Paris was dark when we left our hotel at 6:30 AM. It was only a 10 minute walk to Gare Lyon, but things were busy in the train station. We located our gate and then went through French customs. Customs in Europe is much more pleasant than North America and the customs agents are actually human beings that can crack a smile and make you feel welcome in their country.
We had purhcased our Eurail tickets "online" several months earlier (thanks for Dave Woolnough for his help). This train was a much nicer train than the Eurostar from London to Rome. Cruising along at over 200 kph (sometimes much faster) made the flat countryside go by quickly and before we knew it we were approaching the Alps. At St. Michells the train stopped to pick up passengers and sat at the station for 20 minutes before we were told that there was an oil spill on the tracks ahead and the train could not proceed. We would have to wait for busses to pick us up at this station to drive 80 km to the next station where the other train would take us on to Milan. We waited 2 hours for the busses while they brought the passengers on the other train to our station.
The drive on the bus took us through the most beauiful part of the Alps and we were told once we got back on the other train that we would arrive in Milan at 5:15 pm. We knew that our tickets fron Milan to Rome were no good and that we would have to catch the 7:15 train from Milan to Rome. After we were on the train for only 30 minutes, we were informed that we had to change to another train! This train was a dirty old thing with no heat! It turned out to be a commuter train to Milan. We were telling the lady across from us what had happened to us and she was just horrified and apologized for the terrible treatment we had received. When we finally arrived in Milan, we had 17 minutes to catch our high-speed train to Rome. This kind lady personally took us to the ticket counter (which would have taken us forever to find) and made certain that we got on our train. She certainly was a blessing to us because we would have never made the connections to get our ship the next day.
When we had our tickets, we ran to the train (our walking before the trip had certainly paid off) and hopped on the first coach. We had no assigned seat, simply a ticket so when we found 2 seats together we just sat down. After a few minutes when the train started we realized that we were sitting in first class! We figured we would wait for the conductor to come to check the tickets and ask where we should be seated. When the conductor came along, we told him what had happened and he just stamped our tickets and smiled! First class all the way to Rome .....
Once is Rome we had another good samaritan who helped us buy our tickets to Civitaveccia and we got on the last train out for the night. It was 11:30 when we left and we arrived at Civitaveccia at 12:45. Off the train we went and walked to 2 blocks to our hotel, which was waiting for us.
What a day!! The Amazing Race had nothing on this. I really I hope I get a customer survey from Eurail!!! We were so impressed with the Italian people who were so helpful and kind to us.
Finally, in first class we had a GPS display which was kind of cool. It clocked the speed of the train and the fasted speed it reached was 296 km/hour!!!
I am writing this on the ship on Monday after our day in Monte Carlo. Great interet here for a great price! We had a huge shipboard credit which I am sure will be used for internet. Was actually able to Skpye Sandra last night.
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