Arriving in Ventimiglia, our first real border stop from France (Monaco was also on the way) into Italy, I was pleased to see a clear difference between the Italian locals and the French I had left behind. It’s true that there’s a real sense of Mediterranean life along the Côte d’Azur, with quite laid-back people all there to soak up the sun and wine, but these locals seemed even more so. The Carabinieri on the platform when we pulled up looked so relaxed they almost seemed asleep, even the sniffer dog didn’t seem bothered that 15 sweaty backpackers had just arrived. No one moved, no passports checked, just some cheery ‘ciaos’ and a ‘benvenuti’.
After dropping off our bags with the guide in mind, we set out to explore for an hour before catching the next train. Having spent the better part of the previous hour practicing ordering a cappuccino in Italian, I was eager to try it. We found a sidewalk cafe and sat down. To my amazement, the waiter understood my order on the first try and brought me the coffee. He was still smiling when we got back on the train.
The journey to the Cinque Terre takes you through countless tunnels carved into the cliffs that hang over jagged rocks and pebble beaches. Every time we found ourselves in the dark, the curtains billowing madly on the open windows, I could still see the blue water imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. Nowhere else have I experienced that effect.
We and the locals were chatting amongst ourselves until a guy asked me where we are going in Italian. I answer Rio Maggiore. Then he asks me where we are all from. I explain that I am a tour guide and my group is all from all over the world. He goes to Calabria to see his mother and he is from Milan. He works there in a car factory. Another lady opens her cooler to share some iced coffee in little plastic espresso cups with the 2 Korean girls in my group, and another pulls out some sweet ‘dolce’ cakes to share with the Canadian girls.
Of all my European train travels, I have found that the Italians are the most generous with backpackers, in terms of communication and sharing the contents of their thermal bags. Especially on the train that goes to Calabria from the north.
I once spent the stretch between Pisa and Rome stuck in a hallway with a 60-year-old, a phrase book, and a lot of sign language. He was very interested in telling me his family history and was very impressed that a Kiwi from ‘lontano’ was trying to speak Italian. He even gave me grammar lessons and corrected my pronunciation. That never happened on a French train.
Most recently, on the train to Florence from Pisa, I sat next to a girl from Romania and received a full itinerary of what to see and do in Florence from the guy across from her in Italian. The interesting thing was that she only spoke a few words, but she seemed to catch most of what she was saying. It was great to see the passion that she was talking about in what was obviously her hometown.
On one trip I managed to fulfill the wishes of a rather shy Chinese girl who had a thing for men in uniform. She was trying to collect as many photos of them as possible from all over Europe. Some guys from the Italian Navy had gotten on La Spezia, obviously from the naval base there, headed for Rome along with a couple of guys from the Air Force. They were filling the aisle outside the dining car, laughing and shouting, all too willing to pose for a couple of photos with my now red-faced passenger. We thought we had hit the jackpot when they saw some army guys on the platform at Ostiense in Rome, but they were waiting for another train. She got a photo through the window instead.
The most frustrating time on trains may be Florence SMN. The letters could easily mean “so many new platforms” instead of Santa Maria Novella, since they have the annoying hobby of changing tracks. You have to listen to the announcements very carefully. They do them in both English and Italian, but as soon as a train is late, they start shuffling the rest of the platforms like a deck of cards. One day, with a group of 12 people, we were waiting an additional 45 minutes for the train to Venice, which was supposed to arrive on track 11, then track 9, then back on track 11 at the last minute. We broke the rules and ended up throwing packages across the train tracks to the final car while the guard blew his whistle for departure and we had a few stragglers who hadn’t heard the change walking back from the snack bar. Everyone did it with a final sprint.
By contrast, in Venice, the train guard was very accommodating when I lost an American passenger between the baggage hold and the train in the short space of about 10 minutes. I explained to him that I was late and he smiled, said that he was fine and waited 5 more minutes with me. He eventually touched his watch and we had to leave it. This was the last train from Italy to Austria that day, so he wasn’t sure when he would see her again. When I finally did, she had an amazing adventure to tell, but that’s another story.
For point-to-point travel, you can’t beat Italian trains for good value, not just price, because with a train ticket you get so much more than just a seat. Sometimes you don’t even get a seat, especially if it’s mid-August, but you do have a fantastic opportunity to experience local culture that you just can’t get on a guidebook or inside a bus.