A train story

There always seems to be a story when I go to Italy on business, although this one is from the return train trip and actually happened in Germany.  I pay the difference for 1^st Class tickets to avoid the crush in 2^nd and to get work done.  On the train out of Munich, I’d settled into a window corner seat of a 5 seat compartment about 15 minutes before it departed.  A middle aged guy opens the door, kinda grunts a greeting, plops an expensive medium sized bag in the middle of the isle making no effort to put it in the overhead rack and practically blocking my exit; then he placed a leather computer case in the seat next to me and across from his.  Un-kept hair and sloppily dressed in corduroy jeans and a sport coat, he walked out, returned with a sandwich and after one bite laid it down (crumbs and all) in the seat next to him while putting his feet up on the opposite seat with his shoes on to nap.  Mind you this was before we’d pulled and people were still looking for seats but the compartment was now effectively full; rarely does one see someone exude such a sense of the rich spoiled brat.  He woke, ate some more of his sandwich without moving his feet and dropped even more crumbs on the seat next to him.  At that point, I got up to stretch my legs and actually had to ask him to let me out.  Later the conductress came by asking for tickets, he seemed offended at having to produce it, and annoyed that she asked him to take his shoes off the seat.  And of course as soon as she left, the shoes went straight back up.  A bit later, she walked by the compartment saw his feet up napping and I’ve got to say our eye contact was rich before she opened the door and ripped into him.  As much as I hated to leave such a fine companion, I soon had to change trains and pulled my bag off the overhead rack to depart, somehow it came down right on his unfinished sandwich.  Then as I passed him, my relatively heavy bag somehow hit him square in the left knee … oh, and then the right knee too.  Such a shame the conductress couldn’t share that. 

The isle of Santorini

Stairs; lots of stairs will probably be what I’ll remember most of the Greek isle of Santorini, other than the fantastic views and narrow alleyways.  Lisa booked the hotel direct rather than our normal travel agent package vacation and she did quite well with it.  To set the stage, Santorini is the site of the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history … albeit at 1600 B.C. not quite as well recorded as we may be used to (the exact year is not certain).  It had at one point been one huge island, but a prior eruption had collapsed it into a “caldera” with a ring of islands above the sea; the great Minoan eruption of 1600 B.C. blew off a fair amount of that and left it with the a ring of three small islands as an archipelago.  Two of the islands have steep cliffs facing the center straight into the Aegean Sea.  Only a couple hundred years ago, in the center of the caldera a sub-sea volcano erupted several times to form yet two more small islands; now dormant (but active?), it erupted last in 1950.  A fascinating read with Wikipedia is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini, follow some of the links about the volcano or eruption. 

Anyway, our hotel, actually an apartment with breakfast, was right in the middle of the principal town of Fira on the caldera’s cliff … like really, partially down the cliff, which is part of the beauty of the whole place.  Did I mention stairs?  Although our room was very low in the city, but still about around 500 feet up from the sea; so just to get to the entrance/reception required climbing five flights of stairs.  To get to the main pedestrian drag at the top of the hill was easily twice that still. 

Ships … if you ever want to see a group of cruise ships just get a place on the cliff in the old town of Fira; guaranteed you’ll see your share change out daily.  There were the huge colossus of cruise ships, the really cool sailing cruise ships, the smaller normal cruise ships, and a plethora of yachts.   With a smart phone and Google most could be detailed on the spot.  Perhaps the most outrageous being the Mary Jean II, an Italian made 100 foot luxury charter boat … a crew of 15 will take up to 12 passengers for a meager weekly rate of €310,000 (at today’s rates around $443,000).  So anyway, what did these ships do besides loudly dropping anchors outside our window early mornings?  They disgorged thousands of tourists into town for day trips; the Costa Fortuna carries up to 2,270 passengers by itself and that day there were four other ships as well.  It was always best to simply avoid downtown during the day; the cruise tourists always wanting to get back on board in time for dinner.  

The buses were an adventure, not always a particularly pleasant adventure, but one couldn’t beat the price and we hit two beaches and a lovely ancient town of Pyrgos, near the highest part of the island which was pleasantly devoid of the tourists.  I hiked several miles along the caldera one morning to the town of Oia with steep hills and even more breathtaking views but it was a hazy day and the pictures didn’t turn out well.   Near the end of the week-long stay we took a boat ride to the volcano and then a sunset dinner cruise.  I hiked up the volcano, the boat was evenly split between those who found it interesting (me included) and those who found it simply a bunch of black rocks and craters.  The on-board dinner was less than memorable but the sunset was stunning with sailboats all around … call me a romantic :-).  

If you care to, click here for a few of the over 100 pictures taken.