My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

Our couchette (cuşetă in Romanian) was already occu­pied by 2 Romanian men and one teen­age lad (one of their sons?) already in bed when we got on at Brasov, so quite strange shar­ing such a small space with 3 people we had­n’t met and wer­en’t sure we shared any com­mon lan­guage with. 

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9.00am Greek train book­ing office, Athens: “No, I can­’t give you reser­va­tions on the train  Bucharest.  I have only 3 beds and I must sell them.  But you can buy in Thessaloniki.  The Romanians have more — it’s easy” 1.30pm Larissa train sta­tion, Athens.  Inernational book­ing office opens: “No train to Bucharest” “Why?” “I don’t know!”

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Sunday 19^th Venazia to Bologna Our first loc­al, sup­ple­­ment-free train! An early rise at 6am and break­fast of corn­flakes, white sliced toast and straw­berry jam at “Sleep Cheap at Francesca’s B&B”, whilst the own­ers slept in the liv­ing room, giv­ing over their two large bed­rooms to pay­ing guests. I slept badly as can­­non-like fire­works boomed […]

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After a 4 hour break­down (we were told 5 minutes 2 hours ago — no-one really knows what the prob­lem is) we’re mov­ing on through the edge of the Alps, past Lake Maggiore, towards Milan. The plus side of the delay is that we travel this sec­tion in day light, eat­ing our break­fast of pain au chocolat.

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