The colour purple

September 18, 2023

Sept 17 was another travel day. Surely we deserve a glitch-free journey this time.

Once again, our preparation seemed impeccable. We had walked to the train station the day before to get our bearings. We found that the station was close enough that we could easily manage walking there even with our luggage. We also established that predictions of a national rail strike on this date that we heard before leaving Canada were just a nasty and unfounded rumour.

The train was on time. There was the issue of a small skirmish between Debbie and the lady who had stuffed 14 small bags into the space reserved for big suitcases, but that was resolved without bloodshed. We then had a pleasant and uneventful ride by fast train to La Spezia, where we would transfer to a regional train taking us to Levanto, a town which would be our base for exploring Cinque Terre. Amazingly, the timing was perfect and our connecting train was sitting there waiting for us at the La Spezia station. We boarded and had an excellent journey to our destination while stopping at all 5 villages of Cinque Terre.

Our plan was to seek out a taxi upon arrival, but when we got off the train we spotted our hotel’s shuttle van sitting there. We loaded our luggage, hopped aboard, and after a short but very uphill ride we found ourselves at the Park Argento Hotel. Hallelujah! A travel day that really couldn’t have gone any smoother.

We were greeted by a very pleasant man with a clipboard bearing the names of all his expected arrivals. Can you see where this is going? Yup. We told him our names and he ran his finger up and down the page with his brow furrowed before informing us that we were not on the list. This news had Chris a particularly unpleasant shade of purple but our host assured us he would get to the root of the problem.

With a phone call he determined that, through miscommunication between our travel agent and the tour company, our reservation had been canceled (Chris now whatever colour comes after purple).

There ensued a long conversation on the phone in Italian, then our host hung up, looked at us and shrugged and said “You will have a suite”. This news had an immediate effect on Chris’s colouring. This was the last room available in the hotel and it is amazing. We’ve got more square footage than the main floor of our house, two balconies, two tvs that we aren’t watching, a dancehall sized bathroom, a huge bedroom with king bed, and another room that might be a sitting room.

Anyway, the sad story turned out very well and our first night here was fabulous. Our package included an amazing luxury dinner in the outdoor terrace restaurant with a view to die for. The food was some of the best we’ve ever had. Before dinner, we enjoyed the hotel’s swimming pool, a dip we were very grateful for after a long day’s travel.

Tomorrow’s adventure…. Cinque Terre! Surely nothing can go wrong.