I got to Ravenna via a Eurostar from London and then an overnight train from Paris to Milan. I got another train from Milan to Bologna and then another one from Bologna to Ravenna, which required a change in Ferrara!

I got the train from my parents’ house to London St. Pancras, where I boarded the Eurostar train to Paris, which I had never got before. The journey was uneventful and the woman sat next to me was about as interesting to sit next to as a sack of potatoes. We got to Paris having made no eye-contact and no attempt to communicate whatsoever. When I got to Paris I got the metro from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon and attempted to leave my bag in the left luggage section, but as the X-Ray machine was not working, I had to wait around for about an hour until the secuity guard was willing to let me through with just a visual inspection of the bag. With the bag in storage, I was able to get a map and find something to eat.

After finding something to eat, I got on the train for Milan. This took some figuring-out, as the berth number and carriage were marked on the ticket, but it wasn’t clear from the numbering on the train which my compartment was. Once I got someone to explain this, it was only obvious which number your bed was from the number on the bed itself, which was on the underneath. Once I’d been shown my compartment, someone inside the compartment pointed out that I had found the right bed/berth.

The people I was sharing the compartment with were 2 Canadians, 2 Italians and an Indian man. The Indian man didn’t speak much English, so the Canadians, Italians and I ended up playing a type of charades using an iPad before going to bed. As the Italian woman had been through the Alps before with the window open, she insisted it was closed, which meant that the compartment was really hot. I put up with it and got to Milan at 06:00am.

I got off the train and went in search of another train to Bologna. I found this almost immediately and sat on the train until Bologna Centrale. As I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before, the first thing I did was go in search of something to eat. Once I’d sat down with a croissant, I realised there was a train to Ravenna leaving in 1 minute, but as I didn’t have a ticket, I decided to get the next one. This was to Ravenna, with a change in Ferrara. What the ticket didn’t say however, was that the change in Ferrara was 2 hours! I filled the time in by getting something to eat, which was considerably cheaper than what I’d had in Paris the day before. After much waiting around, I made it to Ravenna, where I met one of my friends from university and we spent the next 3 days wandering around Ravenna, eating and drinking. It was very good!