Just my luck!! What a mission it was to get to La Spezia

And then this day happened….

I ducked out of the room very early again for a sunrise stroll next to the shore. Man! This Lake Como area is beautiful. And in the early morning light, it’s an artist’s dream. Back at the hostel, I had my beautiful breakfast. And with beautiful I mean the magnificent view across the lake and mountains. And then, reluctantly, I had to leave.

The bus to Como

The bus stop is just down the hill with a ‘Tabacchi’ right there. If you have read up a bit, you will know that they are where you go to buy tickets of any sort. But with my luck, this specific ‘Tabacchi’ was the exception. They don’t sell tickets. Fine, I will buy my ticket on the bus (or so I hoped). But fellow travellers arrived and told me that tickets should be bought I town because not all bus drivers want to sell tickets. What!! There was no time for me to schlep my bags and go look for the office, so I had to take my chances with the driver.

I was in luck and he was a seller of tickets. Up to now, everything went pretty well with travelling and the weather. It convinced me that all will keep on going well. So, when we hit traffic, I was not worried at all. It gave me time to enjoy the scenery and to be entertained by the bus driver yelling at oncoming traffic. Sometimes he actually hung out the window and with ‘colourful’ language and gestures (and no, not the ones you see in our traffic, he was colourful in foreign). I must give him brownie points for his driving though. Those narrow streets and tight corners will be a challenge for a car, let alone a bus! There is really no way to describe the impressiveness without having seen it in person.

Anyway, I was not worried because there was a big time cushion between the scheduled arrival and the departure of my train. I even wondered how much exploring I would be able to do after the bus dropped me off at the Como station.

And then dominos fell.

Turned out that I was way too sure that all would be well. When I finally checked my watch, I felt my heart stop a little bit, because my train was leaving in 10 minutes and we were still on the road. I knew that there was another train leaving after that one, but that one will only leave me a 5-minute window to get on the right train in Milan. It was cutting it way to close, but all was not yet lost.

Trying to get on a train to Milan

So long drive short, I was hopelessly late, about an hour. Thank you, Monday traffic! I rushed into the station knowing that the ‘5-minute window’ train would be there soon and that I still needed a ticket. What do you know?? Lines for tickets! I got in the shortest one, but with my bad luck the Chinese tourists before me could not make up their minds about the tickets.

I then got into the other line. Finally in front, I made my selection only to be asked to pay with a card and not the cash that I had in hand! I nearly threw myself on the floor in a terrible twos tantrum.
And so, I was in the Chinese line again. Finally, they made the purchase, but then, out of nowhere, 2 more Chinese people appeared who gave the 2 in front their money and asked them to buy their tickets. Before I knew, the whole Chinese tour group was there giving their money to the two at the machine. The one just turned around, lifted her shoulders and said ‘sorry’ and went on with business.

I felt like charging them but remained like the duck quietly drifting along while beneath the surface was going crazy. With a few minutes to spare I got my ticket and ran to the platforms just to find my next challenge. The ticket validation machines were all broken. Every person and his grandma will tell you to validate your tickets before boarding or face huge fines (been there, done that, got the fine). I couldn’t afford a fine, but also could not miss that train.

Strangers on a train

This one local came to me and told me that he found a working machine at the end of the ‘binario’. What a relieve. Now, where was the train? I only had a 5-minute window in Milan to get on my train leaving for La Spezia. Every minute the train was late was a nail-biting minute where I saw all my plans and budget going up in smoke.

If you know anything about my luck, you will know what happened next. Yip, the train was 10 minutes late. Now, by African standards, 10 minutes late is actually still on time, but I was not in Africa! By then I was frazzled to such an extent that an Italian lady came to me and sympathetically talked to me….in Italian. I had no cooking clue what she told me, but I just kept nodding. It would not have made any difference to shake my head, and she was trying so hard to help me that I felt that nodding was the only option. Just like the doggy in the window.

In the end, I thought that she wanted me to sit down and keep my eyes on her. After a while, she gave me her phone with something Google translated on it, but as that Google function goes, it did not help a lot.

At some station, she came to me, took me by the arm and gestured to follow her. Just off the train, she started running in real Amazing Race style with me, and her mother I guess the other lady was, on her heels. Turns out she was trying to get me to my connecting train to Milan. Unfortunately, because the one domino was late, I missed my connecting domino. She then gestured for me to wait there for the next train and that they were now leaving by taxi. ‘Taxi’ I understood!!
Anyway, that was the highlight of my day. That this total stranger, whom I could not understand, would run like a crazy person to try and help me without me even having to ask it.

Finally at Milan Central Station!

Back to the problem at hand. I knew that I had missed my train to La Spezia as I waited to catch the connecting train to Milan Central Station. I kept telling myself that it was just a missed train and that nobody died. It did not help. I felt no better.

Finally in Milan again, (I thought that would never happen!), I had to go stand in a ticket line again. What a shocker I got when I needed to pay! The ticket that I bought 3 months before cost me 9 €. This last minute new ticket that I had to buy was 30 €!! Three times more. So, this ticket that originally cost me 9 € now totalled 40! I wanted to catch some snakes (I don’t think that is an actual English saying, but there was no better description of how I felt). Still, I kept on trying to tell myself that nobody died and to relax.

For someone who is a planner and a budgeter, this was a spanner in the works that felt more like a spanner to the head. But at least I was on my way to La Spezia from where I planned to explore and hike along the Cinque Terre.

La Spezia and some more bad luck

Got to La Spezia way later than planned, and it had started to rain. And…..yes there is another and, I had a suspiciously sore throat. I really hoped that it was just thirst and the craziness of the day. The flu would have been overkill after all the bad luck of the day.

I was still a bit fired up (and getting wet), so I pulled my wheely suitcase behind me with a speed which would probably constitute abuse on this uneven road. Luckily after about 20 minutes, I found my impressive hostel with ease. That hostel was nicer than some private rooms that I had stayed in before. Welldoneit to them. At that point in time, I would not have been able to handle dodgy accommodation.

I was not at the hostel for long as I wanted to do a little exploring before dark and try and find a grocery store. I saw a cool bridge and sculptures but no grocery stores. Did find a huge pharmacy though below the hostel, but it was already closed. I decided to call it a day, make some coffee and drink a Medlemon for what it was worth (I did not think that I will get sick so I just grabbed the 3 MedLemons that were laying around, 2 random Allergex and ACC. Never will I let cold and flu medicine slip through the cracks again when packing! Lesson learned!)

The bed was very comfortable, but sleep did not come for 3 reasons. Firstly, I just had to write a ‘book’ of complaint to the transport people (not so much about all the lateness because stuff will happen, but because I had to buy new tickets through no fault of my own). This book was written on my itty bitty phone. A keyboard would have been way more efficient. Then, I was getting sicker by the minute it felt, and thirdly, I shared a room with older people. One which was connected to some breathing machine. The machine brrrr-d constantly while the breathing through the tube made this ‘we are in a space movie’ sound.

So that was that for the day of travel horror from Menaggio to La Spezia. This day also marked the day that the rain and the flu started. Neither of them left me alone for the rest of the trip. But I survived. Nobody died (although I did feel like curling up like a dead bug sometimes). I learned that the best-laid plans can fall through the cracks and that I really have to become better at rolling with the punches.

Follow me here

• 
•