Chambery, Milan-ish, and La Spezia

This morning, Steph, my dad and I got on a bus at 5:22am (ugh) after getting all of 5 hours of sleep. We got on the train to Chambery at 6:31am, took a little nap, and got off...heading straight for the Elephant fountain. It was nice and snow covered, so it looked different than the last time I was there (it was nice and wet from rain the last time). We then walked down towards the

Duke of Savoie Palace, stopping at the same Tea shop my friends and I stopped at a few months ago. I ordered us 3 chocolats chauds, (or melted chocolate bars as my dad called it) and 3 brioche aux pralines.

We had enough time to see the palace, go back in time down the 14th century cobbled streets, take a few pictures and.... have an encounter with a funny little French woman at the Savoie museum. We were about to head back to the train station, but I wanted to show them the church with the trompe l'oeil paintings (as it is such a big deal in this region). We wanted to go through the museum to get to it, but the museum was closed.... after finding out that we were Washintonians, she screamed, ecstatic because her son works there in a restaurant. She showed me her sons cell phone number... and then unlocked all the doors to get us into the Cathedral as quickly as possible.

After my dad and Steph got a good look around, we walked back to the train station and got on our train to Milan. This train ride was longish... about 4 hours and we were served lasagna (which we had to pay for, so not quite as cool as a plane ride). However, the views from this train were spectacular (honestly, I only stayed awake to see a few amazing views of unreal looking mountains outside of Torino, it was more my dad that stayed awake the whole time to tell us about it later hehe).

We got off the train in Milan, with an hour layover to use the 1 euro potties (yikes!), step a few feet outside to see the ultra modern city with tall glass buildings (and some super chic Italians), and walk around the mammoth train station. Our next train, to La Spezia, a city right outside of the Cinque Terre region, was a regional train. Our seats were in a compartment with 6 seats, 3 and 3 sitting across from each other. The woman who was already sitting in the compartment when we got there spoke only Italian and some French...so we were able to figure out where to sit. Then, a husband and wife couple got on, and they spoke some English. Then... an older woman, in a heavy fur coat came in, while my dad was out going to the bathroom. She sat in his seat, asked us to move our luggage to fit hers, and closed the compartment door. The first woman shook her head the entire time...like as if to say... what a drama queen. Then, a younger woman got on the train (she actually said mamma mia...like you think Italian people would do), and it turned out the couple didn't have reserved seats in this compartment... so there was a lot of Italian and hand gestures and they eventually got up. However, this lead to an in-depth discussion by the 3 other woman on riding trains, life, etc. who knows (Steph probably... she listened to them the most and could pick up some stuff with her knowledge of Spanish).

By this point, my head was killing me, the compartment was hot because the old lady with the fur coat turned the heat up, and we all sorta felt like we were in the twilight zone. Oh, and I forgot to mention, at some point, my dad ended up in the hallway talking to the husband of the couple about Cinque Terre. Had I not been so cranky tired, I would have probably thought it was more entertaining.... but at the time, I was kind of going nuts!

We got out of the train, our hotel was found easily just a minute from the station (literally a minute) and asked for the nearest pizza place (when in... Italy). I had pesto pizza, my dad had sausage pizza, and Steph has a farnita (I think), which is some specialty of this town (like an eggy pizza crust that you put your own cheese on...) We also had desert, 2 types of tiramisu and a creme caramel (flan type dish).

My dad walked down the pedestrian walkway lined with Christmas lights and local/international stores (Steph and I went back to shower and get ready for bed). He said there was a nice park down by the water... but sadly had a lot of trash/graffiti that kind of ruined it for him. Hopefully he will be more impressed tomorrow in the beautiful Cinque Terre. We have enjoyed seeing huge palm trees and fruit trees (we think they're clementine trees?), even this far North in Italy.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! We will have a nice breakfast buffet tomorrow at the hotel, go to the Cinque Terre information desk, and head out, catching our train to Monaco by 4pm.

Reste Cool:)

ps, I never fully explained what we had for dinner last night. It was so yummy, it's worth the detail:) For starters, I had a salad with avocado and asparagus (sounds weird, but was good), dad and steph had the courge soup (squash soup...it was very good); for main plates my dad and I had the chicken with some sort of leek au gratin and chestnuts, Steph had the fish in a buttery green minestrone soup, and we all shared sorbet/fruit salad for desert. Not only was the food excellent, but the waiters and ambiance was very nice, plus we had a view of the flower bouquet statue thingy... Le Sud is the place for a nice dinner out in Lyon! (I'm such a technical food critique, I know...)