grande errore

At the train station in Milan I looked up at the board and saw that my train to La Spezia, Italian for Spiez, was leaving on time from Track 9. Relieved that I had made it, I sank back into the seat anticipating the change of scenery I would witness over the next few hours: from the chaotic and bustling cosmopolitan Italian city to the serenity of the lakes, forests, and mountains of the Swiss Alps. It was going to be the perfect last stop for my summer of traveling through Europe. I was nineteen and nearing the end of my first solo traveling adventure. I felt a sense of accomplishment for having been able to see and experience so much over the previous eight weeks.

As I happily gazed out the window, the afternoon sun lit up the landscape giving the fields a dazzling golden hue. For the briefest of moments, I wondered why the sun was on the right side of the train as we headed north into the mountains, but this thought vanished as quickly as it had come when the conductor made his way to my car checking tickets. When he looked at my ticket to Spiez he seemed to hesitate. With a slightly confused look on his face, he handed the ticket back to me, un-punched.

Halfway through the trip, the little clues that I had been repressing in my subconscious burst into my head as I witnessed a passenger in beach attire board the train. My palms started to sweat, my mouth went dry, and my heart beat a little faster as my new-found confidence in my abilities to navigate foreign countries was instantly shattered. When the vast expanse of the brilliantly blue Mediterranean Sea opened up before us, my last sliver of hope vanished that the Swiss Alps would magically materialize on the horizon.

My lack of Italian language skills, lira, and sustenance, with the exception of a pack of misleadingly named Life Savers candy, left me with a chill inside that was in sharp contrast to the ever balmier air that filtered into the train at each stop. Steep cliffs towered up from the sea with brightly colored buildings perched atop, palm trees swayed peacefully in the breeze, and golden sand beaches glowed in the late afternoon sunshine. Of all places in which to accidentally find myself, it seems I had hit the jackpot!

As much as I would have loved to spend some time exploring this awe-inspiring coastline, for the entire summer I had been looking forward to breathing the crisp mountain air of the Swiss Alps. I got on the next train heading back towards Milan and contemplated the two lessons I had learned: this area of the Italian coast deserves much more than a thirty minute visit and La Spezia is definitely not Italian for Spiez.