Italy here we come

7/5 Copenhagen to Stresa – a long day
My birthday – first present……wake up, wake up, time to go. So we were up at 4.30, left the family still sleeping at 5, walk to the station, train to the airport. I’d done on line check in so bag drop was easy, x-rays had a short line-up and fairly unsmiling staff, and then……..

Did anyone want to see our passports? We had them ready but they weren’t checked at all at Copenhagen nor on arrival in Rome – not until we got to the hotel in Stresa. So I guess once in Europe you’re there and that’s it.

Plenty of eating places in Copenhagen airport, it seems quite new, and we were happy with a large shared ham/cheese/tomato/mayo toasted roll and a shared Danish (of course) pastry. Uneventful flight to Rome where we walked for miles to get to the baggage collection, and another lengthy walk to get to the train station.

Soooo……..a Eurail train pass using the app instead of a paper pass that we’ve had on an earlier trip. Hmmm, we’d be hesitant to do that again. Some legs of travel need a booked seat but this can’t be done on the app, you have to use the laptop. Once booked, the trips don’t show up on the app. Also, reserving seats is costly and we ended up paying an extra $200 to do this on top of buying the pass. In the long run probably cheaper with the pass but if there’s a next time I’d try to get a paper pass.

Having got the pass and booked seats we couldn’t work out how to actually activate the pass, nor could our travel agent get that information from Eurail for us, so we thought ‘ok, just wing it’, got on the trains at the airport, Rome Termini and Milan thinking we’d get some sort of hassle but the only time we had to show a ticket was on the train near to Stresa, all we could do was show the guard our printed confirmation of purchase, and the app summary which said who we were and what kind of pass. The guard kind of rolled his eyes, said ‘OK’ and off he went. Still not terribly confident about how we’ll get on with the next legs, let’s see.

We had time for McDonald’s which we ate standing against a wall watching the crowded Rome Termini station and anxiously watching the board waiting for a platform to Milan, along with several other people looking at their watches and more than one (me included) asked staff about it but the reply was along the lines of ‘watch the board, you have ten minutes, not a problem’ which didn’t inspire any of us. But once on board we were comfortable for the four hour trip. At times the driver really put his foot down and on the KPH information we got up to 298kph so he was really going for it, quite impressive to look out the window.

I did notice that all along the tracks there are red poppies both at the stations and in the countryside. I read that the trains scatter the seeds which would explain it, they really looked pretty. The photo is stolen but it gives you some idea of what we saw. We saw plenty of vineyards, olive trees, big fields of gold and green, then as we got further north there were more trees, small towns. It was a pretty trip from start to finish.

All that aside we finally got to Stresa on a packed train, obviously a real tourist destination on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Not sure if I explained that we’d originally booked a Tuscany tour from 7 – 15 May, then four nights in Amalfi BUT the tour was cancelled so, what to do? We were booked to fly to Rome from Copenhagen to pick up the tour on the 7th, and out to Sydney on the 19th so had almost two weeks to fill in. I remembered my friend Lorraine, ex-Hiroshima, had posted beautiful photos of northern Italy on Facebook last year so had another look at them, did a bit of research, promised Pete we could go to Tuscany after all and he was keen on Stresa too so we now have ‘Tour Italy with Ailsa’ all sorted.

Hotel Boston is an older place and on questioning the receptionist next day found that they’ve just opened a new annex a month ago with 19 rooms and balconies, breakfast room and underground carpark are in that section too. The old part has 37 rooms, ours is quite small but adequate, freshly painted and bathroom done up, the bed is hard though and there’s no tea making facilities which is a pity.

We were pleased to have a rest (both might have nodded off once or twice on the trains?) then a wander to find dinner – couldn’t go past El Gato Negro for a meal and glass of prosecco. The waterfront is pretty, several cafes overlooking the water, a few boat tour jetties, huge hotels overlooking the lake, old buildings ripe for reno or possibly demolition. Then when you turn to look inland the houses are scattered up the hill, gold and ochre walls in the midst of lots of greenery.

Stresa really was a great find thanks to Lorraine, we’ll enjoy our three full days here.Meer informatie