Italy From Coast to Coast

A funny thing happens to me when I go to Italy.  I start to think that I speak Italian.  I believe this is because I can sort of muddle through reading a bit of Italian since some of the words are similar to Spanish.  Then people start talking to me and I realize I have no idea what they’re saying.  I feel like I turn into my high school friend, Lara, who we ran into with her friend, Liz, frantically trying to explain to a police officer in a mixture of Spanish and Italian that our chaperones had left without us from Saint Mark’s Square in Venice during our senior-year trip to Italy.  I guess I (and Lara) speak a variety of what you could call “Spantalian.”  By the way, in case you were concerned about how that whole Venice thing worked out, we did finally meet up with the rest of our group at a water taxi launch along the Grand Canal, though our teacher had the audacity to get mad at us for not being at the square right on time since one of our classmates was sick with food poisoning... which we had no way of knowing at the time. (Nice deflection, Mrs. Waters.  Next time COUNT before you leave seven students behind in the middle of a foreign city that’s surrounded by water!  No wonder that bird pooped in your eye on the Ponte di Rialto.  I'm totally Team Bird.)  But I digress.

There was no opportunity to stop in Venice on this trip since I didn’t go all the way up to Monfalcone, which is just to the east of Venice.  I did, however, get to go to (and through) a few Italian cities that I have never had the chance to visit before.  The first one was Ravenna, where I disembarked from the ship.  The taxi driver dropped me off at the train station even though I really had no idea where I was going from there.  For my next move, I was planning to take a ferry down to Morocco, but I wasn’t sure exactly when or where the ferry left from.  Therefore, my first priority was to track down some Internet access.  I found a cafe where I could get on wifi and discovered that the ferry I needed left only two times a week from Genoa (there was another one that left once a week from Livorno, but that was more expensive.)  As a result, I had to either leave on Saturday afternoon, which was the following day, or wait nearly a week until Thursday.  I could definitely have found many ways to kill a week (and a whole lot of cash) in Italy, but since I was already behind schedule I opted for the next day departure instead.

Ravenna is a pretty small city and there didn’t seem to be any cheap hostels or hotels available so I decided I was probably better off going all the way to Genoa that day even though the ferry didn’t leave until 6:00pm on Saturday.  I booked a hostel in Genoa online and then went to buy my train tickets, which was going to involve me having to change trains twice and then end up in a place called “Genova,” which I could only pray was the same thing as “Genoa.”  Since I had about an hour to kill until the train left just after 1:00pm, I decided to walk around town a bit even though there was no place to leave my bags.

Naturally, my first stop was the gelateria where I ordered a delicious bowl of stracciatella.  I then walked down the street a bit, casually searching for a bank where I could change some traveler’s checks into dollars.  I didn’t find a bank, but I did encounter some obnoxious teenagers just getting out of school and making a whole lot of noise.  I guess that high schoolers can be pretty annoying in nearly every country around the world.  That makes me feel a bit better about America at least.  I walked past a nice plaza and an old church before I decided it was time I to get back so I could get a good seat on the train.  I kind of wish I had more time to spend in Ravenna, but I wasn’t really prepared to spend €50 or more for a hotel room just so I could stay the night there.

The first portion of my train trip took me from Ravenna to Bologna.  I was able to find a seat fairly easily and enjoy the view of the Italian countryside passing by me outside the window.  After about an hour, we arrived in Bologna and since I had a half hour to kill until the next leg of my journey, I took a spin around the block.  I didn’t want to pay to leave my luggage so I only made it to the main square before I decided to double back and return to the station.  It seemed like a nice city, though, where I’d love to spend more time.  When the next train arrived, I plopped down in the first seat I could find even though I had a suspicion I was seated in a first-class car.  I had no idea if the second-class cars were in front of or behind me and I didn’t want to lug my stuff all the way in the wrong direction until someone told me I had to get up.

Sure enough, after about 15 minutes, the conductor came by and pointed out my second-class ticket.  He told me I had to go six cars up and of course once I got there, there were absolutely no free seats left... and I was far from the only one standing.  It was a bit frustrating to me that while there were people standing in the second-class vestibule (even though we had paid the same price as people who were sitting), there were plenty of free seats in the lofty realms of first class.  This was especially so since I had spent a whopping €42 (yes, euros, not dollars) for just this one single one-hour express Eurostar train between Bologna and Milan.  I don’t even want to know how much I would have paid for first class.  Since I was standing in the vestibule, I had to leave my bags on the luggage rack, which was the exact spot my sister’s backpack was stolen from on a train from Rome to Florence when we were in college.  Luckily since there was nowhere for me to go, I was able to keep a close eye on my things to make sure they didn’t run off with someone else to whom they didn’t belong.


Once we arrived at the massive train station in Milan, I had only about 20 minutes to change trains so I had no time to leave the station and check out the local sites.  This time I boarded a second-class car and found the first relatively free compartment where I could stash my bags and get a seat.  By this point, there was only one other person in the compartment so I grabbed a seat on the other side of her by the window.  It then dawned on me that unlike with the first two trains, there might actually be assigned seats in this case.  I pulled out my ticket and saw that there in fact was a seat assignment listed.  I had no idea what car (or "carrozza" in Italian) I was on so I asked the other woman who was sitting there what number it was.  It turned out I had by chance chosen the right car.  Then I went to the window outside the door to see which compartment and individual seat I was supposed to be in and miraculously I had somehow completely randomly picked the exact right spot down to the actual seat even!  A short time later another woman walked in and told me that, no, actually that was her seat.  So I guess I was wrong all along.  Then she pulled out her ticket and her seat was actually “15” not “16,” where I was sitting. So I was, in fact, right!  After the first-class debacle on the last train, it was nice to have not screwed up entirely yet again.

