Nick and Nancy Take a Trip by Nick Jenkin

Author:Nick Jenkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2020-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

Day 3, ‘We Next Play Verona’

Nick – The whole journey from London to Symi had naturally divided itself into 6 stages: the first from London to Dusseldorf, the second from Dusseldorf to Verona on the sleeper, the third from Verona to Venice, the fourth the boat from Italy to Greece, then across Greece for the final stage on the boat home to Symi. We had done all the hard work on the first stage; the sleeper was not work but pure pleasure. Now we were faced with the hop from Verona to Venice, not a problem. At 74 miles, we could have done it in one and half hours even at our snail’s pace.

We had left London on Thursday morning to catch the train on Friday night which meant we arrived in Verona bright and early Saturday morning. The boat out of Venice to Patra, Greece, was not until midday, Sunday, so we had decided to park ourselves up for the night just a half hour drive from Venice, at Padua.

The train was due to arrive in Italy’s Verona Porta Nuova Station at 8.30am but was 15 minutes late. After 12 hours and 600 miles, after crossing Switzerland and the Alps, 2 national borders and, while we placed out trust in it as we slept, it was 15 minutes late? Outrageous!

When we had gone to bed, we had left our little train chugging gamely through the night with the dark mountains of Germany towering above it. When we awoke the next morning, sunlight was streaming through the ill-fitting curtains, begging to be let in. We threw them open and there were flat dusty fields with sunlit vines, trailing away into blue distant hills. Where the buildings of Germany had steep sloping rooves for snow to slide off, now the rooves were low pitched and terracotta on yellow stone farmhouses. This was Italy, land of the olive and the olive skinned.

Nancy – We both slept very well but I think we were lucky. I caught a glimpse of our hostess’s room as I passed and it could only be described as a cupboard with a small bed, surrounded by boxes, towels and everything else she needed to service us, the travellers. She told us that before returning to Dusseldorf she only had a few hours in which to clean and prepare for her final lot of travellers. What a job! But at least this was her last trip of the season before she became an office worker for the company over winter.

Breakfast was at 7.30 so we made sure we were washed and ready. Nick was a little slow climbing down from his bunk. No change there. He is not at his brightest early in the morning!

I decided that, the next time we were on a sleeper train, I would take the top bunk. Nick seemed to have more room up there and was quietly tucked out of the way.

Nick – For me, it was an obvious choice. I always thought I was a cut above the rest.

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