Città
vuota
No, it should be Lonely Town, not a song of a small town girl in a lonely world
Saturday, 4 May 2013
I finished my packing this morning
and went for breakfast. The Canadian elderly couple who slept in the room next
to mine told me they were going to Paestum, an archaeological site south of
Salerno. I had checked the train times the night before and the train times
were not frequent at all. They are like these:
Salerno-Paestum 0804-0839,
0830-0911, 0921-0959, 1339-1420...; and
Paestum-Salerno 1116-1150, 1406-1439,
1441-1517, 1522-1549, 1541-1618, 1801-1846.
So if you take the 0921 train, do
you take the 1116 train back or the 1406 train? Whatever are you going to do
there for 2+ hours? I decided to play it by ear.
As I only decided while having
breakfast that I would go to Paestum that morning itself instead of in the afternoon,
I hurriedly finished my breakfast and took my bags out into the hall. Then I
rushed off to the train station, walking as fast as my vertically-challenged
legs could take me. I arrived at the station with 5 minutes to spare but a
glance at the screen told me the train was delayed by 5 minutes so I had 10
minutes to make the train after all. Phew. Although of course it also meant
that my time in Paestum had been reduced by 5 minutes, should I decide to take
the 1116 train back to Salerno. The train ticket cost €3.30 one way.
When you get down at Paestum, exit
the station and walk towards the arch and walk on for about 700 metres. The
site will be in front of you and you need to turn right and buy your ticket at
the museum.
I made up my mind that I wouldn’t
rush through the site and just enjoy it. I decided I would take the bus back to
Salerno. No way was I going to wait for the next train out at 1406. See,
Paestum is not as large as say, Pompeii, and you should be able to cover it in
90 minutes or so.
In the flower-filled meadows of
Paestum are three perfectly preserved temples: the Temples of Athena, Hera and
Neptune. Paestum began as Poseidonia, the city of Neptune or Poseidon, a colony
found by the Greeks in the sixth century B.C. and taken by the Romans in the
third century B.C.
If you’re going to take the bus back
to Salerno, walk out of the site and walk towards the museum. Walk past the
museum and on for another 400 metres (? I’m not good at measuring distance like
this) until you come to an intersection. About 5 metres from the intersection
is the bus stop back to Salerno. I asked around just to be safe and when I was
sure that I had the right bus stop, sat down to wait. The girl at the bar
opposite the bus stop told me the bus comes on an hourly basis. Fortunately for
me, I waited only 10 minutes before the bus arrived. The fare back was €2.80.
It took 45 minutes to reach Salerno
although when we entered the city, we hit the Saturday lunchtime traffic so the
bus was inching its way slowly. It took another 15 minutes before we reached
the train station. I walked back to my B&B, stopping for a slice of pizza
(lunch). I also bought a huge vegetable pastry for dinner and breakfast the
following morning.
Italians here observed the same
siesta hours as the Spaniards so I returned to the B&B to rest myself too.
The Canadian couple came back just
before 3 and we sat in the living room and chatted with each other. It was fun
to be able to talk to someone else in English. In Galway, the hostel I stayed
at had a lot of Spanish and French backpackers but they were all travelling in
their own groups and they stuck to each other tight, hardly making the effort
to talk to other travellers. So to be able to converse with them was such a
pleasure.
I left at 7:30 pm and bade them
goodbye. I had a night train to catch. I had bought the ticket online for a
berth a few weeks back. And guess what, first the electronic board showed the
train would depart from one platform but when I came out of the washroom, it
showed a different platform instead! So I had to drag my bag down the stairs
and up the stairs to the other platform. FFS. Then when the train came, I had
to go down and up again because I went to wrong coach (the conductor said it
was easier for me to get down and walk on the platform to my coach than to walk
between the coaches). I was so exhausted from all that climbing up and down
that I almost fell off the train after hauling my bag up. Luckily, a girl
managed to grab my hands and pulled me to safety. Then there was some problem
with the door: you need superhuman strength to twist the knob to lock it and
then summon your strength again if you want to open it. Despite feeling tired
and sleepy, I couldn’t sleep well. Of course. Nothing new there.
Sunday, 5 May 2013
We pulled into Milano Centrale (the
Italians pronounce it Chin-tra-lay. They pronounce Barcelona as Bar-chee-lona)
ahead of schedule. I had earlier utilised the tap in the train to brush my
teeth and wash my face and a good thing too. I bought return tickets to
Mendrisio and then went to store my bag at the left luggage. Today was shopping
day! The return ticket to Mendrisio cost €15.
The lady at the ticket office sold me
the 0810 train ticket. The trip would only take slightly more than an hour,
meaning I would reach Mendrisio by 0915 while Foxtown would only open at 11. Oh
well, at least it was a direct train and I wouldn’t need to change trains at
Chiasso.
The ticket office at Mendrisio was
closed on Sunday so I couldn’t wait in the waiting room. I didn’t feel like
exploring the town centre so I spent the time reading my novel. I stopped
reading at 1050 and walked to Foxtown. I hadn't been there in years and was
excited to visit it again after all this time.
There were some free WiFi spots in
the centre so I spent some time checking my tweets in between shops. I tried on
some clothes but most didn’t fit me well. I managed to get some bargains
though. Alhamdulillah.
I decided to return back to Milan
earlier and checked the train schedules online. Took the 1648 train back to
Milan, reached Milano Centrale at 1750 and rushed off to get my bag from the
left luggage to make the 1805 bus to Bergamo Airport. It wasn’t as if I loved
to spend time in airports but I could visit Orio Centre near the airport, get
some dinner and rest there. There were some Juventus fans on the road honking
their cars and flying their club flag on the streets.
Alas, it turned out that it rained
earlier in Milan and was threatening to rain again. I dozed off in the bus and
was not happy when I woke to find that it was raining in Bergamo. It was heavy
enough to make one wet and I didn’t want to lug my bag in the rain getting
unnecessarily wet. So in the end, I spent a longer time at the airport than I
would have liked. And of course I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. Airports
are the worst with their bright lights and noises.
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