10’s and 2’s.

I am not sure if this is travel or ramblings and actually I debated with myself whether I should write this post at all……I like to be positive and not spend a lot of time bogged down in hours or days that are better let pass by. But, I thought, if you are going to document all the 10’s and shine a light on all the wonderful days we’ve had on this trip, it’s maybe worthwhile to fellow travellers to also write about the 2’s. Because we are all going to have them.

Blogs and Facebook posts, Instagrams and Chats really are just the reels of our great days and great moments. We don’t spend a lot of time posting about the crappy days, or the difficult moments and of course, that’s not the whole picture. In life, marriages, families, friendships and travel – there are shitty times. There are frustrations and sad times. One of the many benefits of old age (yes I said, one of the many benefits – I really kind of like this old age thing) is that we know these moments, days or whatever they are, shall pass – the clouds will clear and the sun will come out again. Often – sooner than later.

Enough preamble. Yesterday in our travel adventure. The day was a two – at best.

While we were at Barqueiros, both Jim and I came down with head colds. Nothing major – just sniffles, and feeling crappy. I think it was kind of like Christmas holidays in my work life. You would go all out for the month of December; work at school and at home 14 to 16 hours a day. Finally Christmas holidays would arrive, you’d slow down and get sick. Not sure of the science, but it happened most years.

Okay, so we have head colds, no biggie. I also ran out of my hair gel that I have been rationing so carefully. So now I don’t only feel like hell – I look like hell. It’s time to leave Barqueiros (which we really did enjoy) and catch the plane to Rome. Done – airports are never my favourite 5 hours but doable, good flights and we make it.

We tuck into our little Airbnb in Fiumicino, the city where the Rome airport is and we’ll head into Rome in the morning. Our host was a sweetheart and gave us instructions on what to see, and where to catch the 9:10 bus to Rome and showed us to our bed. In the morning, we walked the 20 or 25 minutes to catch the bus and stood for half an hour waiting for it to come – “No” we learn from a little old man sitting on the bench “it was early this morning and left before 9.” Okay then – that’s okay – we’ll take the next one. It’s two and a half hours – we are feeling still quite crappy and I’m looking very-flat-hair-crappy. “let’s take an Uber – the heck with waiting.” So E60 later we are in Rome Termini train station.

Things roll along quite well for awhile. We have coffee, get our seats booked for Naples and some reservations ahead for future trips (with a train pass – travel is free and you don’t need tickets but on high speed trains you have to reserve your seat). and jump on the train to Naples. It was a nice train – good trip- almost there. Next we have to take the regional train from Naples to San Agnello -where our Airbnb is based to see the Amalfi Coast. So after doing a bit of wondering and asking some helpful folk, we find the Garabaldi station where the regional trains run…down, down, downstairs, platform one, and here comes the train. When it rolled to a stop and the doors opened it felt like we were in a mob trying to escape a fire. People pushed by us and we both just kind of let them and ambled along to get on the train. Not smart. This is why.

There are not only no seats – there was no room to stand, no room for luggage and it was hotter than the hubs of hell. We jammed ourselves into a corner with our backpacks on and our extra bags at our feet and away we went. The train stopped every 5 to 10 minutes with much jerking and swaying and our stop was an hour and a half away. We can do this. Or can we? 45 minutes in we were fading fast- we looked at each other and said – let’s get off at the next stop – we’ll call an Uber – can’t do this. So off we got. We went into the little station and asked about Uber – no Uber – no bus- maybe a taxi. Some guy ambled over and told us he was a taxi driver – no meter- no emblem – he’d take us for 100E. Nope. Not happening. We sat on the bench and had a “meeting” and decided to get back on the next train and suck it up. So we did. It was just as crowded – no seats, no room, not even the corner we had last time. We can do this – we hung on to a pole and counted down the stops – finally – ours was next. Yes!!! We pushed our way to the door – train stopped – the button to open the door turns green when’s its safe to open the door – no green – still no green – we pushed the damn button anyway – didn’t open and away goes the train again. What the hell?

We ride the train to the next stop – run to the door – light turns green – out we go -but now we have to get back 4 or 5 kilometres to where we live just 1 block from the train station (where the train didn’t stop). We find a taxi, ask the rate and the driver tells us E4 for our bags plus the meter. He’s ripping us off and we knew it – quite famous for taxi drivers in the area – but at this point we just wanted to get “home”. He pulled up in front of our little Airbnb and said 20E will cover it. The meter said $4.75. We argued and he said he forgot to turn on the meter, it will be 20E. We are too tired to argue. We hand over 20E and know that next time we will settle the rate prior to getting in and we will make damn sure the meter is running.

We meet our sweet, sweet host, Carmen, for our Airbnb and she introduces us to our apartment, gives us the tour and the keys and we settle in and unpack. We like it, it will serve us well. We turn on the tap and no water – what? We message Carmen and she came right over and said she had to call a plumber and she’ll have to move us. So we pack everything up again and follow Carmen to another suite.

Nothing horrible- no one hurt – but not a great travel day. We still feel a bit crappy – I still look flat-hair-ugly and we are tired. A two out of ten. Those days happen. Not a lot of wonderful pictures to share or views to report on!

To end our day we walked down the street to a little family pizza joint. We went in and visited with the family – the son spoke some English and helped a lot. They were great. We ended up having one of the best meals of the trip so far. I had a lemon pasta and Jim had a delicious pizza. When it was time for dessert I asked if their tiramisu had nuts. They spent a lot of time fussing and worrying about whether it did or nut. I could understand some of the discussion and Mom was sure maybe cacao was a nut- I tried to tell them no worries we didn’t really need dessert anyway. When we got up to leave the Dad came out with a gift for both of us. A tiramisu for me and he said to Jim- we were wanting you to have something sweet so we made this for you without nuts. Take it home and enjoy. It was a hot fruit pizza. We loved and it and felt so honoured they had taken the time to make it. It restored our faith in people over the pushy train people and the crooked cabbies. There are wonderful Italian people. We went to bed happy

So I guess the moral of this long diatribe of whining is that even in wonderful adventures, there are hours and some days that aren’t wonderful, but they pass and hopefully tomorrow – our colds will be better and I’ll find some hair gel and the Amalfi Coast will be all we think it’s going to be.

Lights from our terrace.