a chance to use it), was 2 seconds from a bus stop, and 5 minutes from a big supermarket.  Weather was beautiful as well, I enjoyed this village so much.

Early on we visited the Vatican. Ran into scammers posing as employees here but I had read about them, talked them away, and we got into a 1hr30min line to get into the Vatican museum/Sistine chapel. About 5 minutes into the wait, the lord tested us all with torrential rain and hail. The street sellers were selling umbrellas for 5euro but I talked him down to 3. That took away the sting of the hail but we were still drenched head to toe.

People were screaming and the street was flooding an inch or 2. I personally love rain so I thought it was awesome. Others didn't necessarily agree with my sentiments here Hahaha.  Suddenly, after about 10 total minutes in line, people started bailing and leaving, failing gods test as they did so. Pathetic. We were inside and had tickets within 15 minutes. Pretty awesome that we didn't have to wait out in the sun for hours.

ANYWAYS, the Vatican museum was ridiculous. So much detail head to toe. Gold and paintings and sculptures and ornate doorframes and ceilings wherever you looked. I won't say that I took pictures in areas where that wasn't allowed. Cuz that's just wrong and I'm a very morale person. So I won't say that.

The Sistine chapel was actually pretty breathtaking. The painting was just amazing and I don't usually care about that stuff.

We saw more monuments in Rome than anywhere.  The Colosseum, pantheon, Roman forum, trevi fountain, etc. Etc etc. I'll list them at the bottom. Was very awesome and i always like standing in areas where people lived and died thousands of years ago.

Very fun city. Food was nothing special. Pizza and pasta. Who knew. Was all good but we mostly cooked ourselves while we were there. A very cool aspect of rome was how no matter where you were walking, you'd come across at least 2 grand churches that were amazing inside and out.

I really learned how to use bus/metro/trains here as opposed to just winging it in previous locations. I won't call myself an expert, but on a scale of 1-10 I'm really good.

Places:
Pantheon
Fountain trevi
Spanish steps
Vatican
Vatican museum
Sistine chapel
St. Peters basilica
Colosseum
Roman forum
Palatine hill