Not another travel Blog

We arrived into Milan midday, followed our directions to the hotel and arrived shortly after. The hotel was nice enough, it was real cheap and not to far from the center. You learn quickly in Milan that it's real easy to jump on and off the tram system, after paying for our first journey and seeing no one bothering to check tickets and the way the locals don't bother to validate theirs. We thought we'd do as they do and jump on and off whenever needed.
I'd actually been to Milan before and unlike Rome had been fairly underwhelmed with the place. It seemed to lack a bit of personality and just came across a tiny bit hollow. But saying that i didn't venture out at night as i'd been tired from the days walking so was looking forward to taking a few pictures at the night time.

So with a bottle of wine in hand we headed off for the Duomo to enjoy the sunset and the chance to relax before having to deal with what to do next. It was actually scaffolding free which i was amazed at, the place always seems to be in a state of Restoration/repair. Even the golden statue of Madonnina which the last time i was here was completely boxed off and only imaged through reading about it was on show in all it's glory. It was really nice to see it again and definitely worth a visit at night as the white of the stone makes it all the more impressive when viewed against a pitch black night sky.

The morning came and the start of what turned out to be a horror 24hrs began....



I'd actually left writing all this until it was all in the past and in our memories developed from a horrible 'journey' to what most stories like this do and become a memorable 'experience'.
We'd woken early so to go online and work a route out in getting over to Barcelona, we were thinking Marseille for a night then train out to barca the next day, but that wasn't able to be booked in Italy and had to be done once in France. That was fine we thought, we also looked into maybe going to Bern, Switzerland for a day and night training it the following night. But we'd already had problems booking night trains so close to departure so thought it's probably better to get closer to our eventual destination and to follow the south coast of France.

Train one "Milan - Nice" It started well we'd stocked up on salty snacks and alcoholic beverages, we had a cubicle to ourselves again. For once we had reservations so no chance of getting thrown off. We talked, we laughed, we slept. After 3 hours an overly handsome, didgeridoo playing, English speaking Spanish guy called phillipo joined our cubicle. We spent the next hour talking to him about everything from language to Religion to anime. He'd just come back from a sailing holiday and was just one of those people you wanted to speak to as they were genuinely interesting. He helped pass the time until our destination in Nice.
Train2 "Nice - Marseille" Italy was officially done, we'd swapped train networks, we'd stopped using the 4 or 5 words of italian we knew and swapped them to the 4 or 5 French words we knew. It was a short train, it was something like 2 hours and completely uneventful, bar those two finding it amusing to do anything to stop me falling asleep.

We arrived after 10 at night, to late to be making hostel bookings so it was down to 'do we sleep on the beach, the train station or push on, leave France and get to Barcelona by morning. We worked out we could get a night train heading towards Portugal, get off at Toulouse and then local train it in the morning to Barcelona and have an extra night there. We got to the platform and asked this guy if we could get on this night train, he sort of walked on the train and off it, then back on and then off it. Then said "10 euro's each" and to get on. We sat down getting comfy ready for our 5 and half hours sleep. When some one came up and said they've reserved that seat and showed me the ticket. I obligingly moved and sat somewhere else, then the same thing happened again, then again, this time to sam and lance. It quickly dawned on us we weren't going to have a seat for this train. We ended up stood outside the toilet with some homeless looking dude in the corner. It's past midnight now and we were too warm and tired and the train still hadn't set off. By the way this wasn't like any of the other trains we'd been on up until now. This one was dingy and sweaty, there was crowds of people lying on the floor, there was animals in boxes, it was like a shanty town on tracks.

Lance was somehow in some incredibly good mood and made us laugh for the first hour or so, then tiredness kicks in and legs started to getting itchy. I had to sit down somewhere, i was stood between this toilet door and someones bike and was so restless at this point i had to move. I Decided i'd climb into the top luggage compartment rack, give that go. So i climbed up and tried to get comfy, it's really not designed for people, i can now say that as a fact, and quickly realized that it wasn't a great idea and i should probably get down.
We had to move, we had to sleep, anything to get us out of this position. We walked down the train, banging into sleeping people and stepping over carcases on the floor, and found a little space on the floor for maybe 1 and a half people in the doorway of two adjoining carriages. Lance and Sam kind of huddled together and molded themselves into the space on the floor while i tried to find something similar. The only place i could find was under this double seat. The two people had fallen asleep and leaned there chairs back almost horizontally so as to leave enough space to crawl under. Now i don't know how i'd react if on my way home from manchester some 24 year old, scruffy looking, possibly smelling by this point, person crawled under my seat to get 40 winks but i'd probably either feel sorry for the guy and give him money or ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing. But i was to tired to care and for the next 4 hours drifted in and out of sleep, head on my day bag and my feet dangling into the carriage walkway.
At one point, and this is the gods honest truth, the guys hand,who was sleeping on the chair above me, fell down the side of his chair stopping inches from my face. At the same time (i was listening to my ipod for most the journey) the song "hobo blues" by Seasick Steve came on. I sat up and looked at Lance who was awake and had one of those laughs that you can only do when everything gone completely to shit.


We got off in Toulouse after very little proper sleep laughing out heads off. It's what i imagine altitude sickness to be like. Our bodies felt like crap and yet everything was hilarious to us as we recapped over the journey we just had, yet the funniest thing was we'd only done 2/3rd's of the route.
It was half 6 and another 2 trains to go. The next one to Nabonne was Luxury we had seats and space and as we pulled into our destination the sun had begun to rise.

Train 5 "Nabonne - Barcelona" The last train. It would arrive in Barca at 12.05 almost 24hours to the minute from when we set off on the tram from our Milan hotel. It was spent in a state of sleep and reflection from the journey just done. Bear grylls may be able to survive in a desert with just a twig but there was no way he'd of got off them trains....especially with a smile on his face :D

Barcelona's been good and i think we're fully recouped, Valencia tomorrow morning. Hopefully get a chance to write it up on route.