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Saturday
Well as our time in Veneto draws to a close, it must be said that we covered some kms and saw some sights.
After our trip to Mantova on Thursday and the drama with the trains, we were up and at it again, set to take the fast train to Mestre then a local train to Bassano del Grappa.
After a 45 minute delay, and the first quote of the day: " if it doesn't come, do you think we can get a refund?" which I took to be a rhetorical question. Anyway, the train arrived, we jumped on and found the carriage and our prebooked seats. Carriage, no problem, seats - occupied. A quick mono syllabic exchange and it turned out that they had " moved" an obvious fact even with my rudimentary Italian. They were a party of 4 and they wanted to sit together. Two of their seats were across the aisle, so not wishing to provoke an international incident, with a very definite "OK", we took their seats instead. It all worked out in the end with minimum fuss and although we had missed our connection to Bassano, we only had to wait 20 mins or so for the next one, unlike the 2.5 hours when we went to Mantova!!!
Once again, arriving 10 mins before the afternoon siesta and the shops closing, we had a mad dash to find some bread, cheese and Parma Ham for a picnic lunch that we had planned. Being it wasn't the first time that we had been in this situation, we handled it well and found the shop(s), bought food and set off to explore the sights and sounds of Bassano, very much relieved that a potential drama had been averted.
Bassano is beautiful, set on a river at the foothills of the Dolemites, uncrowded and peaceful, as the photos show. Having seen all there was to see, and enjoying a long picnic by the river, we headed back to the train station only to find even more entertainment, thankfully this time that did not involve us. A group of cyclists were waiting to get onto the train waiting on platform 1 as shown on the timetable. Minutes before their train was due to leave, one of them read the fine print and saw that their train was on platform 3. So after much yelling to reach a consensus, it was up with the bikes, down the stairs into the subway under the platforms and I presume, up the other side to platform 3. It must have worked because the train left and there were no bikes on the platform.
Our train left on time at 4:25 and as we had to change trains at Padova for Desenzano and it being such a lovely day, we decided to take a few hours to look around Padova and get a later train home. Again, all started well, with a small map in hand, Jean had us setting off down the road to a couple of places that I had thought it would be nice to see. I thought it would be good to turn left and walk through the old town. One wedding crowd, several checks of google maps, 30 mins of limited conversation and about 5kms later, we finally arrived about 200 metres from where we turned off Jean's chosen route. A very large serve of humble pie and we headed back to the station to get the fast train back home.
We have experienced train travel without tickets, with the wrong tickets, no seats, on trains that were very late, missed connections but through it all the most memorable observation has been that while the high backed, fabric covered seats are quite comfortable, the possibility of contracting head lice was a real concern, (but not for me because I wear my cap).
Staying in Desenzano has been really enjoyable. Although not the best or most convenient place to set up as a base from which to visit every major city in Veneto, it was always great to wake up in and to come back to each night.
Verona: crowded, Vicenza: great shopping, Mantova: peaceful but a lack of bike hire, Padova: the best shops so far but no time, Bassano del Grapa as well as the lake towns of Bardolino and Garda, and a terrific hotel with friendly staff and great coffee for breakfast, have all combined to make this leg of the trip as enjoyable as our time in Scotland.
My final observation is that although I speak to the locals in Italian and they answer in English, I am sure that it is not my accent but rather just like me, that want to practice their well honed bilingual skills.
So it's off to Stressa on Lago Maggiore tomorrow, that is, if the 10:30 train to Milano Centrale turns up on time and we make the connection to Stressa. I just hope that there will not be any stressa getting there!!
Ciao.
- comments
Raimondo da Lozzo Ciao Riccardo e Jean, Keep up the Blog we're loving it. ;-) Raimondo