Traveling to Italy

It's a gorgeous Saturday morning in Siena. So far the weather has cooperated since we returned to Tuscany but we're certainly not taking it for granted. This time of year one just never knows. On the way here we saw a major snow squall in central France and nearly tropical temperatures in Nice, so we're just appreciating the moment.

Susan and I left the apartment on rue Poliveau about 7 a.m. Wednesday and walked our bag over to the Gare de Lyon, cutting through the Gare d'Austerlitz and across the Seine, a walk of only about 20 minutes or so.

We boarded our train, a TGV, about 7:45 and left the station on time at a little before 8 a.m. Originally we had two aisle seats but a businessman sitting next to Susan took pity on us and swapped seats before we even pulled out of the station. (photo: Porta Camollia in Siena.)

The train seemed to fly a ground level through the French countryside of Burgundy, through the occasional snow squall and then down along the Rhone on into Provence before it made it's first stop at Avignon; from Avignon it was a short hop to Aix-en-Provence. We had covered roughly 2/3 of our journey in under three hours! But from Aix the tracks slowed significantly and indeed it would take more than three hours to finish the trip to Nice.

After arriving at the Nice train station -- amidst palm trees, warm temps and almost within sight of the water -- we found ourselves perplexed, confused and wondering how we were going to get to the airport to pick up our car rental. A few minutes of me stomping around in front of the station wondering how we got ourselves into this fix in the first place and up pulls an express bus to the airport! Four euros and 15 minutes later we were standing at the arrivals entrance to Terminal 2.

Unlike most other airports we've been in the folks who operate the Nice airport have seen fit to place the car rental operations not just outside of the terminal proper but in fact on the other side of P5 (Parking lot no. 5), a short walk from the terminal. The people at the Avis desk were very nice and 5 minutes after we arrived we were in a brand-new Opel Corsa heading out of the airport parking lot toward the A8, in the direction of Monaco and Italy.

The drive to Italy was smooth and uneventful, cruising along the coast on the superhighway perched high above the beaches and villages in southern France and then along the Italian Riviera.

We zoomed right through San Remo amidst the thousands of greenhouses cantilevered on the steep hillsides soaking up the sun, zipped through Genova and then down the Ligurian coast toward La Spezia and eventually cut inland near Carrara, sliding past Lucca around Florence and at about 8 p.m. pulled up in front of the Hotel Arcobaleno in Siena.

After checking in and unloading our bags we stepped downstairs to the Hotel lobby and then walked down another level to the restaurant, Il Vecchio Pozzo -- where virtually everyone seemed to be local so we though that a good sign indeed. I had grilled sausage with white Tuscan beans in a tomato sauce and Susan had a penne pasta with four cheeses and a salad. Delicious and incredibly inexpensive.

After a leisurely evening meal we returned to our room and to bed and slept like babies.