buses/trains - trains-buses but no taxi

Thursday, September 27, 2012

 

We got up and packed for our trip to Citta di Castello (CdC).  La Villa, the name of the town I stayed in Bagni Di Lucca was a cute town but it is too small to be used as my home base not to mention having to arrange the train/bus schedule to come and go.  Not as convenient, especially without a car.  It is very relaxing area in the mountains and is very beautiful.  This is a lovely area to visit and probably would come back when I had a car so I could do some exploring.

 

The trek to CdC was going to be a long trip since we had no car.  We left Bagni di Lucca at 12:40p and didn't get to CdC until 7:45p.  The gentlemen at the bar at the train station in CdC said there were no taxi's but that it was a short walk to where we were staying.  Note, I believe due to the lack of my Italian language he was saying that I 'don't' need a taxi as it was not a long walk.  Well, it had been a long day of travel and that last thing mom and I wanted to do was walk, we just wanted to get to our room.  Little did we know that it was just the beginning of our adventure.

 

We went the way the gentleman told use to go, took first turn into CdC wall instead of second but through asking someone for directions made it to our apartment at Residenza Antica Canonica.  Rang the bell, no answer.  I called the booking service I used for this reservation and they said I needed to arrange a time to meet the apartment mananger if arriving after 6pm.  Shoot, didn't do this.  Didn't I see this in my email confirmation.....  obviously not.  I asked them if they could reach the manager, they tried.  We were on hold for quite a while and the service said the best they could do since the manager wasn't answering their phone was to book another room for the night.  I asked them to see if the hotel could send over soemone to pick us up as they had said it was a mile away.  I told them that it was late at night, no taxis (which I later found out was incorrect) and my mother was 78 years old (pulling out all the sopts) and couldn't walk that far.  Again I was put on hold as they checked and made reservations at the other hotel.

 

As we were standing there waiting for the service to book a room and get us a ride a man came up and asked if we had a reservation at the Antica Canonica?  Said yes but couldn't reach the apartment manager.  He said he saw us and his wife is the manager.  He called her to let us know the people that hadn't showed up yet for the apartment were here.  She arrived and funny thing is that the hotel that the booking service was getting us a room for that night at had called Alicia the apartment manager to let her know that guests who were supposed to be staying at her apartment were making a room reservation.  Too funny, only in a small town does this happen.  The booking service finally came back on (was on hold with them a total of 45+ minutes) and I told them to cancel everything as Alicia had shown up.

 

Alicia was a sweetheart.  She showed us too our room but mentioned that the room I had booked had some really steep stairs and that she wanted me to check and make sure they were okay for my mom.  How sweet is she?

 

The stairs to the bedrooms were REALLY steep so she said she'd look into finding us an apartment on one floor but that tonight she was booked.  It had been a long day of travel with a lot of frustration (which had I read my reservation confirmation would could have alleviated).  It's a good thing that Italians eat late or we would be going to bed hungry.  Alicia gave us the name of a place called Trattoria Lea, the food was good and the wine even better after our day.

 

Needless to say we slept good that night after the long day of travel.

 

Walked 9,465 steps = 4.77 miles.