Locomotive

Day 27 - August 25

The ferry left right on time, at 9 pm, the previous night and it pulled in to Genoa on schedule, at 7 am. I did not sleep all too well, despite the fact that I was quite exhausted from the previous day. After disembarking, I rode directly to the train station, taking a picture of Columbus (who, as you might remember, is rumored to have been born in Corsica).

There was a train departing for Milan Lambarte in the outskirts of the city and I had just 5 minutes to catch it. There I had some breakfast, relaxed and caught a train to Verona. It was a big rush to catch the next train to Venedig, I made that, too. Having left Genoa just before 8 am, I made it safely - carrying my bike! - to the lagoon town just before 3 pm. I had an hour or so for the Railjet to Vienna - however, bike ticket were sold out. Shortly before departure at 4 pm, I begged the train personal, they were rather friendly and told me to keep quiet about it and just board the train. Now I was all set to reach Vienna close to midnight! I could hardly believe my luck - I made it all the way from Genoa to Vienna in one day!

As I was riding home in Vienna, I had an unpleasant realization - while I had loaded all four of my pannier bags, the saddle one was missing. How stupid of me - I left it on the train. As I am writing this, a week later, it still hasn't been turned in, but I am still hopeful. There was nothing of value inside, just some bike stuff, my sunglasses - but the bag itself is worth some Eur 100. Oh well - we in Hungary say "at Mohacs (where the Ottomans dealt a decisive blow against the Hungarian empire in 1526 and then conquered the country for 150 years) we lost even more"....