Thankfully I didn't end up too far away. I stopped in Castel Franco about 25 minutes away!
I hopped off the train, and when I was at the top of the stairs looking for the main building/ ticket office, a man offered to help me with my bag down the stairs.
How kind of him!
He also helped me up the stairs on the other side. So nice! Finally someone that's a genuinely nice person around here!
We get to the top of the stairs and he asks me for money. Of course he wouldn't carry my bag for free, what was I thinking?! I had no change and I wasn't planning on giving him €5 so I apologized and told him I had nothing for him. He gave me a dirty look and walked away.
I think with every experience I have like this or with nut cases on trains - I appreciate living in North America more and more. By the end of this trip, I'm sure you'll find me stepping off the plane in California and on the floor, hugging the ground and grinning from ear-to-ear at everyone around me... Though I don't know if I'll get a smile back with the thought that I'm absolutely crazy. Haha whatever!
I zipped into the train station and ask them if I can get a train to Ancona or would I have to go back to Bologna.
Ancona, 12:09, platform 3.
"YES!! Excellent! Grazie! Grazie!!"
They laugh, and I head to platform 3.
This time I'm going to look at the information on the outside of the car. Haha
Lesson learned!
The train arrives, I jump on and nap for most of the three and a half hour journey.
When I arrive in Ancona, it sort of reminds me of the part of Huntington Beach with the big ugly industrial area and that other big nuclear plant off the 405 somewhere around inglewood by LAX. The city is pretty ugly and kind of trashy looking. I have about 6.5-7 hours till my ferry leaves for Zadar. So I start walking towards the port looking for a restaurant or cafe.
Nothing is open! I always forget pretty much everything in Italy closes for a few hours in the afternoon. But finally as I get closer to the port, a cute little cafe, called Cafe Rose (or something like that) is open, where I go in and get myself a glass of wine and sit and read a magazine for an hour and a half.
Following, I decide it would be a good idea to go check out the port and see what I need to do about getting my ticket sorted out since I had purchased it online and didn't have a hard copy. To this, they send me to the check in....
Where is it?
"The new port, take bus"
Ugh.. Okay..
I go out to the bus stop and sit for what must've been at least a solid 30minutes. I meet another girl from Santa Barbara who was super nice and laughed a bunch. She had just spent 5 months travelling alone through Australia and Asia, living in Bali for a while and was now on the last two weeks of her trip before heading back to California! She was now hoping to get to the train station to hopefully head to Florence.Very cool!
Finally, I decided- screw this bus! I'll just walk over there!
Well it turned out to be about a 20minute walk with ZERO directional signs, the bus passing me on the way of course, and in the most absurd location, a building hidden by a fishing/ import/export area and where all the big transport trucks are coming and going! So stupid! I stopped and asked directions about 8x or at least every time I saw anyoneeee on the street!
I get there, check in (which literally only takes about two freakin minutes!) and this time decide I will wait, actually, wait for the bus time. As I walk outside, who do I see?
The same California girl! She got off at the wrong stop and was waiting for a bus again too!
We laughed about how just as I left the bus had come, like I said it would and then she was telling me about how she was hoping to get a train to Florence tonight but didn't know what she'd do if she couldn't - then she, named Savannah by the way referenced Journey lyrics: "took the midnight train goin any whereeeee" and "just a small town girl.."
I laughed so hard! Finally someone in Europe with a sense of humor I can understand. The funnier part about it all is that she later messaged me on Facebook saying she actually did take a midnight train and it ended up in Rome. Haha! Funny girl!
Her bus came first and we wished each other well on our adventures. My bus came about 10 minutes after, promptly bringing me back to the terminal I was at originally, within about 2-3 minutes. Go figure. Ha!
It was about 7:30, my ferry was to start boarding at 8, so I sat in the waiting area and read my book.
I couldn't believe how large the ship was when I got on around 8:15. It was the size of a small cruise ship! Enormous! It had several levels, a "movie theatre" (movie theatre seating with 3 tvs, probably no larger than 35 inches? Haha), a large cafeteria, several bars, a disco dancing area and a duty free shop. It was great!
I bought one of the deck seats instead of a cabin ticket with a bed, it was way cheaper and I didn't care that much. I ended up getting my pic of several couches scattered around the top level of the boat. I picked one that was in a darker area and was right by the window for a great view!
Once settled in, I went down to the cafeteria for some spaghetti then headed back to my couch spot to continue to read my book then fall asleep listening to some mellow music.
I fell asleep pretty quickly, but I ended up realizing at some point in the middle of the night I had picked a couch under the air conditioner and was absolutely freezing. I ended up opening my suitcase grabbing two sweaters - one as a make-shift pillow, the other, as a blanket and then tossed and turned in-and-out of sleep till I noticed it was really bright out.
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