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Misadventures on a Midnight Train to Milan

When Chris, Ashley, and I decided to add Italy to our list of destinations, we obviously needed a way to get there from our original location - Paris. Our coordinator extraordinaire, Chris, researched several different options and landed on taking the Thello, which would be an overnight, 9 hour excursion landing us in Milan at 6:00 a.m. This sounded like the perfect solution.

We would get to have a train adventure, get to where we needed to go, and get what we hoped would be a good night’s sleep all at the same time! Well, two out of three ain’t bad as they say. We definitely got an adventure!

If I had known going into this adventure what I know now, perhaps it would have been a completely different experience; however, having never traveled by train, and an overnight train at that, my expectations were a bit off to say the least. As perhaps many misguided, disillusioned travelers do, I had visions of lazily lounging in a sleeper car, snacking on baguettes and cheeses, and sipping red wine. I envisioned dreamily watching the European countryside fly by as I watched out the window of the train, reminiscing and laughing about our previous adventures.

My beautiful, naïve dreams were soon shattered.

Our departure time was 8:00 p.m. We arrived at the train station an hour or so beforehand. Our first obstacle was trying to figure out which platform our train was to arrive at since, as we learned much to our dismay, is not publicized until the train actually arrives. This was a little frustrating since there were 10 or so platforms at the station and the train station is a little like Grand Central Station in New York. There are people everywhere! There is very little in the way of seating areas; therefore, people are sitting on luggage, leaning against walls, sitting on railings, you name it. Oh, and by the way, there is no air conditioning and everywhere you look there are signs warning you to protect yourself against pickpockets.

At this point, my hopes were still high. After all, this was just the ugly side of the beautiful experience awaiting us on the train.

When the train finally arrived, hundreds of people bumped and pushed their way onto the platform and tried to make their way to their reserved train car, Chris, Ashley, and I included.

“I had visions of lazily lounging in a sleeper car, snacking on baguettes and cheeses, and sipping red wine.”

Once we finally made our way onto the train, we maneuvered our way through the very narrow hallways to find our “room” for the night. When we arrived at our car and opened the door, my heart sank a little. I feel a bit repetitive in saying this; however, this was not at all what I was expecting! Ashley went in first. Let me first say that Ashley is about the size of a toothpick and after she went in, there was very little room for Chris and me, not to mention our luggage. We had to use some strategy in order to get us all in before we held up further progress for people in the hallway as it was single file only.

There are several different compartment occupancy types to choose from; we chose the three bed set up for obvious reasons, there were three of us. As I said, Ashley entered first. After she went in, we put in our luggage, and then Chris went in. The only room left for me was the bunk at the top of the compartment. I had to climb over luggage to get to the ladder, and climbed up. There was only enough room to lie down. So, that’s how I stayed until Chris and Ashley rearranged things down below.

“My beautiful, naïve dreams were soon shattered.”

They ended up putting the luggage on the shelves surrounding the bunk that I was in. Once the luggage was out of the way, Chris was able to sit down on the couch with Ashley. I was still relegated to the top bunk for lack of room. After some exploring of the compartment, we discovered that it was equipped with a plastic travel toiletry bag for each person and a small sink, each hidden behind a small door.

I forgot to mention one very important detail…so Chris, Ashley, and I were stuffed into this teeny tiny, three bed train compartment for the next nine hours and lo and behold, there was no air conditioning!! And it was hot, so hot, the kind of hot that makes it difficult to breathe - the kind of hot where your clothes just stick to you and the sweat just pours off of you and there’s nothing any of us could do about it. So, when Chris asked if anyone wanted to go to the dining car I jumped at the chance. Well, I couldn’t jump in the little space I had, so instead, I weaseled and twisted my way back down the ladder and out the compartment door. Oh my God, I could finally breathe and I was so excited to go get a cold drink. Okay, I figured, the compartments are tiny, but I’ll finally get to drink a glass of wine and watch the scenery in the dining car. After winding our way through the single file halls, we made our way to the dining car. And once again, my naïve little traveler’s dream was shattered.

The dining car was more like a concession stand on wheels. Hot, sweaty travelers were all lined up waiting for a cold drink. I listened as passenger after passenger was told, “No, we don’t have any ice.” and “Well, feel for yourself.” as the sympathetic attendant was asked over and over whether they had anything to drink that was cold. The look of desperation then disbelief drifted through everyone’s faces, including mine. I ended up with a room temperature peach iced tea.

“We found ourselves with nothing left to do but to try and get some sleep.”

And as for sitting down and watching the European countryside go by, that was not going to happen either. The dining car had two tiny tables to sit at, both of which were taken by other passengers.

Defeated and still thirsting for something cold to drink, we headed back to our tiny enclosure.

We found ourselves with nothing left to do but to try and get some sleep. This should have been easy; however, with the stifling heat mixed with the extremely close quarters, it was anything but easy.

We decided that once again, I would make my way to the top bunk; Ashley claimed the bottom couch bed, which left Chris in the middle. If you have ever seen the bunks on a naval ship, this is what our beds looked like: three narrow beds stacked on top of each other with very little space in between. At least bedding was provided. I would just like to reiterate that at no point did the stifling heat subside, which made sleep and comfort almost nonexistent. I will say that opening the small window helped slightly; however, by opening the window, it created yet another problem, very loud noise.

After squirming and struggling to find sleep, apparently it finally did come. I just remember waking up to Chris telling us it was just about time for our stop. Following another strategic planning session, we all somehow managed to get dressed and get our teeth brushed just in time to depart.

I still am not quite sure how we woke up in time to get off at our stop that early in the morning, just lucky I guess, or perhaps it was the fact that we really never fell asleep in the first place. Either way, we made it Milan, a major fashion hub, dirty, sweaty, and not quite as bright eyed or bushy tailed as I had hoped. However, it was a new day, a new city, and we were off to catch a train to our next destination, Venice!

Well, I didn’t quite get the experience on the train that I had envisioned. There was no wine and cheese and no joyful reminiscing about our travels while watching the European countryside go by. Even though it did not meet my romantic, dreamy expectations, it was definitely an adventure that I personally will never forget and I wouldn’t trade that for anything!