I was meant to be a Princess, not a Luggage Handler!

Our journey home included the hardest travel days I have ever encountered! Because of Ken’s pending knee replacement surgery, we needed to leave our cruise one day early in Ravenna. First of all, it was hard to say goodbye to all of our fellow travelers with whom we really had a great time as we cruised the Dalmatian Coast. More on that in this and this separate blog posts.

In order to leave the ship early and arrive in Venice in time for our flight home, Ken had arranged for us to take a train from Ravenna to Venice. What neither one of us knew is that there is absolutely no help and mass confusion (especially for a foreigner) in Italian train stations and as it later turned out at the airport in Venice too. We have never learned to travel light and as usual, we were laden with four giant size suitcases and one small but incredibly heavy carryon. It is currently very painful for Ken to walk even a few steps and his balance is not good (hence the upcoming surgery!).

Luckily the train station in Ravenna was small, so after several mistakes and confusion all around, we were finally able to determine where we should wait for our particular train outside on the platform. However, once the train arrived, there was a rush for the train and we had to schlep the 5 bags onto the train. By the time we had done that, there wasn’t a place to actually put the bags since I assume this must primarily be a commuter train, so by the time I had manhandled each bag into a place, we were lucky to find two seats in that rail car, not together.

When we arrived in Bologna, we were required to switch trains and had only 16 minutes to make the switch. Now that was a real nightmare since our Ravenna train arrived on one track and again after trying to figure out where we were supposed to go, I finally found an “official” who was able to speak a small amount of English and headed us in the right direction. We had to carry all the suitcases down a steep, long flight of stairs to walk under the tracks and then carry them back upstairs on the other side in order to access the correct platform. Since I have never really travelled in trains, everything was a challenge and the fact that I didn’t understand the signs and couldn’t speak the language made it doubly so.

When it was finally time for us to get off the train, again it was a matter of schlepping the suitcases down the steps off the train.  However, everyone lines up well in advance of the train stopping, so we were the last ones out of our train car and jockeying the enormous suitcases also slowed us down.  Just as I was trying to take the last suitcase off the train which Ken was pushing towards me, the doors began to close.  I somehow found superhuman strength to force the door open so Ken could stumble down the staris and off the train.  Whew!

I was totally exhausted at the end of that day and it will be a very long time before I will EVER take a train with any luggage again!