| EUROPE BY TRAIN WITH INTERRAIL / EUROPE IN THE BACKPACK | ||||||||||||||
| ESPAÑOL GALEGO | ||||||||||||||
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N 1 November 2001
THE
INTERRAIL FRIENDS MAGAZINE /
by: Enrique Vázquez-Pita (evpita@yahoo.es)
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EXPRESS
LINKS TO
VISIT ITALY
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| Train: Italian State Railways (www.fstsf.it), (www.fs-on-line.com). The interrailers must pay extra suplement in EC/IC (hight speed railway): | |||||||||||
| The airlines are Alitalia (www.alitalia.com). Ferries: ADN/HML (Brindisi-Greece)Interrailers pay a extra suplemment | |||||||||||
| Bus in rome ATAC (www.atac.roma.it) | |||||||||||
| Tourism: The official tourism page of Italy is: www.enit.it , www.italytour.com , www.travel.it | |||||||||||
| Cities: Rome ( www.comune.roma.it) (www.informaroma.it) | Florence (www.comune.firenze.it ) | ||||||||||
| Venice (www.comune.venezia.it ) | Naples (www.comune.napoli.it) | ||||||||||
| Milano (www.comune.milano.it) | Govermment: (www.gksoft.com/govt/en/it.html) | ||||||||||
| Newspapers: La Repubblica (www.repubblica.it) | |||||||||||
| Touristic Guides in Rome: Centro Guide Cisi (www.centroguideroma.org), Centro Guide Caft (www.caft-turismo.it) Pilgrims to Rome Pellegrinaggi Paolini (www.ivet.it) | |||||||||||
| Youth Hostels: www.hostels-aig.org Apartaments: www.family-house.it Campings: | |||||||||||
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INTERRAILER EXPERIENCE
IN ITALY BY TRAIN
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CHAPTER
III of "Europa
na mochila" (Europe in the backpack)
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Italy,
Greece and Turkey
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- But, are you sure that you will arrive in Turkey? Until I don't see it, I don't believe it- Fhata, the Algerian waiter of the Enredos bar, said. | |
| Duomo of Milan / Piazza San Marcos in Venice | ||
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The book "Europa na mochila" tell a trip by train with InterRail from A Coruña (Spain) to Istambul (Turkey). This chapter is the route Barcelona-Venice |
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The backpacket and their friends waited seated above the backpack in the platform of the later French station to Port Bou. In Barcelona, they had consulted erroneously the schedules, for what you/they lost a quick train to Milan. Now, they had to conform to with spending the night in the platform, next to other backpackers that traveled with Interrail. There there was of everything, from the catechists that had saved to be able to travel to see the Pope. There was also the group of having crawled without to shave neither to take a shower that they traveled with four currencies with the help of sandwich and esterilla. Maybe, the backpackers belonged to this last group. The certain thing is that they went preparations to resist fifteen days in Italy, Greece, Turkey and the south of Austria. There was the possibility to visit Eslovenia whose coast was very tourist and it didn't suffer the war of Yugoslavia. That it will be a trip in summer and with heat. For that reason, they took loose clothes and the sandals substituted the goretex boots. |
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The train of SCNF, destination Milan, arrived with a lot of delay and the backpackers they were impatient. "But didn't they say that it was so good the French transport?", they protested. For speaker, the boss of the station explained that there was a fire the mount and that the train was there stopped. "You are some whiners. This is not anything compared with a trip from Paris to Barcelona. That was after an Arab attack in the Meter of Paris. The stations were watched over by the judicial policeman and them all the suspicious suitcases that found in the box offices exploded. Then, there was a bomb threat and the travelers had to get off the train and to hide in an underground corridor as if that was a bombing", the backpacker remembered, as if has just returned of the war of Indochina. While they talked in the platform, the waitresses of the French station took advantage to sell baguettes. The certain thing is that he felt like take a brown au lait, to resist awake the rest of the night. Finally, the train appeared. |
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That it should be the worst rail equipment in the SNCF. It was clear that the note Interrail didn't give right to a trip in the speedy TGV but aquell boxcar seemed of the fifties. The backpacker thought that that was not strange because he was accustomed to that the most luxurious and expensive trens in Germany was the compartment models, some slow and rickety machines. The train stopped in the road and all the travelers, loaded with backpacks, they ascended as quickly as possible amid the chaos to try to get place. The backpacker and their friends knew all the tricks and they ran for the platform toward the line boxcars, far from the multitude. They were in the certain thing because, indeed, the compartments were empty. They breathed alleviated when they ascended and they found place. In fact, that era a Italian train. The backpacker recognized the origan soon because the compartments of the Italian trains take a great espejon and miniatures of Italian art. Suitable, they closed the curtains and they made comfortable to sleep the four lying. There was not problem to modify the seats so that you convertiesen in beach chairs. |
