How difficult is it to get from italy to france??

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VERY difficult!

Nate and I caught at 10:09 train to Pisa from Rome on Wednesday morning. According to the timetable Eurail had given me, getting to Lyon (in France) would be no problem that day. According to the real world, it was impossible.

We arrived in Pisa just after 2 in the afternoon and headed to the information desk to figure out when we could get to Lyon. The nice lady behind the desk frowned and said we had missed the only direct train to Lyon, but we could go via Milan and Dijon, but we would be charged an overnight carriage fee of 25 Euros each. We wanted to avoid these costs, so Nate and I sat down with every schedule and a map to try and figure this out. We thought about going through Nice, Genova, Geneva, Bern, Brig, and every other major city between Pisa and Lyon. The original overnight journey made the most sense, even if we did have to pay extra. We were quite frustrated at not being able to get to France in a timely fashion, but were glad to spend the afternoon wandering Pisa.

Pisa is a cute town. There's a river that runs through it, and obviously the Leaning Tower is it's main attraction. We walked to the tower, took the touristy pictures and found a nice pizzaria to have lunch.

We boarded our train just after 7 and arrived in Lyon at 10 the next morning. In Lyon, we found out it was a national holiday in France (we're still not sure which holiday...) and not all trains were running normally. This meant we would wait until 12:39 to board a train to Vierzon, then to Limoges, then to Thiviers, instead of a direct train to Thiviers. We weren't frustrated until boarding the first train and realizing it was absolutely packed. There wasn't even standing room...over 40 people on our train alone were stuck in the aisles and luggage compartments. Nate and I sat on the floor of that train (which stopped for an unknown reason for 45 minutes, making us late) for almost 5 hours. We barely made our connection and happily got off the train in Thiviers at a quarter past 9 yesterday evening.

I think I don't even need to express how sick we are of trains.

I have nothing exciting to write about, as we've done nothing but ride on trains for the last two days. We're heading to Paris in the morning so I will be full of good stories the next time I blog!

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Photos

i couldn't help it...
cheesy pose with a statue

sistine chapel
it's bad because i had to sneak the picture...and the pope will probably send me to hell if he sees this.

Comments

[Mom]

france
Can't wait to hear the rest of the story. Enjoy! Mom xo

[aimee]

travel
heya. just back from norway. was good. surprisingly hot. im of to morrocco next month and traveling italy and greece in spetember so if i was to go to 3 cities in italy let me know what 3 you'd recommend from what you've seen. xxx