#stinking hot

From the Penthouse to the Platform

Mum and I were sad to be leaving superb Saint Tropez behind. Not only because the air-con in our room had finally been fixed but because we had three long days of transit coming up. 

Our journey started off well, cruising along the autoroute to Nice listening to good tunes on local radio. We spent a night in the Nice Ibis club penthouse with a view over the city and prepared ourselves for our looming day of train travel the next morning.

Our first train leg (Nice to Ventimiglia) passed by relatively painlessly but after crossing the French-Italian border everything started to go downhill. That which should have taken us two hours, took SIX AND A HALF. Picture this:

Sunday afternoon, temperature is somewhere between 29 and 35 degrees, mum has two bung feet from back surgery and we have over 40kgs of luggage in tow.

4:00pm, Ventimiglia

Line-up to buy connecting train ticket behind 8 hot, impatient groups

Buy tickets but miss our first connecting train from waiting in line too long

Wait one and a half hours for next connecting train on the smelly, filthy, sweltering platform

Board train and sit in stifling, un-air-conditioned cabin with way too many feral members of the general public

Get in a fight with an old, cranky, local, Italian couple for blocking a vacant seat with our mountain of luggage

Discover our train is delayed due to a problem at Savona

Wait on the train for a hour fanning ourselves awkwardly next to the couple we had a fight with 

7:50pm, Savona 

Finally disembark our seedy train to find chaos at the station

Discover that all trains arriving to and departing from Savona are delayed by at least 24 minutes

Our train is 76 minutes late

More waiting on a platform

10:35pm, Genova 

Get off the train as fast as possible

Meet lovely group of families who help us with our luggage, walk us to the taxi rank and hail us a taxi

Head to the Sheraton airport hotel and check into Penthouse number two

Despite having had a nightmare of a day it was comforting to be reminded that there are still some great humans out there!