As the train pulled away, I watched the streets of Milano whiz past my window and decided this was yet another Italian city that I would like to explore in (much) greater depth some time.  The train was delayed getting into Geno(v)a so it was nearly two hours later, after the sun had already set, when we finally pulled into the station.  Once I got off the train, I determined that I was actually in the right place.  I figured out later at my hostel that “Genoa” is the anglicized version of “Genova,” which I don’t quite understand.  I mean, it’s not like English-speaking people can’t pronounce the “V” in “Genova.”  I can kind of get why you would change “Sevilla” to “Seville” (even though I don’t think it’s THAT hard of a concept that the double “L” in Spanish is pronounced like the English “Y.”)  But, why would you take out one letter that is easily pronounceable for us Anglos and thus completely change the word?  You would think that this would not be that big of a deal.  However, when you have one city that’s called “Monfalcone” in the northern part of a country and another that’s named “Montefalcone” in the central part of the same country (I’m still looking at you, Italy,) I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I would have questioned whether “Genoa” and “Genova” were actually two completely different places.  Whatever.  I guess some things are just unexplained mysteries.

It had been more than six hours (and three trains) since I let the east coast of Italy until I finally arrived on the west coast.  Even so, it would be almost another hour before I would reach my final destination.  The directions from the hostel indicated that I was supposed to take an elevator near a pharmacy to get to the bus I needed.  Otherwise, I would have to change buses and figure out exactly where I was supposed to do that, which was something I was not really prepared to do at that hour.  I walked around the station a bit and found an elevator, which I discovered through trial and error only went up and down between the track level and the main terminal.  Clearly, this was not the right one.  I walked out an exit and and then went up the street to the main exit where there were a bunch of buses and taxis waiting.  I still didn’t see the bus number I needed so I went inside to the information desk to ask for directions.  The guy I spoke to repeated that the bus I needed was by the pharmacy so I walked down the the street a bit until I saw the pharmacy with a bus stop out front.  However, only the bus that I would have had transfer from seemed to be listed.  I started to get very confused and frustrated and almost went inside the pharmacy to ask.  Finally, I noticed a sign for an elevator and the name above it was the one referenced in the e-mail from the hostel.  At least I was now headed in the right direction.

Let me tell you, this was not an elevator in the traditional sense.  It was more like the elevator in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” that they use to break through the glass ceiling and fly up into the sky over the city.  First, about six or seven people got into this rectangular box that went up an incline as if heading into a mine shaft.  Then it rounded a corner and got into position to go vertically up about 100 meters.  There were windows on all sides so we could see the mechanics of the elevator shaft all the way up. There also seemed to be a parallel track for elevators coming back down, as we passed another elevator going the opposite direction.  For some reason, this strange contraption struck me as completely preposterous and I could barely contain myself from bursting out laughing the entire time.  All of the other people riding with me were locals so I have no idea if they realized how ridiculous we all looked.  I really wished I could have taken a picture to demonstrate this stupid thing, but I felt like everyone else would have looked at me strangely since they all seemed to think that this was perfectly normal.  I never got another chance to ride this magic machine again so unfortunately no other photo ops materialized.

The main reason for these elevators (this is not the only one) is that the city of Genoa is built on a massive hill.  Once we emerged onto the street, the bus stop I needed was fortunately right out front.  A bus came along fairly quickly and once I boarded we proceeded to go back and forth up a series of switchback roads that took forever to navigate.  The roads were so narrow, that at one point our bus had to back up so that some other buses going down the hill could get through.  Part of the problem was that several cars were double parked along the side, but that’s another whole issue in itself.  On a positive note, I generally found the people on the bus to be very kind and helpful.  One girl got up from her seat so I could sit down with my backpack and another guy pointed out my stop most likely realizing I was a backpacker staying in the hostel.  I would have otherwise gone right past it since I knew the street name for the hostel, but not the exact location.


It was nearly 8:30pm by the time I finally got into my dorm room and I hadn’t eaten any dinner yet.  I asked the guy at the front desk if there was any place nearby and he mentioned there was a pizza place a short ways farther up the hill.  I walked up there and ordered a pizza from the slightly surly cook (he exasperatedly pointed at the sauce he had just added to the dough when I tried to change my order at the last minute from margherita to quattro formaggi), though there were no complaints from me when the pizza was ready in about four minutes flat.  I didn’t even realize it was already done until he handed it to me right after I paid.  In the US I would have waited at least 15 minutes for the pie to bake.  I guess they really know how to super heat their wood-fired stoves in Italy.  I brought the pizza back to eat at the hostel and it was delicious, but totally messy.  The cook hadn’t sliced the pie so by the end there was melted cheese and marinara sauce everywhere, including all over me. 

By the time I went to bed a few hours later, I was still the only person in my six-bed dorm room.  I thought I would have the room to myself until two other people showed up at what I can only assume was after 2:00am.  I didn’t bother to look at my phone to actually check.  They “whispered” and rustled their bags rather noisily for the next 20 minutes, but it’s okay since I got them back the next day when I started packing up my things at about 7:00am so I could go to Cinque Terre for the morning.

I had really planned to write my entire Italy spiel in one post since I was there for all of two days, but I now realize that this entry is getting rather long.  So as not to further bore you for the moment, I will add a separate post on my trip to Cinque Terre and ferry ride to Morocco on another day.  Ciao for now!