Taking public transportation throughout Europe the past two months has been relatively easy without many hitches until I got to Italy. I guess with the carefree/easy going Italian attitude they don't really care about times of trains or tickets on buses. I am not as uptight as I used to be but I have become used to trains arriving on time and if you are a minute late you are out of luck. The thought of a huge fine for not having a ticket doesn't sound enjoyable to me.
My good travel luck all changed when we were told that it was easier and faster to get to Lake Garda from Verona by bus not train and that you buy your ticket on board. We climbed on the bus in the pouring rain and tried to buy a ticket, except the driver kept saying something in Italian (which i obviously didnt understand) and would ignore us when we tried to give money. We went and sat down on the bus and tried to pay again at the next stop without any luck. By this point the driver ignored me completely. I sat down with a sign staring at me in the face saying police could get on board and you would get a 50 euro ($75) fine without a proper ticket. There were lots of signs on the bus but this sign was the only one in English. Two Italian guys sitting behind me could tell I was worried so one explained in Italian with the other one translating that I didn't have to worry I didn't need a ticket and the cops probably wouldn't come on board today and the driver wasn't selling them (I still don't know why). We survived and made it to Lake Garda.
Leaving Lake Garda we ran into more hickups in traveling when the train we wanted to Milan to get to Cinque Terre was full. This was the first time on my entire trip I had run into a full train. He got us a ticket to another Milan station and then told us to take another train to the central station to get our connection. Well it just so happened that our first train was 20 minutes late. As a result we missed the train to Milan central. Thank goodness they had another train in 45 minutes and we were originally supposed to have an hour layover in Milan. Well with all our luck on this travel day this train went from 5 mins delayed to 20. If it was going to be 20 we had missed our train reservation. Thankfully it ended up being 15 minutes delayed instead. Our train hit the platform and we ran like bats out of hell. We had 3 minutes to find what track our train was on and run for it. We made it on the train and within a minute our one on time train of the day pulled away with us panting.The Italian train fun didn't end here.
Along the cinque terre we have quickly learned that these trains aren't on time. They come when they want, are delayed, and maybe cancelled.Hopefully our luck will turn with the trains being a little more dependable like the rest of Europe. What I have learned time and time again is that you haveto be flexible to whatever is thrown at you. Things don't always work out how you want or think they will.
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