Taxi Drivers - or - Shall We Dance?

1, October

We have frustrated the coffee woman for the last morning. As we all leave the breakfast room, clothed in our matching travel day shirts, complete with the blingy "La gioia e' nel viaggio" , another patron is over heard commenting " I believe they are a dance troupe". Ok, you all know us. What aspect of this group would lead one to believe we dance??? It's time to put Venice in the rearview and our suitcases are packed. Bill and Jan decide to hire a water taxi for the journey to the train station and Pam will accompany them. The hotel owner assures us the taxi will arrive and gives us the boat number but then accompanies us to the canal. There is a boat waiting, but he points out that the number does not match. Soon after, another boat arrives, banging into the side of the canal. Pam checks the number and is really grateful that poorly-trained driver is not ours! A few minutes pass and the driver asks - train station? The hotel owner speaks to him in Italian, the gist of which we understand is the discrepancy in boat numbers. Finally, they decide this is our taxi and launch our luggage over the open water into the boat. We settle in for a quiet ride to the train station. By now the rain has started and while we're under cover, the driver is in the open but we see that now he's flipping up a small canopy to keep dry. Evidently, the small canopy severely restricts his vision as he spends the remainder of the trip flipping it up and down and popping out of his seat in an attempt to avoid various obstacles, like boats and gondolas and bridges. To complicate the trip, it is garbage collection day on this canal and the water is full of little floating garbage trucks. Generally, this would have been a really interesting thing to watch but at this point we're just concerned that we're going to hit one of them! All of the little bridges we crossed during our stay are even smaller on the underside - especially when being shared with other boats or gondolas! Finally, the train station is in sight and it's time to disembark. Our luggage takes one last flight across the open waters and we've arrived.

In the meantime, Debi, Jim and Sheila head out to catch a vaparetto. At first glance it appears this will be an easy trip. Then the crowd of travelers begins to show, suitcases and rolling bags in hand. It still appears that we can make it and then the smallest boat in all of Venice arrives to pick us up. We manage to arrive in one piece and dry. Once at the station Jim and Debi go to verify the track number for our departing train. Generally it's on track 6...but wait track 6 is under construction. No problem, let's just pop into the train information and ask, after all it's obvious that track 6 is under construction and there should be some kind of semi-permanent assignment for those trains. The man at the desk looks at us like we are crazy when we ask for the track assignment and he say the Milano train always comes in on track 6, oh wait track 6 is impossible...well even we had figured that out!

We arrive in Milan and the train is there early, so we're able to board and get seats together and stow the luggage easily. This trip has gone surprisingly well! Our train is getting close to Varenna, so we get the luggage together and are standing next to the door as the train stops as these stops are really short - and nothing happens. The doors don't open. We're pressing buttons and trying knobs and finally succeed in getting one small door open, so we're tossing luggage and trying to squeeze six people through that one opening before the train pulls out again. We walk to the hotel, uphill, until we reach a sharp descent right before the hotel; imagine our roller suitcases on a downhill slope, on slick cobblestones. It nearly becomes Bowling for Tourists, but we make it through.

Sheila and Pam take advantage of the nice weather to do some exploring around town. Sheila asks the hotel owner where we should walk and he points to his round stomach and asks - does it look like I do much walking?! Where is the map I gave you?! Finally, he parts with another map and we take off in search of the lake walk. We walk until we reach the Fuimelatte, the next town over. OK, must have missed the turn for the lake walk. A quick trip down to the small beach yields lake glass though. We head back towards town and pass beautiful gardens and finally find the lake walk turnoff. We find more lake glass before heading back to clean up for dinner. Debi and Jan are sure that Sheila and Pam have cleaned out all available lake glass!

We have reservations for dinner with Chef Moreno tonight and we walk down to the main square to meet him for a ride 10 minutes further up the mountain. A small van arrives that will seat five, driven by his non-English speaking wife. Another couple is also in the square eyeing the same van when the wife assures us that another car is coming. Sheila and Pam hop in the van with the other couple and head up the mountain. We wind and twist for several miles in the dark when all of a sudden, BANG - a car heading the opposite direction has side-swiped the driver's side mirror! Sheila and Pam are a bit shaken but the chef's wife is merely irritated and just continues the drive to the restaurant! In the meantime, Bill, Jan, Debi and Jim have met up with Chef Moreno in the square and are now experiencing a ride similar to our ride into Rome with regular gas in the diesel tank. Finally, we're all at the restaurant and have a wonderful meal served by Chef Moreno and his wife and daughter before climbing back in the cars for a much less eventful drive down the mountain!