Sorry Folks – Rome’s Closed

Miles from Home - 5612.4 miles
Firsts / Highlights - Republicca Day
Miles Ridden - 0 miles
Vertical Feet - 0 ft
Route - No Route Today.
People - Brad Frazier



This post is from June 2, 2009.

Today was our day to leave Rome and head to Cinque Terra. When I woke up this morning, I went across the street to buy some fresh bread to make sandwiches for our train ride. We had some leftover buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto and salami, so prime sandwiches were to be had with the addition of some bread. Since there was a good bakery across the street, I didn’t expect any problems. There were.

It is unusual when I can pick out enough words from a flurry of Italian to make sense of what I am being told. I was surprised this morning when I was able to determine that the man at the bakery was telling me that today is a national holiday, and therefore he has no bread. I understood what he said, but I didn’t understand the implication. I also didn’t understand why a national holiday would stop you from making bread if the bakery is open, but that is a tangent.

It turns out that today is Republicca Day. It is the anniversary of the date in 1947 when Italy first became a republic. A rough equivalent to the 4th of July in the U.S.. Since today was a travel day, I thought the holiday might mean that we would see a parade, and that would be about it. I should have known better after encountering All Saints Day in Spain back in 2000.

The ordeal began walking to the Colloseum Metro (subway) station with our luggage on the way to the train station. As we approached, we could see a large parade was going on and getting through to the Metro station was going to be difficult. Turns out, it wasn’t difficult, it was impossible. The station was closed for the holiday so we walked to the next station up the line with our luggage in tow.

Running a little behind schedule, we arrived at Rome Termini (the train station) with 1 hour to spare. That is far more lead-time than I had allowed at any other train station in Italy, but I assumed it was appropriate since Rome was so much larger than any previous stop. Brad needed to buy a ticket and I needed to reserve a seat with my Eurail pass. We encountered a stationary line so we used an automated ticket machine to learn that tickets were not available for our train -- or the next -- or the next. We got back into the stationary line (now longer) and eventually got an agent to sell us a ticket for 6 hours later than our planned trip. We eventually figured out that the reason for the lack of seats was that the Tuesday holiday had created a 4-day weekend, and everyone was traveling today to get home.

With the alternate ticket secure, we needed to find something to do for six hours. Obviously, we didn’t want to carry our luggage with us all day, so we heading to the bag storage area. There we encountered another 1-hour line. With no viable option to go without bag storage, we waited.

Okay, now what? Our first choice was to go see Angels & Demons at the English-language Cinema to give our feet a break. That seemed like a good movie to see while in Rome. After a Metro ride and some walking, we arrived to find the theater closed for Republicca Day. Next, we walked to the Borghese Art Gallery and found that no reservations were available for the rest of the day. I got on my Blackberry and found a bike shop where I might be able to get some replacement sunglasses. I suspected they would be closed, but we had nothing to loose, so we walked again. We found it, but, you guessed it, it was closed.

Giving up on getting anything done today, we headed back to the train station. There we found our train sitting abandoned on the track with a growing number of confused people milling around (including the conductors). We eventually learned that the train had no locomotive.

The locomotive has been found and we are now underway to Sestri Levante (Cinque Terra). I hope tomorrow marks the return of good weather, manageable schedules and our feet stage an overnight recovery. Tomorrow is our only day to hike Cinque Terra, so we are hoping that our feet are up to a more scenically rewarding hike than trekking from one closed location to another.