| Monaco Sporting Port | |
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There José Luis that had traveled before years with some friends in car until Praga, Javi and their girlfriend Its, lifelong excursionists was. When the inspector of the SCNF appeared, this confirmed them that the train left for Milan. So they slept calm. Serious error. When leaving the sun, the train at great speed crossed the Blue Costa. There, the backpacker was rediscovered with Monaco and the rock where the palace rose. The beaches enabled in rock area and concrete dikes were also. The only thing that he lacked was sand. The train had to stop in the frontier between Italy and France. Several Italian youths sold from the fresh drunk platform and knick-knacks. The backpackers noticed that boxcar had emptied and that the last passengers got off of the train with a lot of hurry. Bestirred, the backpacker read horrified a poster that he/she noticed that that boxcar returned to France. A South American traveler that dragged her suitcase confirmed them the suspicions. They caught the backpacks and they at great speed jumped for the platform until they reached a tract of the train that went for Italy. And the train left. The convoy continued its trip. The Italian villages were more modest than the French. The wealth of a country you could measure for the cleaning and the brilliant colors. And for that reason, the north of Italy was gloomier than the French south, with more colorful houses. The same theory was applied to the cleaning of the air. Maybe, others would use the economic charts of the GDP, but the backpacker it measured the wealth of a country for the color of the houses. For example, the Austrian Tirol was richer than the Italian north because the housings were very well taken care.Something that was contradicted with the suburbs of Milan, the economic capital of Italy. |
| Sforzza Castle in Milano | |
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The backpackers didn't have a lot of time to lose in Milan and, when getting off in the Stazione you Center him, they took the Meter quickly in address to the housing. The inn was located in an area of urbanizations. There were people that awaited to that those responsible for the housing open up the he behaves to catch a square. |
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Shopping gallery in Milano
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An Australian observed the hanging one that you/they shone José Luis and Su. The necklace was a trisquel or Celtic svastica, very popular among the Galician youths. The curious thing is that the Australian also took a trisquel like hanging. The slopes also had the same Celtic symbol. The girl explained that her parents were Irish and, for that reason, she took Celtic jewels that she had bought in London while she spent there two years working. "Many Australians make that", she explained. Finally, they opened the housing and the backpacker, after reserving square, they decided to accompany the Australian to visit the center. The urban helmet began in the Stazione Termini and the first monument was the immense strength Sforza. In the patio they took place concerts and summer parties. There was a gratuitous museum of the city but he/she had several armors that you/they didn't get the attention a lot. In the exterior, a religious sect that supported the survival of the family unit distributed the wayfarers small glasses with Italian liquors. The backpacker that was very thirsty, he made several beats for that street. Their friends reprehended him for their nerve. " I am very thirsty and the sugary drinks are good for the fatigue", he was justified, while he gave a sip. |
| Really, that trip didn't appear at those times in those that drank of the sources. But it was necessary even this way to save pesetas. When leaving the strength, the backpackers arrived to the street Dante, the main of Milan, full with coffees and terraces. Immediately, the backpacker remembered Munich. They walked for that street until arriving to the Duomo, the famous Baroque cathedral of Milan. In the square, the tourists and the models from Europe of the East photographed the doves. The carabineri watched over closely, although these policemen seemed more concerned in quarreling to the gangs of Italian motorists that parked their Scooter in the square to observe the tourists. The doves, inevitably, remembered the square of San Marcos of Venezia. After walking the streets in search of a tower, the backpackers and the Australian they returned to the Duomo. There same, in a street the Opera, very stingy, and the famous commercial galleries of glass was to the right. The backpacker was disappointed because he thought that there the most famous stores would be in fashion Italian. "But if this is very stingy. It is better the commercial center of Four Roads", the backpacker protested before so much luxury and stores of scarce prestige and boring. |
