24 hour train strike in Italy.

One thing I've learned about traveling in Europe - the best laid plans always go up in a beautiful sparkle of flames. Kaboom. Whether it's volcanoes keeping planes grounded, earthquakes in Italy that no one seems to actually know happened, or avalanche warnings, something can and will most likely go wrong. The key is making something interesting out of the wrong.

On Wednesday we learned that there would be a train strike in Italy from 9 PM Thursday to 9 PM Friday, which meant that we would not find ourselves eating truffle gnocchi in Florence on Friday night as we had previously planned. But when Italy hurls lemons at you, what do you do? You make limoncino and then finish up with an espresso...or, as was the case last night, a few Tennant Scotch Ales and a midnight kebab with a bunch of Pisan and physicist students.

This also afforded us an extra morning to do some touristy things together for once - like go into Pisa's Duomo and then go to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Because let's be serious, after a late night full of Higgs boson discussions, scotch ale, really bad House music and late night kebabs, is there anything else you'd rather do at 10 AM than walk to the top of a tower that leans more than slightly to the left? Obviously not.

And then there was the snowstorm on the Mediterranean in Liguria slowing everything down that continued into Piedmont on our long drive to Monchiero later in the afternoon...and its still snowing out now...

But it's a hell of a lot nicer watching from the window of our former monastery/castle turned spa hotel, then it was holding my breathe and closing my eyes as we traversed slick and windy roads on top of cliffs, being passed by Italian drivers going way too fast...

...and honestly, if we get "stuck" here another night because of the snow, I am more than a little ok with that.

Bonne nuit tout le monde!

A la prochaine friends...

 

Honey