Southbound

I'd thought that this morning I might have another walk to the Basilica Sant Antonio, where my time was rushed on Saturday, but it was 8°C and raining and I had life/blip-admin to do, coffee to make and drink, food to prepare for today's 8½-hour train journey and a conversation to have with one of the friendly US missionaries who've been in the same Airbnb as me for the last two nights. Sant Antonio can wait - I'm pretty sure I'll be back.

When I arrived at the station, clad in waterproof jacket over down jacket and badly in need of gloves, and looked up at all the destinations on the board, the excitement of adventure kicked in (I've only just realised that 'adventure' means 'what is to come').

My train was as trains should be: 'standard' seats as wide as and more comfortable than UK first class seats, luggage racks above the seats large enough even for hefty baggage, space below seats to tuck smaller bags, live route maps displayed along the train with scheduled and expected arrival times at each station then, before the train pulled into each station, a listing of all the connecting trains with their times and platforms. Civilised.

South through Ferrara and Bologna, I was deep in timetables, planning my next few days and seeing whether the shortage of transport on Liberation Day on 25th would foil me (it won't), but it feels sacrilegious to arrive in Florence and leave again 15 minutes later as if there was no such thing as a Brunelleschi dome, so I checked my map to see which side of the train it was on, looked out and... there it was! From Florence I feasted on gorgeous Tuscany, by now with sun filtering through the storm clouds.

And on to Rome for a full 22 minutes (sorry Colosseum).

Hours later, as darkness fell, travelling down the coast with an extraordinarily luminous pale blue sea, I had an idiotic whim to try a sunset cliché from a moving train. Guaranteed failure but I wanted to record that blue.

The train was due in to my stop, Villa San Giovanni, at 21.24 giving me a comfortable 36 minutes for the 8-minute walk to my B&B before check-in closed. We'd gradually been falling more and more behind schedule and when I realised that we were half an hour late, I anxiously messaged the B&B owner, hoping not to be locked out.

"Tranquilla," he replied, "passo dalla stazione alla 21,50."
Such kindness to come and collect me. And isn't 'tranquilla' just such a fabulous way to say, 'don't worry'?


Extras:
- Two more self-indulgent takes on the sunset
- The art of Florence
- The architecture of Florence