Passing Through

It's surprising how much you can grow to like a city in only 3 days. I'm saddened to leave Venezia, but I have heard much of the beauties of Cinque Terre that I must go see for myself. Now having become a water bus master, I easily boarded the boat with all my luggage and promptly arrived at the train station in 10 minutes. I secured a train ticket to Genova with a change in Milano for a total travel time of about 5 hours. I was guaranteed a seat on the first half of the trip, but not the second.

Not much to report. The train ride was uneventful for the first part. It was a Eurostar train, so nicer and newer cars with very few people on board. I read a good portion of Pride and Prejudice as the scenery was mostly towns and little else to see. We did pass a lovely portion near Densazen, I think that's what the train station sign said. It was hard to catch as we flew by it. The town was gorgeous. In the background were grey puffy clouds and strikingly cut jagged mountains with snow on top. Below all of this was rolling green ground and finally at the end the town with its bright buildings popping out of the ground in stark contrasts of red, peach and yellow surrounding some kind of water. It all looked like a puzzle box picture. Gone too quickly for me to dig out my camera.

All I saw of Milano was the train station which was extremely large with an occluded glass ceiling. I had 20 minutes before the next train left to Genova and I hoped to grab a seat and be one of the lucky ones to not have to give it up to a person with a reservation. I sat long enough to eat some granola and sure enough a lady came with a ticket for the seat I was in. Fortunately I was early enough to have plenty of room for all my luggage in one place. I ended up standing the whole 2 hours to Genova. I was glad I could stick near my bags and was able to lean up against a luggage rack enough to half sit on it so not all of my weight was on my feet.

From the Principe train station in Genova I had to take the lift and then bus 40 to the hostel. Turns out the lift is a box that rolls up the hillside and around the corner to a shaft where it rolls into a carrier that turns it into an elevator and takes you up through the mountainside. It was very cool. I've never seen anything like it. Right up there in the levels of odd excitement like the washing machine elevators that take you to the top of the St. Louis Arch. The bus 40 stop was conveniently right outside the lift exit--awesome! After a good 15 minute wait the bus did arrive and dropped me off right at the hostel as expected.

Genova doesn't have much to explore or write about from what I can tell. Still battling my cold for day 3 now, I decided to hang inside and do some investigating on the internet for the next portion of my trip. Dinner consisted of a boxed meal from the hostel of chicken, potatoes and marinara sauce. Surprisingly it was quite filling. The bed is much softer than the one in Venice so I'm hoping for a good night's sleep to fight this cold.