.
All was well until about 1:44. The train stopped and I thought we were in Milan, because that's where we were supposed to be. I'm not sure where we were, but it wasn't Milan. Still, the train stopped and everyone was told to get off. All explanations were in Italian, so I'm still not sure why we stopped. But we were all told to find other trains to Milan.
The new train was standing room only. We were hanging kind of close to a Canadian couple, primarily because they seemed to know what they were doing and we sure didn't. It seemed we had two options - get off at Monza and take a train to Milan Garibaldi and then transfer to Milan Centrale or wait a few more minutes and take one direct to Milan Centrale.
Given that my heart rate topped 160 carrying bags up stairs (they don't believe in ramps much in Europe) we opted for the direct train to Milano Centrale. We lost our Canadians, but met up with some Americans, in fact they are neighbors - from Garland, Texas and made the trip with them. But first, there was the hassle with customer service. The train to Florence was not listed on the board. We didn't know if it had been canceled or if we'd missed it. We stood in what we thought was the customer service line for 10 minutes, only to be redirected to a different line - we stood there for over 30 minutes. And after 30 minutes of waiting, we were dismissed. The agent wasn't going to deal with anyone who couldn't speak Italian. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that everyone in the world should speak English, but in a major tourist area, you would think that at least one customer service agent could handle the English speakers. But no. I went looking for another customer service agent and found one that spoke English out in the corridor. She advised me to talk to the customer service agent. When I explained to her what had happened with him, she came into the office and actually argued with the man. (You go girl!) In the end we got on the next train to Florence - although we had considered getting a car in Milan and driving to Florence but getting on the Internet was problematic. (The top-ups you buy in England, don't necessarily work in Switzerland or Italy. - They tell you they do so you'll buy them, but it's not really as advertised.)
Our new found friends had first class seats. We had second class seats. But that was on the other train. On this new train, none of us had any seats. After being booted out of our seats two times, Mark and I went to the club car and found a couple of stools by the window, ordered some food and something to drink. We were near to wear the baggage was stowed, so not a bad arrangement. The trip to Florence wasn't that long. After the stop in Bologna, our new friends came and told us about their experience. Seems their train from Turano left at 9:08, two hours ahead of ours. So how did they end up on the same train as us? Seems that their train from Turano was cancelled and they were put on a bus. A very slow bus that managed to catch up with our train somewhere near Lake Como. (So they had several hours of bus that we managed to avoid. Yikes!) And we were all scheduled on the same train from Milan to Florence.
We were only about an hour late. No problem for us because all we needed was a cab. Our new friends were missing a dinner party with friends.
We had originally planned to take a train from Florence to Spoleto but we changed our plans to rent a car and drive. Who could blame us?
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