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From the very outset, David had encouraged us to use the Italian trip as a holiday and we'd expected to spend the lion's share of it together, alone. For Caroline and I, this was a significant moment in our relationship. Apart from the company of the 4 other Brits who were remaining in Italy, we were to be together, alone for days, with no choice but to be together. Now, I'm not trying to say that I would not like to be alone with my own fiancée, indeed I rather like the idea, but holidays are usually the point where relaxation turns to stress and you find out mysterious ways of not getting on.
As luck would have it, it turned out that we did not get on each other's nerves any more than we would normally do - probably a lot less.
So, what's the first thing we do when we're finally together. Well, we did different things of course! Caroline wanted to toddle around Crema for a bit and I wanted to sleep. We each got these desires, albeit for an hour or so, first thing on that Tuesday morning.
After breakfast, it was down to business. We had a train to catch - Milan to Florence, leaving around lunchtime. The hotel staff had provided us with bus information. The only bus which would get us there on time, was the round-robin, which stopped at every possible village between Crema and Milan. This we caught, having bought the tickets from a clever machine which took notes and then printed the change on a piece of paper - useless! We had to exchange this chit for real money at the desk behind, which begged the question "Why have a machine?" - the answer to which is, "So that tourists don't have to understand any Italian to go places!".
The bus accumulated more and more people, and soon our baggage was on our knees and we were jammed together in a double seat. Luckily, this lasted only a short while until we arrived at the first underground stop in Milan. After trying to ask the driver whether we needed to get off here - in English of course - I finally got around to understanding that we could take this metro to the railway station. Nearly there, and I'd not made a complete arse of myself yet.
After a heated argument at a ticket machine in the underground based on the questions "How do we get a ticket?" and "How the hell should I know?", I asked a man at an underground station newsagent and he swapped me cash for a couple of 75 minute tickets - it's really easy you know. The only thing which remained for us to do was to take this underground train to the right station - no problem. Indeed, the only remarkable thing about the journey was the alert noise for when to stand clear of the closing doors. This noise comprised two notes played at a marvellously jarring discord. It was just like the sound you get in 1950's sci-fi B movies which means "The monster's behind you!". I started doing the sort of high-pitched playing-a-saw sound which usually backs this to my own amusement, if not Caroline's or the other passengers'.
At the station, we used a modicum of logic and found the train and proceeded to walk the miles along its length to the reserved seats. Caroline is prone to bouts of illogical panic and, despite the obvious signage and lack of other reasonable alternatives, she was convinced that we were on the wrong train. For her peace of mind, I left the train and showed the tickets to a guard to confirm that we were really in the right place - he looked at the tickets and started to take me to the carriage I'd previously found - confirmation enough for me.
At this point, I ought to point out that we had no disasters on this, or indeed any, part of the trip - there is not supposed to be any tension mounting, it's just an account of an everyday sort of adventure.
As I've said, irrational panic is a powerful foe. Despite the obvious confirmation of our accuracy in choice of train to use, Caroline was not swayed. She postulated that I'd asked a cleaner, rather than a guard, who had not known one train from another, and so had given me bogus confirmation. I quelled these panics and we set off for Florence soon after.
Written: May 1998
Posted: 03 February 2002
Ashley Frieze