On the train

Two trains, and over 24 hours of travel behind me, and I have made it to Florence. It's Sunday morning, the skies are grey and the streets are silent. It is just after 7am. Too early for anyone sensible to be up. Sitting on the doorstep of a flat waiting for an hour and a half to be let in is not my ideal start to the day, but a chic Italian woman who speaks English with a Helena-Bonham-Carter accent arrives at the set time to let me in. I drag my lead-weight suitcase up the stone stairs inside, winding round and up until we reach a double wooden door and my home for the next month. There are two rooms to choose from: a rectangular garret-like room up the twistiest, tiny staircase you’ve ever seen. With only a skylight and no window, there was no contest. I had to have the downstairs room. Noisier, and overlooking the street, it was, at least, A Room with a View. 

The adventure started at St Pancras. There's a sense of being on the doorstep of the continent, only slightly dampened by the hordes of French schoolchildren packing out the terminal and taking over the train. But glorious sunshine awaited in Paris and the first hour and a half of my afternoon wait for the overnight Thello train to Italy soon passed by, as I sat outdoors, perched on a step outside the Gare de Lyon with a newspaper and tens of other travellers (Gare de Lyon, pictured above).

The Thello train is an experience. No frills or fanciness here, and also no concession to those with vertigo. I was sharing a three-bunk compartment, with two women in the their 50s, neither of whom had packed lightly. Nor had I. For the first two and a half hours we sat perched on the seats in a comical line, hemmed in by oversize suitcases. I read. On my left, woman one, dressed in jeans and a neat blouse, with short brown hair and glasses, listened to jazz on her iPod and ate her Tupperware-packed dinner. She spoke French and Italian. On my right, woman two, filled in crosswords in a brightly-coloured word puzzle magazine, ate a sandwich and then offered round a bag of licorice all-sorts.

At 9.30pm, the train attendant comes round to make the beds. Luckily, I had the bottom bunk – the top bunk is vertiginously high up, held by two rather flimsy looking straps and only accessible by a ladder. Throughout the night, the train hurtles along. The constant changes of pace and passing round corners leaves you feeling upside down one second, and sliding into oblivion the next. It doesn't make for a wholly peaceful sleep, but there's still something rather joyous about waking up in a different country, waking up in Florence.