You Can't Get There from Here

CAUTION:  OK, if you already hate Catbird for the travel opportunities life has flung her way, you will either find some gratification in hearing about this really, really crappy day, or you will resent how much she doesn't appreciate the life she's been given.  Either way, consider yourself warned.  

In Catbird's defense, please remember how much fun one has driving in a strange city in one's own country, where one speaks the language.  Then imagine that experience on another continent, where one does not read the language or understand many customs, and don't forget to factor in fatigue from the previous 14 days of travel.  Now amp up the anxiety factor about 10-fold and understand why Catbird is so flayed.

Deep breath.  In our original itinerary, Catbird and Physicist planned to take trains for most of the journey, then rent a car and drive along the coast from Siena, Italy, to Nice, France.  My Physicist will attend a conference in Agay, near Nice, all this coming week.

Problem one: Despite the Euro-Unity concept, car rental cost nearly triples if one picks up the car in one country and drops it off in another.  

Solution:  Drop car off in Italy, near the border and take the train across to Nice.

Problem: Locals inform us that driving from Siena to Genova, (or Ventimiglia, the  border town) is not the romantic and pleasant drive one might dream.  They strongly counsel we make another plan.

Solution:  Follow friends' recommendation and plan to return car in Siena and take train to Nice.  A night train would be lovely...

Problem: Train from Siena to Nice takes 12 hours, requires 5 train changes and there is no night train.  Catbird's mega-suitcase is at the outer limits of her manageability with modern conveniences of ramps, lifts, and escalators.  Most European train stations channel a more gentile time and though there are ghosts of porters past, they are not corporeal.  Thus we are left to drag our bags on our own, with lots of steps, few escalators, no elevators.  (How do people with disabilities get around?)

Solution: Turn in car at some main point which would minimize number of train changes while requiring no driving into Genova or other large city.  (Clerk at car rental agency provided map of acceptable car drops, assured us car could be dropped at any hour, at any stop.  GREAT!)  

We decided to drive to San Remo, a city on the coast but small enough to access without crises and yet near enough border to minimize train ordeal.  Through Expedia, we booked a hotel for Saturday night, with plan to take a Sunday morning train from San Remo into Nice.

Problem: How do we get to the car drop office in San Remo?

Solution: Send an email and ask for directions.

Problem: Saturday morning email from AutoEurope says that car must be turned in at San Remo before noon Saturday or wait until Monday.  No drop box; car drop not open on Sunday, and no possible way Catbird and Physicist can get there by noon.  And we are already on our way.

Solution: Try to find phone or email connection to rental agency to see if special arrangements can be made or...

Listen, this list goes on and on and on.  

Just visualize Catbird standing at a payphone in the rain in the median strip of a small town, crying in frustration because the phone won't take coins or credit card, no one nearby sells phone cards, and the only toll free number for the agency is staffed by very rude folks who refuse to hear the problem or offer assistance.  And who hang up on Catbird three times.

Imagine driving on busy highway in pouring rain, unable to decode signs, missing exits, angering other drivers with our lack of speed and fumbling moves.  All the while, trying to figure out what to do next.

We finally surrendered any hope of making it easy.  Since airports always have car rental agencies and directions to airports are usually marked from the highway, we decided to drive to the Genova airport, turn the car in, take a taxi to the nearest train station and go from there.

And so, we ended up in Genova, where we definitely did NOT want to drive.  The train to San Remo, a distance of around 50 miles, took three hours and made 21 stops (we counted--21!), but fortunately, no changes.  It was a good time to decompress from the driving.

Today we have hours of train ahead, with at least three changes, schlepping our bags up and down steps in hopes we don't miss the next train--or get on the wrong one.  But we settled for the night, ate dinner, bathed and, though Catbird still feels defeated, we have begun to regroup.  

Trying to focus on the positive: In the middle of the 19th century, San Remo was the garden spot of the Italian Riviera, a frequent haunt of Empress Alexandra, the mother of Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia.  We are at the Alexander hotel and glimpses of former glory are evident: high ceilings, imposing facade, parquet floors.  We are surrounded by many such dowager hotels and we are told there is a Russian Orthodox Church nearby.  The guidebooks describe the casinos and slot machines that seem to constitute the current tourist-based economy.  The beaches, as we saw them in the rain from the train, were narrow strips of gravel cut by highway and train track; we wonder what they were like in their former glory.

Between the rain and our schedule, we don't have time to explore.  We have a morning train to catch (with three tight train changes) in order to get to Nice by afternoon.  Once we get to Nice, we have to figure out how to get to Agay.

 

As sister MJ says: today will either be better or worse.