Train to Lamezia

Wednesday was a travel day. The wonderful Balzottis picked us up just after 8:30am to take us to the subway. They're going to use our car while we're gone; its ZTL pass will help them pick up their daughter downtown and take her to the airport. Even though it wasn't a holiday, there was almost no traffic on the way to the subway, and the subway itself was pretty empty. It's called fare il ponte--when there's a holiday, the Italians often take the next day off. That's the ponte. It literally means "make a bridge". This was a BIG ponte, since there were still three working days in the week. 

We got to the Termini train station almost an hour early for our 10:10am train to Lamezia, which is south in Calabria. The train itself was quite full. Thank goodness for reserved seats, but there isn't much room to maneuver -- think coach class on an airplane.

It was a five hour ride, which was pretty pleasant for being somewhat cramped. There is one faster train trip (3.5 hours), but it leaves about 6:30am, which was not appealing. We sat in a group of four seats; the other two were a man and a woman (not connected to each other), with whom we had some very nice conversation. She in particular was quite vivacious. We sure would love to have her show up in our ward. She works in a private nursery and loves children. Just before we arrived, she started to doll herself up. She even put on deodorant! 

The Italian countryside is always gorgeous, and the last hour of the ride was mostly right alongside the ocean. We were on the wrong side of the car to get a good photo, but you can see a bit here:

It was rainy when we left, but the further south we got, the more the sun came out. When we arrived in Lamezia just after 3pm, it was quite pleasant. Our hotel was just a block from the train station. It costs only 60 euros/night but got great reviews online, and it was very nice and clean, with a real shower. The staff was very attentive and the rooms were spotless as well as large (by Italian standards). 

As soon as we got here and unpacked for a few minutes, we walked down the street to a Carrefour supermarket, where we got some fresh fruit, bread, bottled water, and some paper goods for our room, not to mention amaretti (almond cookies -- you have to try them!). They had a statue of Saint Francis in the front of the store.

For dinner we went out to a local "bar", which is more like a small cafe in Italy. We had some pizza and arancini, which were good enough, considering they had been sitting at room temperature for an indeterminate number of hours or weeks and were reheated in a microwave. I know how to show a girl a good time! At one point my wife took a piece of mine to try and ended up dropping it right into my cup of aranciata (orange soda), knocking it over and making a nice little pond on the table. We couldn't stop laughing.

We love our little Chinese stores in Rome, with their suprisingly good selection of just about everything from kitchen to clothing. There were a whole bunch of Chinese stores in Lamezia, but they're all wholesale establishments, so we couldn't shop there.

We are really looking forward to some good visiting on Thursday!