Alps 2024 – day 15
Coming home
21.7.2024 Sunday
On our last day we get up around 8:30am. We go for “breakfast,” which was included in the price — we get coffee and a croissant, better than nothing. Check-out is at noon, so we lounge in bed while I update the blog. We head for the train at 11am, since the next one after that wouldn’t be for another 2 hours. In the background we can see ominous storm clouds and hear thunder. I’m glad we’re not up in the mountains anymore. We continue on to Turin, just 30 minutes away by train. Since breakfast wasn’t too much, we go find something to eat. It’s Sunday, so options are limited. Near Porta Susa station we find a pasta restaurant. It looks really nice, and even though we’re wearing our best clothes, we feel like we don’t quite belong — we’ve completely lost the habit of civilization. They have a great ordering system: just scan the QR code, pick from the menu, and send the order. A waiter then comes by only to check on things. To celebrate finishing this trip, and being in Italy, we order Aperol Spritzes. Within 5 minutes our food is on the table — carbonara and ragù.
Oh, this fresh pasta — a completely different league, and you can buy it everywhere in shops here. We eat, then go for coffee and a pastry too. In the end we spend 2 hours in Turin, with a 2-hour trip to Milan still ahead of us. Luckily we grab a pair of seats, since there are some odd people wandering around. Milan’s central station has about a million people in it. I can’t imagine how we made that train connection last time — there’s no way we’d manage it now. We find a slightly quieter spot and wait for the train to Bergamo to pull in. That one’s emptier. We get off in Bergamo at 5pm and go pick up some food for dinner. I’d wanted to buy our airport bus tickets straight away, but after paying for the first one we discover validity starts from purchase, not from when it’s scanned — oh well. The Tour de France finishes today, so Jozef found a sports bar at the edge of town. We arrive just as some Formula race is wrapping up, so Jozef goes to ask if they can switch it over to the TdF. We order Aperol Spritzes and they are making great ones.
Jozef really likes it here — it reminds him of his favorite bar back in Partizánske, Bistro Fekete. You can tell it’s a genuine local spot, regulars and all. We sit there for almost three hours, going through three Aperol Spritzes each while I edit photos on the side. We’d thought we might eat here too, but we don’t see anyone eating, so we go get a kebab and falafel instead — something we hadn’t had yet on this trip. Even though the sun set ages ago, the city’s still baking hot. I really need to pee, but every restroom in town is already closed, so we make a run for the airport bus, which is just pulling up at the stop. I try to buy a ticket on board, but the machine’s broken, so we end up traveling on one invalid ticket. No matter, the ride only takes 15 minutes. At the airport we pull ourselves together and go find somewhere to settle down for the night. Turns out there really isn’t much space — the best spot is already claimed by a group of scouts. We set up a bit further. Jozef inflates his sleeping pad and tries to get at least a little sleep. I don’t really feel like it, so I write the blog instead. The place gradually fills up until there’s not even a scrap of wall space left. We both put in earplugs — there’s an Italian family here with absolutely no concept of how to behave in a shared public space.
Around half past 2 in the morning airport security arrives and wakes everyone sleeping on the floor — the cleaning crew’s coming through. At least I manage to hand off the gas canister we hadn’t used up. It’s a strange setup here — one whole section is completely closed off, so we go sit on some chairs instead. I search in vain for an outlet, absolutely nothing anywhere, not even in the bathrooms. My phone’s completely dead, the power bank’s dead too, and the boarding passes are only in my app — they never synced to Jozef’s, probably because the system still hadn’t recovered from an outage a few days earlier. I start to feel a flicker of panic, but Jozef, ever resourceful, connects my phone to his so I can charge up at least a few percent, enough to get through security, and I send him screenshots of the boarding passes too. After 4am we go check-in our bag. Most of our stuff fits into check-in bag, so I go through security with a half-empty backpack. We don’t catch a great queue at the security check. I get that it can be stressful for some people, but you can prepare for it really well — most airports run on the same rules. I lay out beforehand whatever needs to go separately, toss my phone, wallet, keys and watch into one tray and the whole backpack into another. That way we’re both sorted in under a minute, instead of digging through pockets wondering what we forgot where. I’m getting a bit irritable after a sleepless night at this point. We find free seats by a window and I finally get a nap. Jozef wakes me at 6am — boarding’s starting. As we gather our things from the seats we realize our USB charger had been sitting right between us the whole time, so we squeeze in a bit more charging by the gate. Jozef and I swap seats since I got row 17, right by the emergency exit with more legroom. We take off and I’m out cold instantly. I wake up to blocked ears as we descend. It’s 8:11am when the plane comes to a stop. There’s a 9:02am train from Bratislava Nové Mesto station to Partizánske — I don’t hold out much hope for that one. Luckily it’s a genuinely tiny airport and we’re waiting for our luggage for maybe 5 minutes. We catch the 8:24am bus and still have 10 minutes to spare at the station before the train leaves. I honestly hadn’t dared to dream we’d make it work this well. I sleep on the train, of course, and we’re home before noon. That’s the upside of an early flight. Jozef dives straight into work, I dive straight into laundry. Leuško, our resident doorstep cat, is thoroughly offended that we were gone so long — hopefully he gets over it quickly.
