Blog ≫ 2022 ≫ Midlife Eurotour part seven - sleeper train to Rome
This is the final part before meeting the family, and I have some dictation started the next morning. So some repetition here of the stuff I wrote from memory in the last post.
Just had a shower on a train! This is amazing!
Eventually got my train out of Vienna heading towards Rome. It was quite a bit of hanging about in the end because I was there early, but there's lots to see in Vienna train station. It's quite a big shopping center now. Again, no pub. Tried to find one just outside the station but could not. No worries though. Went in a supermarket to get myself some provisions1. The train was delayed by 70 minutes in the end leaving. They kept adding on 5 minutes and 10 minutes, and there are loads people on the platform. It will be a pretty full train. Very full I guess, quite a lot of them seem to be English. Didn't speak to anyone but a lot of the voices I could hear around me were groups of students and some families all on the same adventure as me. I did get one other update by email for the train left which I'll paste in here. Scared me a bit.
Information Update for Your Journey on 16.08.2022 Wien Hbf > Roma Termini Departure at 19:23 Arrival at 09:10 Detailed Information About Your Journey Due to a delayed train provision, a seat car has had to be used for this train instead of the couchette numbered 411. Affected Passengers with a reservation are kindly asked to contact the train attendant or ÖBB customer service at 05-1717-9. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Now what does that mean? Why send it to me? I check my ticket and I was not in number 411. I think I'm in for one two, but imagine, this is a 14-hour train journey. If you thought you were going to have a couchette and instead have to sit up for that journey. I mean the couchette was mostly sitting up anyway on the last train, but at least there's an option to lie down a bit. If you're traveling with someone else, you can get the seats to fully recline.
One other thing on the big screen in the station it made it look as if number 412 was couchette and the one next to it was actual beds. So I was thinking had there been some knock-on effect? Is it going to stop me getting my bed I paid for? But, I got on and all is good. Found my little room. It had three seats in it and the bunk would fold down above that. So there's room for three bunks, but only one is going to be used.
There are still people walking up and down the corridor looking for their seats and things for quite a while, so I didn't quite trust it, didn't unpack everything. I did open a goodie bag which had some water and a pair of slippers, and I filled out my breakfast menu for the next morning. And THEN just as I was settling in, thinking I've made it, the guard came along. The guard asked to see my ticket, and he had a cross looking Italian lady with him, and it turns out I was in the wrong room. There was still potential for this all to go horribly wrong. I said sorry and picked up my things. So I'm glad I hadn't unpacked, and headed off to find my room. And it turns out is much better! The original room was not en-suite. It had a loo and a shower next door, and I thought oh that I've just misunderstood, but the actual cabin I'm in is twice the size of that. So again it has the three seats with fold down bunks above, but the other half of the room is taken up by en-suite toilet and shower, with a little table in the middle. Plenty of room to spread out. I got the guard to put the bed down right away, because he showed me with one of the upper bunks folded down there was still room to sit underneath. So I sat, and I drank the wine, and I ate my crisps, and I read my book, and then I went to bed. Not really sure where I was when I fell asleep because it was dark and the blind in my room was down. Not a lot to see.
I woke up though in Florence, Italy. This was about 7:00 this morning. There was an announcement not long after that throughout the whole train to say sorry, we're fifty minutes late leaving Florence now. We were seventy minutes late leaving Vienna, so I suppose some time has been caught up there. I still think we're going to be an hour late heading into Rome, but I'm in no rush. I've had my inclusive vegan breakfast which was coffee, rolls, some vegan pate type thing, two little pots of that, and a little pot of jam which, was alright. There were lots of meat options on there if you like that sort of thing I've had my shower of course, which is just surreal. Still very cool and actually really nice to have a private toilet. This is certainly the way to travel. I thought I was forward-facing when we left Vienna but maybe not. Definitely been backward-facing at least since Florence. I don't know if the train turned around or if I just wasn't watching.
Spoken to Clare this morning and looks like they all got going early. They were at the airport and tired but happy. They are probably on a plane now, at this time they must be. I think I'm due to meet them about midday. so maybe have two hours on my own before then. Feels like I've had a holiday already and the actual holiday is only just starting. This is awesome. Everyone should have a midlife crisis like this.
I don't feel I have given enough content to how I enjoyed this train. In some ways it's a shame I was asleep for most of it, but of course that is ridiculous. It would have been much worse to be partly awake all night, even if I had been able to see more of Italy as we passed. We must have gone past Venice at some point and I missed that.
I really did think "at last, the game is up, I knew something would go wrong" when I got turfed out of the original cabin. Assumed I'd be heading back to a seat or something because of some sort of mix up. It was just my mix up, I had not read the seat numbers on the outside of the cabins correctly, and mixed up the cabin number and seat number. Here's a picture of the original cabin that I thought would be mine.
That's the seats to the left, the bunks fold down above them. The table is in front and to the side of that the cupboard actually houses a sink. So this would have been comfortable enough for the evening. But my actual cabin was harder to take a picture of. This one makes it look less impressive than the original one, and to be fair neither of them are first class luxury, they are standard class train carriages, but it's the features that you don't get on a regular train, and the distance that this train is going, the destination that it's heading to, and the fact that it goes through the night when I'd just be sleeping, that's what made it so good.
That's not the door to the room on the right, that's the bathroom. You get a sense of the size though when you see that in the previous picture the little table is up against the wall, but in this one that table is in the middle of the room. Opposite the table on the far side is an empty space, where I could stand to get changed, but also where I left my bag. Here's another shot of the inside of the room from being sat on the bed. Still looks a bit crowded from here. But this space is all mine. That door goes to bathroom with shower, and the open door goes out into the corridor.
The bed itself was very comfortable, and the suspension on the carriage must have been great. I thought I'd be bouncing around and not be able to forget I was on a train, but it was really smooth and I slept really well.
I slept on the middle of the three bunks available. The bottom one is probably the one most people go for if they're taking one of these cabins to themselves, but if I'd done that I'd have to not put it down until I was ready to go to bed, and this way I could be prepared in advance, but not have to sit on the bed to eat and drink and read. The very top bunk then might be the best option, but that is up quite high and what if I rolled out? As it was I put the sort-of-bed-guard on the side of my low bunk in case I did. Here's another look at the cabin with my bunk folded down.
And just so you've really got the picture, here's where I sat and ate my breakfast, with the bunk still folded down. I figured out how to open the blinds when I woke up, so here we can see some of Italy rolling by.
After my shower and shave I really did finally throw that t-shirt away, and another pair of pants. And now I've offloaded the food and snacks I've been carrying (or rather inloaded them, it was all just about consumed) I'm travelling really light.
I did ultimately get off at Roma Termini, that's Rome central station, and I'm in Italy, and now the holiday starts for real!
Estimated 512 cups of coffee from my barista pro2 probably comes to £2.02 a cup (including actual coffee and now servicing2 but not the 'leccy).
- Actually got myself another salad pot type thing here, I ate very healthily when I was on my own here
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