Bonne Année 2005!
Trip Start
Dec 04, 2004
1
15
37
Trip End
Feb 24, 2005
Toulouse,
France
Monday, January 3, 2005
We decided to fast-track our plans after the last net café update of the blog, ending up exploring Milan a little more and visiting the Musical Instruments Museum (which was in the large castle near the hotel) on the same day (first full day in Milan). The museum was good, although it offered little for Charles, I think we counted 3 brass instruments in total. There were many variations of stringed instruments, ranging from violins one could fit in a walking stick to many variations of the Viola da Gamba. Unfortuneatly they didn't have any arpeggiones. Thoough these are rare, so only a few museums would have them. Maybe I'll see one someday... For those who don't know, an arpeggione is bigger than a viola, smaller than a 'cello, with 5 strings, I think it may have been played on the knee.
From the museum, we walked down into the heart of the city, so we could walk up the main fashion street. Of course Milan is famous for its designer fashion, so now we can say we've done that too. "It's Milan darling!".
We decided to spend our last full day in Milan out of Milan. We decided that we would catch the train up to Lake Como, as it is the famous deepest lake of the Lake Country, movies such as Ocean's 12 and Star Wars, Episode 1 having being filmed there. Unfortunately in the morning we caught the wrong train heading to Bassel, it wasn't going via Como. This train left a good 40 minutes late, so it was really annoying when we discovered it was the wrong one! As a result we had to get off at the first station and ride a really old suburban communter train back into Milan and catch another train from there. It was amusing when the train pulled up as the platform was at ground level, and the train was platform height, with no step, so we litterally had to climb onboard!
Back in Milan the wait for the next correct train to Bassel was spent buying lunch from the "Free Shop", unfortunately they made us pay for our bagguettes.
The trip to Como was nice, the carriages were Swiss so they were fine inside. Deciding to stinge out again, we walked from the station down to the lake instead of catching the bus. The lake is quite large, and would certainly be a hive of activity in summer. There are still many aquatic vehicles at this time of the year. The main thing we did was walk past the private railway station on the lake's edge around to the funicular. This trip was the longest and steepest so far. It took a good 7 minutes in each direction, the trains running every 15 or 30 minutes, depending at what time of the day. The system was automated and efficient. The view offered became increasingly spectacular as we rose up the mountain. We could see the mountains in Switzerland, boats on the lake and around the town of Como itself. Unfortunately the sun was in the south, as it's winter, and the view from the top is towards the south. It will be interesting to see how things work out, I tried to get video and photos from in the shade. Unfortunately we didn't get any pics for you from Charles' phone as his battery was dead.
Making it down the mountain gaave us just enough time to power-walk back to the station in about 20 minutes to catch the train back to Milan. This again was Swiss, so the standard was acceptable.
Como is definately my favourite part of Italy so far, but it wasn't that hard to beat Milan. This city just doesn't work for me.
We checked out the night before so we could leave quickly in the morning for our earlier than anticipated train. We arrived at the station nice and early to find our 11 car train to Nice. Unfortunately it was a wholy Trenitalia (Italian Railways) train, the difference in quality to that of the other operators we have used so far is quite obvious. The second class compartment carriages that made up this train would've been from the 1960s or 1970s, and probably havn't had any work done to the interior since the day they were made. Some of the headrests were patched together with tape etc. This was going to be a long 5 hours to Nice. Interestingly they only spoke Italian on this service, despite the fact that it was going to 2 French speaking nations. Though it's not all bad, Trenitalia taught us some good experiences: fake being asleep at stations so nobody tries to sit next to you as it would disturb you, and don't expect the train to have a loco attached or to be turned on 5 minutes before the departure time.
Passing out of Ventimiglia (Vintimille en francais) and into Monacco was a relief. Everything changed to french and the infrustructure outside my window was no longer half-hearted. Charles' future home was a nice change of scenery. Monte Carlo station is definatley a sight to behold, as Charles had explained from his last visit. I must use it one day.
Nice station hasn't changed since my last visit in April, though that wasn't a surprise. I automatically remembered my emotions when I was there last: nervous about meeting a family I was going to stay with for 2 weeks, my first TGV sighting, leading the group around the station hoping I was going the right way. Excitment of having just landed in France!
We found that a train was heading to Bordeaux in about 45mins (at 13:35), it was already in the platform so we bought "deux sandwiches mixte" for lunch, only to find that "mixte" means ham and cheese. Very mixed indeed! We ate onboard the train, grabbing prime positions for our luggage and seats. It was a conventional loco hauled train of around 12 carriages. This was another long journey, during which the batteries of Charles' MP3 player and my discman ran out. Charles ended up reading my Tim Fisher book about trains with me. It openned his eyes to some of the facts and statistics about the deprivation of rail in Australia and overseas, but that's another story for another day.
We finally arrived in Toulouse at 7:50pm, luckily our hotel was across the road from the station, our room has a nice view of the large building.
Time up again,
Thanks,
Tom Pacy