| Although, architecturally, the commercial gallery was impressive, with the roof and the vaults regally decorated. They were much better that those of Brussels. The backpackers watched over the Italians that were being about the girls of the gang with great nerve closely. The visit to Milan finished with a dinner in a pizzeria of quick Italian food. The Australian complained because it was too expensive for her. The backpacker recognized that now they went of gentlemen. They traveled now without being hungry but neither they were fat tourists that drank jars of beer in the terraces and they took pictures with digital cameras. The following day, a kind Italian guided to the backpackers for the Underground to the railroad station. | |
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Piazza di San Marcos / Venice
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The following stop was in Venezia. For speaker, the inspector announced the departure of the train: "Stazione of Milano, via due". That sentence in Italian became in family the following weeks. But before they should cross the North of Italy, by Verona, capital of the granite. The landscape was flat, of color siena, and to the bottom the mountains. The fields were watered by aspersion and their image remembered the big fields of Castile. To return to Venezia impressed to the backpacker that found the cleanest waters and the most orderly city. Again, the backpacker was impressed with the image of the gondoliers and the vaporettos that navigated in front of Santa Lucía's rail station. He thought that that city was of fairies' story. ¡It was necessary to have a lot of imagination to build houses amid the lagoon! This time, the backpackers slept in a cheap hotel, near the station. Of course, the room had capacity for four people put to bed in mattresses. In Venezia there was always place for all. Then, they took advantage the whole afternoon to visit the city and to see the Ponte di Rialto and San Marcos's piazza. There are the deluxe restaurants, with the orchestras always playing in the street romantic melodies. The backpaker dreamt that some day he would return as a gentleman and he would sit down in a terrace to enjoy that music that so many times had heard. |
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But now, that image was a luxury. He had enough the case of Eladio and their friend that traveled in Interrail for Centroeuropa. They went without money and, for one day, they decided to be given a whim. They sat down in the terrace of San Marcos's pianist and they requested the waiter an an it dilutes mineral, the cheapest consumption that there was in the letter. Almost they suffer an infarto when reading the bill: 2.000 pesetas (12 Eurus). After knowing that experience, the backpackers knew that those terraces were taboo for a stingy one. Those 2.000 pesetas were enough to pay four foods in a Burguer King. That reminded them that they had to eat. Soon a MacDonalds looked for. There was a lot of line and the Czech tourists protested because the clerk was made the lazy one and he replied to the Slavic clients that him English didn't understand. This was a great lie. The Czech got tired of to wait to that the hamburgers and he served him he did as the backpacker with great tranquility he was ahead in the line to request more kepchup envelopes. The tourist protested, indignant, while the clerk shrank of shoulders. Indignant, the Czech went to his family and friends and they left to another side. "This is an insult! ¡We don't want anything your!", they said from the door. The backpacker suspected that the Europeans of the East were not appreciated in Italy. Then, at night, the backpacker called its Austrian friend Gabi. He wanted to visit her in Villach, in the frontier among Eslovenia, Austria and Italy. While, the friends would continue the visit to Venice. The following day, in the morning, the backpacker said goodbye to its friends: "We see in two days in the platform 1 of the Estación Termini of Rome again", he said. |
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to
be continued:
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THE AUSTRIAN ALPS |
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other
chapters :
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STOCKHOLM, BRUSSELS, NORTH SPAIN-PARIS, SCOTLAND |
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Get the book:
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evpita@yahoo.es , www.irindo.com , www.andelvirtual.com |
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"Europa na mochila"
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© Enrique Vázquez Pita ISBN 84-7680-309-5 |
