We were catching the train at midday today, so that meant a lazy morning. We mooched and had breakfast, and were packed and gone by 11.30am. Most of the hotels have a 12pm check-out time, super-helpful! It was bucketing down most of the morning, and the clouds parted just as we were checking out – phew! We knew we’d be okay though, Stephen had already tested his rain poncho over his pack. Sexy as.
The journey today involved a local train from Avignon city station to Avignon TGV (fast train), then a change of carriage at Marseilles (whoops, that was our fault), this one took us through to Nice. Then a quick change at Nice for the Nice-Ventimiglia leg on a local train, then a TGV fast train from Ventimiglia to Milan. OMGosh! It was a bit stressful – with turnaround times of about 10 minutes each change, we needed to find the new platform and get on the train quickly. We didn’t really think about food until we were on the last train for the day – at around 4pm. The French trains have a buffet car, so we assumed the Italian ones did too. Nope. I ate all my snacks and was still feeling a bit hungry when we arrived in Milan at 9pm. Going 12 hours without proper food must be some kind of a record for me! By 10pm, once we’d purchased our Milan-Geneva train ticket and checked into our hotel, we were feeling rather hungry. The easiest option was McDonalds in the train station. Yuck, but it will tide me over until breakfast.
The Secret Life of Bebe 