Lost on the Green Train

Confusion on the Circumvesuviana

From Sorrento, I took an afternoon trip to Ercolano to see the ruins at Herculeum, about 30 minutes away via the Circumvesuviana, the local train line. Returning in the late afternoon, I found myself on the green line, instead of the blue line, and ended up in Poggiomarino, a town I’d never heard of before.

I calmly got a ticket to backtrack to Trecase, where I knew I could change over to the blue and get to Sorrento. Somehow I ended up all the way back in Napoli, but wasn’t concerned because I knew I could simply take the blue line from Napoli to Sorrento. I asked 3 different people on the platform to make sure I took the right train this time, since there were no signs and no markings on the trains as there were at most stations. I knew I was on the right track, but there was no way to be sure which route I was on until we passed the first “wrong” station. Comfortably settling in with my book, headed home at last, I thought, I suddenly realized we had passed Pompei, which meant I was on the green again. There was nothing to do but stay on it to Poggiomarino, and then start backtracking again. Once back in that station, asking for help in my tiny bit of Italian only helped me to determine that the man at the counter spoke no English. Luckily for me, a very kind man walked up to me and said, “You need to go to Sorrento?” He turned out to be the conductor of the train I needed to take back. He was apparently waiting for his shift to start, and told me that the train I needed to take would be there in 40 minutes. It was now about 8 pm. Of course Gene was back in Sorrento, wondering where I was. I couldn’t call him because, even if I could have figured out the phones, I couldn’t remember the name of our hotel! (And you all thought I was so organized!) The nice conductor watched me and made sure I got on the right train, and then made sure I got off at the right place and knew which train to take from the other side of the track to backtrack to Sorrento!

By the time I arrived back at our hotel at about 9:30 at night, Gene said that he was beginning to get a little concerned, and figured that something like that had happened! He hadn’t taken it really seriously, knowing that I would figure out what to do. We went out for a wonderful late dinner and had a great time discussing what fabulous new experiences we were racking up. Sorrento is beautiful. It’s charming. The food is great. The people are nice. We loved it. I could live there. Really!

To get to our next town, Salerno, we took a bus for the first time, rather than a train. We wanted to see the Amalfi Coast that we had heard so much about. I guess when I was reading about it and looking at the pictures, I forgot how terrified I am of heights, especially when the road from on high drops right straight down the cliff to the sea, about a mile below! Especially when the winding road is less than six inches wider than the bus! The trip was every bit as awesome as I had been told. And it was absolutely terrifying. I’m sorry to have to confess that my eyes were closed and my breathing stopped for much of the trip. And that’s the truth! We had been talking with a very charming and friendly family from Ireland while waiting for the bus, a couple and their teenaged daughter and son. We didn’t hear much from him during the bus ride, and when we reached the half-way point, in Amalfi, I found out why. He couldn’t talk while holding his breath either! I realized at this point that Gene really doesn’t take me seriously. I had just finished telling him that we were taking a boat the rest of the way to Salerno because my heart couldn’t take any more of this ride. I then turned to the Irishman to discuss our heart attack problems. While we talked, Gene strolled off to get bus tickets for the rest of the trip to Salerno! Yes, we took the bus.

For more about our crazy times discovering Europe in the summer of 2004, check out our old blogs from that era: https://theedgeclinger.blogspot.com/2007/01/wanderers-return-10-weeks-in-europe_1907.html