Day 31: Meiringen to Florence

Today was going to be epic. I had followed the advice of a friend from home (well a trusted patient actually) and decided to go the 'scenic' route on this journey. This advice turned out to go against the locals who I was staying with, so I umm-ed and ahhh-ed for ages deciding what to do. Even during the day I was ready to change routes, especially if I missed a connection. The quick way would have saved quite a few train changes and cut about 3-4 hours off the journey.... BUT I had already bought a specific ticket for the other journey, and even though the boys said it would be mostly tunnels, they had not been on the second part of the detour to tell me what it's like. 

I went with the long way round option.

This meant leaving Meiringen at 5:15 and using a total of 9 different trains to arrive in Florence 12 hours later.... And I did it! Each connection only had about 5-10mins between them (plus 1-2 with an hour break) but I made every single one, stress free, without a hassle. Every station I had to change at was really quiet and simple, you didn't feel the crazy hustle of the bigger stations, so it made the change overs calm, making for the feeling of one nice continuous trip, rather than 9 stressy ones. Best of all, I didn't have my ticket checked on a single one of them! (Even though one of the Italian trains had police on board checking the passports and bag contents for what looked like every man on board suspiciously... But they didn't even look at me).

This was extremely well executed considering I had had a total of 2 hours sleep the night before.... Due to getting up early for the train, and having that social night the evening before with the housemates, and then needing to pack afterwards!!

Anyway, the trains themselves were WELL WORTH THE DETOUR. Yes there was a tunnel at the start which meant that I did miss a few mountains, but after Domodossola (briefly in Italy, before train lands in Switz again), the scenery was like I had never imagined, for me like out of a childhood dream. The train ran endlessly through a valley of beautiful trees up both sides, covered in the rain and it was like a huge hidden place. 'twas so so lovely for me to see this, all the way to Locarno. And then the rest of Switzerland and the start of Italy also amazed me, i really didn't expect so much lush scenery and mountains after leaving the alps. i really want to go back and explore these places on foot. so isolated (hardly a house in sight) yet beautiful. And It was a misty, damp, light rainy day outside, which added so   much to the atmosphere :)

And here's a shit attempt at capturing that vibe

So the serenity I had been feeling all day was quickly taken from me on exiting the train in Florence. So much smog and chemical smells at that station, and scorching humidity and heat (where as the rest of the day had been nice cool with the rain on the hills). And to make things worse, I reckon about half of the people on the train lit up a cigarette within seconds of getting off the train. Yuck yuck yuck, and busy. So I somehow survived the horrible air (so painful after breathing in the clean clean mountain air) and got on a bus (the right one) to get me quickly to my accommodation. Missed the stop of course and had to walk a little bit, but then I find no one there and had to wait about 45 minutes until the owner finally arrived to let me in. Not happy. (Was waiting on a dusty aired street, no respite). And then! This excitable Italian "business" man, spend the best part of an hour going over everything with me. It was so so difficult, all I wanted was to go to the bathroom, unpack, rest and go to dinner (he talked until 715). I was delirious. But he was being 'helpful' so I has to endure his constant chatter (you know those ones who try to help you but don't really listen to you) of things like showing me how to turn the stove on, how to light a mosquito coil, how to use a key in a door and all this stupid shit. Some was important, but it could have been done in a fifth of the time. And then he started on the city tourist advice. This came with maps and printed out importation that he has compiled. Which had been done well, so why did he need to go through every single thing on there and explain them all over and draw more maps?!?! If its on the paper, please save you and me the effort of explaining only that which you have already given me!! 

Wow it was a tough end to a long and otherwise delightful day (I must say I had been missing long train journeys - all my others had been much shorter or more hassled.

So he finally left and I got my shit together and went out, in a daze, to find food. 

Old old bridge that has a huge swagger of Florentine history engrained in it.... Old butchers and such used to work there, secret passages for the towns leader to take to and from work etc.. And now is a tourist sight, but stilla gorgeous old bridge with shops fit in the middle.

Accidently landed at the flashiest place in town for dinner. But once you're in you can't get out! Never mind, seafood spaghetti it is!! And what a doozy! Octopus, squid, prawns, baby lobster thing on top (one is a prawn and one is a lobster), mussels, clams and scallops! Wow! Sad to say I couldn't quite finish this dish but it was huge!! Also had a entree of mozzarella and prosciutto on crisp bread.... First Italian feast!! Followed by icecream on the way home of course. By now I was still delirious and tired and now stupidly full on top of it.