We ask the lady at the ferry’s information desk if the passenger terminal is near the train station. She calls in another lady who speaks enough English to tell us that they don’t know where the train station is. The lady who speaks English tells us to ask the lady who works at the duty free shop. The lady who works at the duty free shop is pretty sure the train station is pretty near the passenger terminal. But she’s not sure. It’s a Croatian ferry, she explains. And Ancona is an Italian city.
The ferry’s passenger terminal is a parking lot next to the water. A series of signs eventually leads to an actual building housing customs and an information office. The information office opens at 9am. The ferry arrives at 7am.
We walk. If you walk down the shore and keep the water to your right and you will soon reach a train station. It is the wrong train station. The Ancona maritime station sees very few trains. We walk away from the water to a building that sort of looks like a train station. It is not. But it is next to a sign that points to the train station. With a trust born of having very few other options we follow this sign along the train tracks in a convoluted path onward and inland for about twenty minutes. And then, slowly, past the bus station, it rises – the train station.
The next train for Rome leaves at 1:53pm. It’s a little before 9am. We buy tickets. We go to the waiting room and fall asleep for twenty minutes until the police officers ask to see our tickets. The luggage lockers at the station do not inspire confidence. We wander around Ancona with our backpacks, we sit in the sun where we find it. We are glad to board the train a little after 1:20pm. Newspapers lie on the seats.
The route is mountainous, picturesque. The man taking our ticket tells us we should have had them stamped in Ancona before boarding the train, but there are no consequences. We arrive in Rome hungry and on time.
…
R 2327 TO ROME
ONE WAY TICKET SECOND CLASS EUR13.22 (APPROX $19.33)
DEPARTS ANCONA DAILY 1:53PM
ARRIVES ROME 5:48PM
Ha! The first time any admired webcomic author passes within 300km from me – and I wasn’t checking their blog for months!
Hope you enjoyed Croatia!
were the newspapers left there from morning commuters?
or are they like the usa today newspapers you get every morning when you stay at a holiday inn?
are italian trains deserving of the bad reputation they hold abroad? are they ever on time?