Adventures in Italy: Departure and Arrival

On friday afternoon Christine and I took the train to Paris Gare (Station) de Lyon.  From there we needed to walk the one or two blocks to the Bercy Gare, where our night train would depart.  I inquired at the ticket office in Besançon as to how to reach the Bercy Gare, and the man told me it was simple, just "exit the Gare de Lyon and walk to your left."  Pretty vague.  So when we arrived at the Gare de Lyon, I asked again at their ticket office.  "Simple," the woman said, "just exist the station and walk to your right."  "To my right?" I asked, just to be sure.  "Yes, yes, to the right." she replied, annoyed.  So we did as she said and after a lot of hurried walking, lo and behold it was in fact to the left. We really had to put it into gear and rush in the opposite direction to make it to Bercy on time.  Did the woman misdirect us on purpose?  It sure felt like it.    

Thankfully it was easy to find Kate at Bercy and we all boarded the train without any problems.  Disappointingly, we were all in different cars and different rooms.  Sleeping/riding in 2nd class, we were six people to a room, with two permanent beds up top and seating on each side which converted into four beds, so three on each side.  It was a cozy fit.  Thankfully I had a bed up top, where there was enough room to sit up if you wanted.  

At first there were eight people in the room!- me, a girl my age from Canada, two french women, and two large women with babies.  The large women, were, in my opinion, nearly too large for the seats or the beds, and they had babies to boot!  What were we going to do?  Well they weren't happy about it either, so they complained and got a room to themselves.  I think everyone breathed a sigh of relief at that point.  

They gave us a free bottle of water, and there was a blanket and a pillow for the bed, but that was about it.  I made peanut butter sandwiches in advance to eat for dinner and breakfast, so that was good.  Sleeping on the night train was nice enough, except that the train made a lot of noise, it heaved and rocked a good bit, and it often went through tunnels where the pressure on your ears was enough to wake you up.  But other than that, a good night's sleep.  It was actually kind of fun, especially since I had the Canadian girl to talk to.  

In the morning the Canadian girl and I went to the dining car together, and without us asking they served us breakfast, which I was happy to eat but less happy to pay 7 euro for.  Oh well it was a good breakfast and the view from the car was fantastic, you could really tell it was Italy and not France or Germany or Spain or anywhere else!  Rolling green hills, vineyards, Italian looking red roofed houses, roaming livestock- really beautiful.  

14 hours after we boarded in Paris, we arrived in Rome.  Kate and Christine and I met up outside the train and walked the short distance to our hostel, "The Yellow".  It was too early to check in, so we just put our bags in the luggage room and went next door to the "Yellow bar" to have a cafe and plan our day....