Wednesday 03/11/2010

Sunshine!!!! Into the shower and no hot water. Called reception and the male receptionist told me he's be up in a minute - didn't know what he was going to do.  He was up in a few minutes - with a pot of hot water. Explained that it was the shower which I had told him when I called - language problems. Off to the train station at 8.30am because the taxi arrived earlier than booked. We were ready anyway.  Spoke to a staff member at SNCF (train station) who said he had been to Australia. He really had because he had been to Gosford, Newcastle and mentioned other towns up the NSW coast. He suggested we catch the earlier train which was leaving in 10 minutes (8:53am) instead of the one we had planned to catch at 9:44am. Glad we did because our next connection in Monaco Monte Carlo we would not have made.  We only had enough time to go the the bathroom between trains. From there it was on the Ventimiglia and instead of 24 minutes we only had about 12 minutes of dragging cases up and down stairs. We had reserved seats from Ventimiglia to Genova and as we hurried to get on board a fellow having his last cigareete said "I'll put that on for you" and lifted my suitcase on. We found our allocated seats in a compartment with 4 others. One was the fellow (John) who put my bag on and he and his partner (Samantha) were from Brisbane.  The other couple, Jade and Dallas were from Kansas, USA. The were 2 separate couples and much younger than our kids however we had an enjoyable trip and chatted. We left them in Genova and boarded our last train for the day and arrived in Mongelia at 3:25pm.  About a 10 minute walk from the station was Abbadia San Giorgio - an old Franciscan monastry which has been converted to accommodation.  The room was amazing - 6m x 6m with 4m ceilings, tiled floor with lovely rugs and funished with antique furniture.