Woke up at like 3:11 and never got back to sleep (except for maybe a little bit between 5 and 6).
Got ready and had breakfast at a little café near the room. Got back, finished getting ready and out the door at 7:50. The owner very nicely gave us a lift to the station. Bought ourselves tickets to Verona via Pescara and Bologna. Ortona is dumb, with no accessible accessible access, so had to lug the bags all the way down the stairs and all the way up the stairs again. We got to the platform just in time to jump on an earlier train to Pescara, to give us a little more time there.
View up to Ortona from the train station
We couldn't get seats together on the train, so I went to the loo at Pescara, raging inwardly at paying for the privilege, but deciding it was more comfortable than a train toilet.
It was absolute chaos boarding our train to Bologna. The Frecciarossa trains don't have luggage racks at the ends of the carriages, so people were all trying to get past each other with luggage. It was pretty awful. Turns out our suitcases fit in the luggage spaces provided between the seats, so that was nice, and less stress about having out bags out of sight.
Three hours later.
Actually the first part of the trip was fairly nice, the track goes right along the Adriatic coast. And the GPS even worked.
View of the Adriatic Sea from the train
View of the Adriatic Sea from the train
Port at Ancona
Just before we arrived in Bologna I got an SMS from Trenitalia (when you book the fast trains you need to give them your name and number) saying that due to problems with "another company" our train from Bologna to Verona was going to be delayed like an hour and a half, maybe more. Great.
Had a look at the queue for the ticket office, which was all the way across the room and down the stairs. So asked a Trenitalia dude standing around if we had any other options. He said try at the "last minute" desk. Which had a short queue but it was moving very very slowly. Anyways she said I could take an regional train (I'd looked them up while waiting - there was one that was going to arrive before the delayed fast one). And then we could get a refund on the fast train ticket (which was twice the price). But there was no way I was going to wait in that queue, I decided we could do it when we arrived in Verona. So got our tickets then went and found some stoopidly overpriced caesar salad for lunch.
I think everyone in Bologna had the same idea as us, because the train was completely full. But at least we found seats together, and space at the end to stow our luggage.
Me and Mum at Verona Porta Nuova train station
At Verona there was a large group of people milling around the ticket office. Turns out they have a ticket system. Take a number. We got 684. After a while someone gave us their unused ticket - 664, which was twenty minutes prior to ours. And they were up to about 644. So I figured we had time to go check into our hotel and come back to be served.
So we went and checked in. The hotel is nice enough and it wasn't that long a walk, although there's not much else around it. Checkin took ages (seemingly), the only time I actually want to check in quickly. hrmm.
Finally checked in, dumped our bags, then raced back to the station. The last number was 685. Damn. So I went into the office anyway, and attendant saw my ticket and I got to see someone straight away hurray! And I even got the refund on the tickets hurray!!
Back at the hotel we gathered up all our washing, then headed out to find the nearish laundromat. Took like twenty five minutes to walk there. hmmm. And every machine was in use and there were people everywhere. Super stressful. I had visions of having to wait there for hours. But in the end we only had to wait about fifteen minutes, so that was good. Did a short cycle for the washing, then the drying, then headed back, looking for dinner on the way.
We had spaghetti bolognase because we never had a chance in Bologna. These fancy restaurants don't really like only doing one dish between two people I'm sure. heh.
Even though we were supposed to be in Verona by 14:08, with all the delays and then having to walk so far to do the washing, it was still a late night. So fricken tired. My phone is still playing up copying off photos too which is super stressful. I'm too tired and don't have time for this crap.
Canal flowing through part of western Verona
Also annoyingly the aircon is pretty crap. But we can't open the windows because that means we need to open the shutters, but the windows go all the way down to floor level, which means anyone on the street can see straight in. Sigh.
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