Yesterday we had to leave Avignon in a hurry, and we ended up with a train schedule that had many transfers and brought us into the border city of Ventimiglia but not across the country to Treviso where we needed to go.
In the ticket line there in Ventimiglia, an older woman befriended me and offered to let us go ahead of her in line (she could tell we had no clue what trains we were taking to get to where we needed. She gave me her advice and continued to explain that it was going to be a pain for us to get there. Then, when we got to the ticket window, I said our destination and when the man responded this fiery old lady took over and went back and forth over the printed route options the man was producing at her request.
Helping to take us through our options and explaining to us what crazy routes they were sending us on. She stopped and said, in her beautifully Italian English "You girls should go to Milano and stay with me, then in the morning take train to Venico then to Treviso. Come, come, stay with me. We take the train in one hour. I am in cart 7. Go see the city and come back for the train with me."
Well, I had gotten some pretty good vibes as this lady bossed around the ticket man and I was happy to not take the alternative option which would have had us on 4 different trains, each of 2 hour increments, arriving in Treviso at 6:12am. We decided to go for a walk, see if we could get in touch with Pierpaolo so we could get his advice.
We went on our walk, with backpacks on in case we decided to take a different option, and by some miracle found internet the first place we tried. I logged onto skype to give him a call and when I explained the two options he exclaimed "Oh no Stephania! 10:30 definitely. That is the option." And so it was settled. We'd go home with our lovely new friend (whose name I did not yet know) and stay with her and catch the 7:30am train the next morning.
We went back to the station and found her car, where she was more or less in a private box. She was joyous to see us and began to pick up on the stories of her life right away as she unpacked a picnic and began feeding us crackers and cheese and proschuitto and bread.
Then came the stories of her life. Her travels, her work, her son, her homes, and her husband, who always said they'd do things later and now, well.
The four hour train ride was filled with her stories of joy and loss and I was completley enraptured by every second of it. What a life this woman has had.
When we arrived she led us to the metro and helped us to buy tickets. We caught the metro right when we arrived and with even better fortune ("from angels" she said) we caught a tram immediately. So the journey that usually took her at least 1 hour on late nights due to poor timing between connections took us merely 15 minutes.
We got to her house, took much-needed showers then hit the sheet right at midnight with plans to wake at 6am for an early morning connection to Venice. What crazy luck we have. And she was really so so kind!
I will always look at Francesca as our angel from Milan :)
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