Getting on the Train in Europe

I have been away, in France, Spain and Italy, and had minimal WiFi connections, so have not blogged in 2 weeks--sorry about that!  Jan and her older son, Ryan, and I did Paris, (including Versailles and Chartres), back here to Carcassonne, Barcelona, Madrid, Venice, Florence, a day in Rome, and two nights in Montorosso al Mare, on the Cinqueterre (actually the Italian Riviera, as it were).  Just returned at 10:30 pm last night, after walking the 30 minutes from the train station (no taxis out and about at 10 pm in a small town).  My blister-on-a-blister situation is pretty much resolved now, and my clothes are getting the bath they desperately need.  It was all a glorious 3-week adventure.

Getting on the train in Europe is unlike getting on the train in the States, in several ways.  First, when you get on a fast, long-distance train, you are assigned A SEAT in A COACH, and you are supposed to occupy that seat and no other.  Which makes for interesting confrontations when someone is in your assigned seat (often a local who ought to be in a different coach altogether--the Eurail Passes they sell to Americans are for "first class" coaches, while most Europeans (except sophisticated business people) travel in second class.  So occasionally one has to chase an interloper out--otherwise, if you sit in any other seat, at the next stop the person who is supposed to be in that seat arrives, and everybody has to shift around. 

Second, the trains are posted by their ultimate destination (as are all the metro systems in all the big cities)--so you just have to KNOW that the train taking you to Narbonne, France is actually the train to Montpelier.  Mostly, you orient yourself to the system by the NUMBER of the train you are assigned, and the time it's supposed to leave (down to the minute)--and European trains are so prompt that they sometimes leave 1-2 minutes BEFORE the posted time!

Thirdly, if you have luggage, or you get behind someone who does, it can take several minutes to even board the train (yesterday in Barcelona, I got behind a group of 5 people, all in their late 60s-70s, who weren't sure that coach 2 was REALLY coach 2, and they stood there for 4 minutes debating whether to get on or not--completely blocking anyone else's entry onto the train--they each had 2 suitcases!).  The train will actually leave while someone is attempting to board, if it's the right time to leave, so you'd best make a dash for a door somewhere and figure out where you belong after the train has pulled away from the station!

All of this is predicated on the idea that one can actually KNOW which track your train is on--which can change halfway down the track in the station.  That happened to us in Rome--we were going back to Florence, in the train on track 7--only half way down the track, they changed the numbers so that track seven was not where we thought it was--so, we got on a train which was going to Napoli (Naples) instead!  It was a lovely ride to Naples (1 hour 10 minutes), but unfortunately it was the last "fast train" for the night, so we returned to Rome that night on a milk-run train which stopped at every small station.  Finally got into Rome at 11:30 pm with no option to go to Florence til the next morning, no suitcase, no toothbrush.  Found a hotel, found a place open for dinner at midnight, and the next day we returned to Florence in time to have a great story to tell our grandchildren!  So yes, I've been to Naples--but only to the train station.