The Brenner pass is closed at the moment. It is a pain for rail traffic wanting to enter into north east Italy. Unknown to most folks, this includes a LOT of freight and a lot of passenger services.

It will be resolved in several more months. In the meantime, it is a reason to take alternatives to the most direct services to Italy, should you need an excuse to go over the Alps via Lake Geneva then Brig, and drop down into Milan via Domodossola.

While that journey is one I have done before and will happily do again, taking a wildly different version to complete the circle anti-clockwise around Yerp was my new friend on this journey. Turin to Ventimiglia is gorgeous – 3 hours of blue skies and the Ligurian mountains. Then an hour along the Ligurian coast, to reach the last railway station in Italy on the coastal border. Half an hour in the railway buffet* then the French railway service to Nice. It hugs the coast all the way – another hour of seaside and blue skies (except the 5 minutes that travel through Monaco, which, to save land, is all in a tunnel).

Then an hour to potter around Nice station – well, 40 minutes and then you can board the high speed train to Paris. 5 hours 30 minutes later, Paris! The first two hours are around more of the coast, up to Aix en Provence. There were two fellow passengers who, like me, were stuck into a book but also well stuck into the scenery, agog at how gorgeous the route is.

After Aix en Provence TGV station, the driver comes on to the PA system, saying were about to travel between 200-300 km/hr for the rest of he journey, which he does hope is very pleasant. Then he sticks his right foot down and voooooom!

(I am aware that a train does not accelerate by the driver stamping on the pedal).

*This trip, which has mostly been spent in Italy, has been a super reminder to me that, in Italy, there is pretty much always a little cafe at or next to the station. There is always a way to get an espresso, usually for about a euro, with a shot glass of water as a chaser. Even the vending machines freshly grind beans and there is always a vending machine if there is no cafe.

It has been my absolute pleasure to go to lots of museums and stations and there is always a cafe or seating area with vending machines. At some pont, I lost some confidence with going in to a cafe. I really am not sure why. I really enjoy it. So, I have now enjoyed an espresso at the little hatch cafe on the Circumvesuviana railway that links Naples to Herculaneum, Pompeii and Sorrento. I have sought out the cafes/vending areas at Pompeii and Herculaneum sites, the Etruscan Museum in Rome, the Egyptian museum in Turin, the railway stations at Ivrea and at Ostia Antica. I didn’t go in the cafe at Ostia Antica site as I’d taken pack-up and ate it in the old Roman theatre, as many locals would have when it was a working theatre (it was abandoned in the 4th century CE).

The Etruscan museum in Rome is wonderful for many reasons. It is in a beautiful 18th century Palazzo building. You can take a tram to get there. It has an excellent collection and is really well curated to be educational and instructive and also show off what brilliant craftsmen and traders the Etruscans were. There is a seating area with vending machines at the back of one of the courtyard gardens. I was about to buy a Lavazzo caffe macchiato from the machine when a member of stafff walked in. I was faffing with getting coins out of my purse so told him to go ahead. He had checked wih his colleagues whether anyone else wanted a coffee, then he asked me. I wasn’t sure if I had misunderstood so I explained that I was just getting my money. He then offered, in excellent English – with a New York accent (the New York accent is reckoned to be a derivative of Dutch and italian accents – you can definitely hear it in certain parts of Italy and northern Netherlands) that he would buy me a coffee – he gets staff discount on the machine with a key, so would get me one. I offered to reimburse him and he refused, it being his pleasure to buy a round of coffees. So, I got to enjoy staff break time for a few minutes.

I noticed this all round Italy – people travelling on the railway often offering to buy coffees for railway staff as a gesture of thank you and camderaderie, for example. I feel bad I didn’t cotton on to this for the guy who hung around Herculaneum station – he doesn’t actually work there but hangs around to provide a direction service to tourists in Italian and English as the two members of staff who do work there sit in the ticket office and do not seem to leave it (I remember one of the chaps from our trip there in 2018 – he is still there, chain-smoking in the ticket office, the most nicotine-stained moustache I have seen – that is what I remember, plus the general 1970s vibe of the ticket office that the persistent smoking gave).

The non-employee in the foyer was very helpful and actually encouraging ‘You need a ticket? Over there. You’re gong to Napoli? Naples? Platform 1, that staircase, next train in 11 minutes. Let’s go!…’ He then very shyly asked for any tips – I didn’t have any change but I could have bought him a coffee from the machine (contactless is everywhere!) I now realise. The railway workers didn’t seem to mind him being there, chain-smoking in the office being no threat to continued employment, so having a helper working for drinks and tips didn’t seem to be, either.

I have also learned a lot about art and about dead people this week. I have been taking an art history degree so seeing some of the art and periods of history has been really good. Going back to old friends of Pompeii and Herculaneum with more of an idea as to how stories, scultpture and art were part of people’s lives and how ancient Greek and Roman cultures influenced the Renassaince and the Dutch Golden Age have been fascinating.

Right, the Eurostar is pulling into St Pancras. Time for a cup of tea (back in Blighty) and another sandwich (this week, I have mostly been eating sandwiches – so happy) then the final train after 9 days and 15 other trains (not including metros, which I have taken in 3 cities this week, trams in 2 cities).

See ya,

Cxx