From: Rainer Subject: Rainer's Europe Trip 1998 -- part 30 Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 02:13:58 EST Friday, 10/23 -- part 30 The day starts earlier because it's supposed to be a travel day. We want to get to Torino to catch a train to Lyon for which we don't have a reservation yet since they couldn't do it in Munich. The concierge told us that a local travel agency would do that. The travel agency, of course, is around the corner from the Lido. After a breakfast Vera and Monika head off to the lizard wall which Vera hadn't seen yet. A couple of lizards are out, but the cloudy sky keeps most of them away. They also look for a pharmacy to restock some antihistamines since Monika has developed a cold. First time anyone's gotten sick so far -- not a bad record, but too bad it has to be her and so close to the end of the trip. I'm supposed to find the travel agency and make train reservations, tell the photo shop to mail the English instructions since we won't be staying another day, and get some more money from the ATM since the cash flow never seems to last more than a day. The travel agent lady doesn't look like she's having a very good day already. She doesn't want to speak English to start with. The times I show her for trains from Torino to Lyon don't appear on her computer. In the end she says she can't make any reservations anyway because it's a special train or something -- it has to be done at the train station in Torino. Fine. We decide to make this a travel to Torino day, make the reservations when we get there, and take both train segments tomorrow with a break at Lyon to recover from the motion sickness we all felt last time. The Best Western that the hotel tells us about is full. The travel agent says there's no holday Inn in Torino. I go back to the hotel, and have them reconnect the phone and loan me the phone adapter again since we'd already checked out. I make reservations at a Holiday Inn in Tornio near the train station. I also make reservations at one in Paris for the next 2 nights. We take our time leaving, driving to Portofino before heading to Torino. We have lunch along one of the Autostrade's frequent restaurant stops. The sun has come out again near Genova but the smog/haze gets worse. The closer we get to Torino, the less you can see from the scenery. There are supposed to be mountains around here. Without a city map we follow the signs to Torino Centro and then start asking Via Assieta, which turns out to be small street almost directly across from the train station. We drove by the train station and the street but couldn't see it. The street intersects the main road through a large gate. Had we seen it, it would have been one-way the wrong way anyway. Anway, we checking, and unload the car for the last time since we'll be dropping it off here shortly. I call the Hertz place and get instructions on how to get from the hotel to there. It's not far, walking distance actually, so we all drive over to drop the car -- making sure there's nothing in any of the corners or under the seats. The drop of is extremely simple and we'll see if Hertz/Munich indeed bills for the drop off charge. The door to the Hertz office is locked. You have to ring a door bell and they push a buzzer to let you in. Wierd. We walk the 10 or 12 blocks back to the train station and try to find the international ticket window. The information area is similar to other European train stations -- you take a number and wait. We get the location of the proper ticket window for international travel and get in line again. The ticket agent speaks no English at all. We communicate as best we can about wanting to go to Tornio tomorrow and then later to Lyon. He seems very distraught and want to book a Torino/Paris connection for us. He leaves the window muttering and hopefully finding someone who speaks English. He returns aloneV. Several people have started lining up behind us. We do the gesturing writing departure/arrival times down on pieces of paper on the separate sides of the thick glass window. He finally books the Torino-Lyon leg and gets pissed off when he realizes that we have the Europass already and really only wanted a reservation. He violently stamps Annulaire on the freshly printed out ticket and starts over. Vera leaves at this point or takes a picture or something, I forget. Monika is still there. I remember that perhaps we can communicate in another language that what we have been, since this is obviously not fun for either of us. He doesn't speak German. But he does speak french. My french is not great, but it's infintely better than my Italian which after this trip consists of "capiche inglesa", "una pizza margherita", "ravioli pomodoro", "birra al spina media", "vino roso de la casa", "buon journo", and "grazie". So I get across that the Lyon-Paris leg is supposed to be several hours later. He finds a train at 1400 but can't make reservations on it. I'm not sure if it's because of of those train station things like in Munich where they can't reserve a train originating in another country or what. So I ask him about the next train, which leaves at 1500. That one he can make reserverations. Great. We spend several minutes verifying the printed out tickets to be sure everything is right -- first class, no smoking, date and time of departure, and same train stations. Everything looks good. We pay. He refuses the extra lire I offer him because of the difficult time we both had. He does put up the window closed sign, though. The hotel room is wierd. You have to insert your magnetic card key into the light switch as you enter the room -- otherwise you can't turn on any lights. If you remove the card key after the lights have been turned on, you activate a timer, and after a few minutes all of the lights and TV, including the bathroom, turn off. The toilet has a rectangular seat. The entire bathroom is tiled and the shower is flush with the floor causing all the water to spill out into the bathroom. The city hotel in Holland had a similar bathroom. It's ridiculous having your entire bathroom floor flooded by the shower. The one in Holland at least at a little ledge to keep the water off the carpet. The room also has a central control panel for lights, TV, clock, temperature, dimmer, door lock. The clock is 20 minutes off and there are no instructions for setting it. The temperature control doesn't work at all -- it's cool in the room. The hot water heater/towel rack in the bathroom doesn't work either. It looks like a new hotel, but there are problems. The front desk acknowledges that there's a computer problem which controls all of the clocks. They don't know how to fix it. It's probably a PC. Monika's CD player needs more batteries. I can't find the spares right now. Since we returned the car and will be on the train all day tomorrow I won't need the GPS, so I loan her two of the 4 batteries that it recently got. When I find the replacement batteries later and insert them back into the GPS, the GPS complains about being reset and all of the waypoints and system settings are gone. It's not important -- they are just names and numbers that can be entered back into it. But the thought of where I acquired the waypoints, on top of the Schilthorn, in Bohnsdorf, etc., makes me sad. There's supposed to be a lithium battery backup for 10 years. I'll have to research the Garmin web pages to see if this is a known problem. Minor bummer. But, could be a major one if you really depended on this info at the moment. Dinner is at a pizzaria around the corner from the hotel. It looks open but the doors are locked. We try a couple of times but can't get in. The door to the kitchen is open. I ask a girl standing in the doorway if the restaurant is open. She says yes, ring the bell. We ring the bell and the door buzzes. What's with this place? The waiter doesn't speak any English, German, or French. He says "Pizza?", we say "Si" and he takes away all the plates. We only get one menu. We notice from some of the other tables that they also get only one menu. Wierd. Back in the room, we fiddle with some email and set the alarm to get up early for the train tomorrow. During the night, I recall Vera and Monika looking out the window at a guy in the street soring clothes out of bags into other bags and into a dumpster. This place is really wierd.