7th: Dove una autobus...?

Public transport, eh? What can I say? ‘Always carry a good book and some music’, perhaps?

Now, I like trains. Yes, even given the air of unpredictability and likely cancellation (see previous comments about the cancelled ‘rail-replacement bus’ for the cancelled train) they seem to have down here at the bottom of the peninsular, I like them; but then, there are limits. Travelling from Caserta to Benevento last weekend to my new area for examining, I opted for the train. I say opted, but there wasn’t really a choice of a bus – if there was, it remained cleverly hidden. Anyways, why but it when there are trains a-plenty? Quite cheap as well. For the 40km journey I could get the express, non-stop Eurostar from Castera to Benevento direct at only 15 euros, taking only 35 minutes - far better than the 5 euro slow train taking an hour and a half to cover the distance. The only hurdle is that for the Eurostar, you can’t get your ticket at the local tobacconist’s (purveyor of all things necessary for journeys, including tobacco) but have to go to a station with a ticket desk and speak the Italiano. Not a special ticket desk, just a ticket desk.

While every station has platform folk brewing up espressos and chatting to the folk that come by to share their coffee, it’s the preserve of larger stations to have a ticket window/desk, normally helpfully understaffed with one person (see picture of Caserta’s ticket desk). Although I had plenty of time before the train (I always allow plenty of time when travelling, you know), faced with a long queue and speaking the Italiano, I took the easy option of the ‘volice biglietta’, or ‘fast ticket’ machine – you can see one to the right of the ticket desk. This has the added bonus of having an English language facility, meaning the ‘no-speaky-Italiano’ folk like me can travel and buy tickets with ease.

The machine was helpful, I selected my seat and went to put my money in the machine. 15 euro ticket, 50 euro note. The machine says it can give me change of 35 euros, so all’s good. In goes the note, out comes the 15 euro ticket and 3 x 5 euro notes. The Quick-minded reader will notice there’s a 20 euro short fall. Well, I did too. Noticing the short-changing (even the machines do it down here), I looked at the screen – ‘Go to window’, it said. Bugger. Speaky Italiano after all (or at least a very rudimentary pidgin of it), but this time with more explanation to get my missing 20 euros. Knowing my very basic Italian wouldn’t stand up to the job of explanation, while in the Q, I drew a picture of the machine, a 50 euro note going in, a ticket and 15 euros coming out and a question mark over a 20 euro note – clever, huh?

My communication concern eased when I noticed that the man at the window had a little union flag on his name badge, indicating he could speak English. Or at least that’s what I thought it meant. It turns out that this symbol means nothing of the sort, as this chap couldn’t parle anglais - I think that it’s more an indication of where the wearer thinks / once thought they might possibly like to go / have gone on holiday. No problem. The drawing. I gesture to it with my ticket, murmuring nonsense like those annoying people slowing up the queues at Victoria station. The guy thinks I want another ticket and goes to print me off another. ‘Non, bene’, I say, waving my ticket. The guy’s ignored the drawing and is focussing on the ticket. How to backtrack? Well, it’s lengthy and there’s already a sheen on my brow, but it’s done. Chap with the key for the machine, though, he’s not there. Won’t be back until Monday when I should come back. Trouble is won’t be there because I’ll be in the place I’m trying to sort a ticket for. A call’s made and he goes to get a print out from the machine – I will be vindicated through hard evidence and the perseverance will have been worth it! Or maybe not. The computer says, ‘no’, it gave me my money. There it is there in black and white in the print out showing all the transactions and buttons pressed. Yes, I concede it’s got the details all down, but it’s wrong, and I point to the ‘errore: malfunzione’ in the text, right next to where it said I’d been given the money. By now the queue’s built up nicely and I can feel a weight of eyes on my back, the guy shrugs and there’s nothing left to do but either pay a 30 euro return fare on the Monday to get the guy in charge to return 20 euros or get a beer from the tobacconist’s and wipe the gloss from my forehead. I opt for the latter with beer, and more pleasing it is, too. Those machines – they’re plotting, don’t you know. Anyway, short video footage of Benevento for your perusal, literally paid for with the sweat off my brow.

But trains, you see, they’re not buses, and how glad are we for that. Thursday saw me getting the bus from Benevento [lit: good wind, and it was a good wind that got me out of there] to Avellino, up in the hills a full 35km away. Questioning told me the bus journey took two hours. Two hours for 35km (not even miles). While one part of my mind thought it was probably a mistake in my understanding, another darker part of my mind recalled being at school in Scotland and having to travel for 30 minutes on the local bus for the 4 miles to the place where I could then get the school bus (taking another 30 minutes for a further 4 miles to get to school). No, times had changed. It’s the 21^st century. Buses don’t take two hours to travel 35km. Or do they? Yes, it would seem. They do – the memory buried deep in the darkest corners of my mind rose, like a ghoulish spectre from beyond the grave, ready to haunt my waking day and, 16 years on, my professional life. Not only do they take two hours but they involve two changes and a visit to all the hill-top towns in the region. The change thing threw me, as once again, I’d applied my knowledge of how things work in the UK to rural Italy. Fool, that I am. There was me thinking that a bus with a sign saying it was going to Avellino was, in fact, going to Avellino. No, it was going into the windy hills far, far away. Whereupon I’d make a connection. And then another. More video footage of Motefusco this time (place for second connection) – a place the interweb tells me has 463 families but 754 housing units (?). What does that tell you?

Although travelling quite so far, the whole thing was rather reminiscent of something, and it was only while waiting in the intermittent rain that I realised that all these hill top villages were all familiar to me. It was back to Scotland but this time the University of Glasgow. When studying there, we all learnt, amongst many other useful things about alcohol and how to mix a decent G&T, etc., that the university library was designed so that viewed from a distance it looked like an Italian hill-top village. And here they were, hill top-villages all around.
I’ll let you decide for yourself how successful the architect was. In case you get confused, the first picture is the village. Or is it the library. Damn. Even I get confused, and I studied there...

As the memories came flooding back I was reminded of a further Scotland-Italy similarity. The most ardent admirers of Scotland’s fair city of Glasgow will tell you that it’s just like Rome; not in terms of style, fashion, monuments, weather, food or architecture, but that it’s built on seven hills, just as Rome is. Any other similarities to Rome and Italy end when you come across the first fish and chip shop that sells deep-fried pizza. And that will be the first fish and chip shop that you come across.

My most recent bus journey out in the hilly wilderness here was my trip to the exam centre this morning. 45 km away = give one hour 45 minutes to get there. With the exams starting at 9am, that means a pretty early start, although the scenery is quite something at some points. See the delightful bus station at Grottaminarda where I caught my return bus this afternoon. There are, of course, real highlights, and those will come in the next instalment. See how I keep you coming back for more with these tales, eh? Joyous.