|
You last saw the intrepid travellers finally reaching Paris. I won’t bore you with all the details, but we managed to make our way across France down to the south coast.
After Marseille we travelled along the coast to Cannes and Monaco. Monte Carlo was an interesting stop. We had decided that to stay the night in the town was going to be too expensive. So we planned to see the sights then continue our journey to Rapallo. The first problem we encountered was a lack of locker areas for our backpacks. Forced with having to lug our bags around for the day we proceeded to depart the station. Now let me tell you that Monaco has one of the finest train stations I have seen. The only bad thing I will say is that it is rather confusing which exit to take (well it was for us anyway). We managed to exit the station at the top of the hill to the city. It was only till we traversed the steep winding street leading down to the main harbour for thirty or so minutes, that we found another exit to the station. To get to this one all we had to do was to stand on a travelling walkway for ten minutes, but oh well; at least we got some exercise.
Heading on from Monaco we arrived at our first stop in Italy, the picturesque town of Rapallo. We arrived in the dead of night (Well, why would we break with tradition?), and the heavens had opened up with one of the heaviest downpours we had witnessed, but eventually we got into a hotel, although completely sodden. The next day we planned to hike up to a famous church ‘Sanctuary of Nostra Signora di Montallegro’. The inside of this place is completely covered with gilding, and well worth the trip. We began the climb after breakfast, on a cloudy but hot day. After an hour into the climb we noticed it was becoming quite dark, the clouds now looking black and heavy with rain. We made good time (partly helped by the sounds of thunder getting gradually closer) and got to the top around lunchtime. By this time it had started to rain. We looked around the church and had something to eat in the cafe nearby. When we got out the rain was really coming down. Because we planned to catch a train later that afternoon, we could not afford to wait out the weather. So we made a dash for it. We got about a hundred yards before being wet to the bone (Did I mention we were in shorts and t-shirts, and the rain was cold?). After realising the path we had previously climbed was now a small stream, we dived under a bus shelter a short way down the hill and decided to wait for the next bus. It eventually arrived and we ventured out from under our shelter, only to get to the door of the bus and find about thirty old age pensioners slowly disembarking. We had to wait for every one of them to get to the doorway, pull out their umbrella and slowly climb off. By the time we got on we were so wet we were probably carrying our own body weight in water absorbed in what little clothing we had adorned. We eventually got back to our hotel, changed into something a little drier, and headed for the station once more.
|
 |
Back to chapter 1 - Ou Est Paris? |
|
Forward to chapter 3 - Hell Train To Florence |
 |
|
