ITALY: Our Interesting Train Trip from ROME to BOLOGNA

We weren’ sure what Bologna would be like but having been given lots of great reviews and web links about the city from Alison and Rob, who had travelled there the previous year as part of Rob’s PhD funding, we were far from disappointed.  

 

Essentially Bologna is a small city with a population of just under 400,000 and what stood out for us was the food, wine, cheeses, olives and other fresh produce (mouth watering) and where Bolognaise and Bologna sausage originated.  More famously it is noted for its culture, art, history, learning centre and medieval architecture, markets and high end shopping.  

The Historical Centre, surrounded by Circon Vallazione (Ring Road) is a ZTL ie. Restricted Traffic Area with the very centre closed off to traffic 24 hours a day except for emergency vehicles.  And who doesn’t love Pedestrian friendly zones especially when it comes to sightseeing and doing the tourist thing.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna)

 

For us we have around 4 hours on the train to look forward to including a short stopover in Florence for about 15-20 minutes to change trains.  And as usual, being the cautious and always guarded travellers that we are, it goes without saying that we have a story to tell about this train journey.  

When we say “guarded”, for us it means looking out for each other, keeping our bags with us at all times, looking out for pickpockets and gypsy scammers who prey on the most unsuspecting people.  Upon leaving Rome this young scruffy woman walks down the aisle struggling with a “super huge” piece of luggage.  Behind her is an American bloke telling her to put it between the seats.  Turns out - the luggage was his, and the girl (yes, she was a Gypsy) had asked him for money in exchange for carrying his bag onto the train.  Fair enough you might think. 

But wait!  Like most long distance trains, the “Intercity” train we were travelling on has a Baggage Area as you hop into the carriage.  Beyond that are the seats.  People freely use the baggage areas because the overhead luggage racks are narrow or folks have more baggage than will fit at their feet or overhead.  Well, we didn’t really have a problem with the “Money in Exchange for carrying Luggage” arrangement EXCEPT… once on the train, Gypsies have been known to make a dash off the carriage with someone else’s luggage from the Baggage Area in the moments before the train leaves that station.  If distracted travellers don’t realise their luggage is missing until they get to their destination…and that could be hours later.  What we objected to was that this guy “ALLOWED” the girl to get onto the train and there was an opportunity for her.  As far as we know the opportunity didn’t happen, and Florence wasn’t the last stop for this train.  Probably better that we didn’t know either!  But we had to change trains at Firenze Centrale for Bologna regardless.

This time the train from Firenze to Bologna was more like one of the old “Red Rattlers”, and just like those from back in the day, we had to share our compartment.  Probably only one of the downsides of “free” train trips on Eurail Passes, but who is complaining? Besides it’s a good way of meeting people and striking up interesting conversations (…nice change instead of us yabbering on with each other all the time).

In saying that, we’ve met some really friendly people in shared train spaces.  This trip was no exception.  After settling into our seats, thinking we had the whole 6-berth to ourselves it wasn’t long before we were joined by the Diez family from Medellin, Columbia - Dad, Mum, daughter Adriana and son David.  There was no awkwardness at all and in a short time we had struck up conversations with Adriana and David who had a good command of English (and for us to practice our limited Spanish with Mum and Dad).  They had all been on business to Milan.  And we were assured that their “business” trip to Italy was related to their clothing trade in Medellin.  The sad part about meeting the Diez family was the short train trip because we could have talked much longer, forever…. and we could have easily bypassed Bologna station.  We look forward to our email exchanges and for some of those Columbian recipes.  Una hermosa familia, tales.

***   Memo to Self: Add MEDILLIN, COLUMBIA to our bucket list. ( PS. The Bucket is now the size of a 44-gallon drum).

  

And so the Travel Adventures continue.  Next from Bologna.  See Ya.

Liz and Tony

Bologna Centrale by Day