Trip - Monaco-Genoa-Milan-Venice

Despite getting up very early, the second day got off to a slow start. Why? Because there was a fire at the Marseille train station! The station was closed and several fire trucks were gathered in front, along with hundreds of people. I went down to the port to find a bus, but couldn't find any to where I wanted to go. So I spent a few more hours exploring Marseille. The station finally re-opened and I was off.

The southern coast of France is beautiful!! And in some areas, the vegetation, terrain, and architecture look almost identical to the Santa Barbara area. Areas further inland reminded me of the Santa Clara Valley where I grew up.

The beaches were very nice, especially west of Cannes and Nice. Monaco was very nice also. It's easy to see why this area, known as the French Rivera, is one of the most famous/popular vacation spots in the world.

Entering Italy...

Crossing into Italy and through Genoa reminded me of the drive from El Paso, TX to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The terrain around Genoa, like Ciudad Juarez, was spectacular. But the city itself was awful. It was very dirty, many of the buildings were falling apart, and there were quite a few thugs on the streets. It's no surprise that "graffiti" is an Italian word, because most of the country (and especially Genoa) is covered with it.

There also was an immediate drop in the quality of the trains. The Italian trains had nothing in common with the French ones. They were old, dirty, rickety, crowded, loud, and smelled very bad. The standard Italian trains, Trenitalia, were extremely slow and stopped at some stations for as long as 20 minutes! Once I got north of Genoa into the mountains, it speeded up a litle because there weren't as many stops.

The mountains were beautiful. The terrain flattened out as I approached Milan, where I stopped for my first real Italian pizza. The pizza I had in Milan looked a lot like thin American pizza, but tasted a bit different - particularly the sauce. It was pretty good though. I didn't see very much of Milan, but Milan is known as an unimpressive place anyway, so I didn't mind. I wasn't impressed by anything I saw there.

From Milan I took a train to Venice. It was a lot faster than the earlier one, but still nothing like the French trains, or even the British ones. I went through Verona (home of Romeo & Juliet) which looked quite beautiful at night. If there's any place I regretted not spending more time in, it would be Verona.

I arrived in Venice around Midnight, which actually turned out well because it was not very crowded at all. I found a clean, cheap, and very unique hotel room right by the train station. I walked around for about an hour and was amazed! But I saw a lot more of Venice on the next day...

posted by Matt @ 8:26 PM