Train adventure - day 1
On Saturday morning, I started the last part of the adventure to Europe. I agreed to visit two other programs that we may send students to, one in Maastricht, in the Netherlands, and the other in Copenhagen, Denmark. Since flying is not much fun and you don't get to see anything, I got a Eurail Pass and boarded the train.
The first leg started at 7:08 am and connected Florence and Milan. We had been through this part of Italy before, and unlike Beth & Alli, my train was on time the whole way, getting into Milan at 10. I walked through the station to my next train, that left at 10:25 bound for Basel, Switzerland, up near the French and German borders.
The weather was great and I took a lot of pictures from the train, but I'm afraid they do not do justice to how amazing the Alps are. They just seem to reach straight up to the sky. Some of the tunnels are a bit too long -- you begin to wonder after a while how any one could dig for that long. Lots of stops in cute little towns in Italy and Switzerland, and then through some less spectacular, bigger cities in one of the flatter parts of Switzerland. In one town the graffiti was even on the roofs of some of the buildings!
Basel is quiet and seems very Swiss. Things are orderly, the trolleys in town are quiet, and the drivers actually pay attention to stop lights and the white lines that mark where to drive. The train station is very nice, and I have a nice hotel (with internet) just two blocks away.
Tomorrow the train adventure continues at 11:00 when I depart for Maastricht.
