Tarvisio

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Tarvisio has got to be my unluckiest or luckiest city.

The train from Vienna to Venice (which was my next destination) is 9 hours. 3 hours of the ride I shared the compartment with a funny crazy Austrian who goes to his apartment in Italy when he just feels like doing nothing. Oh and he brought his black cat onto the train (she was in a cage). Made the ride kind of amusing. I didn't want to arrive in Venice at midnight so I decide to stop overnight in a city. Randomly picked Tarvisio because it's the border city between Austria and Italy. Arrived at Tarvisio station at 7pm, asked a conductor where a nearby hotel is. His response (in poor English) was that there are no hotels nearby and the town of Tarvisio is actually a 2km walk away, no buses or taxis at that time.

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So I'm standing in the dark, almost deserted, parking lot thinking how I'm gonna get myself out of this one. A min later a girl comes up asking if I need something. Yeah I need a hotel for the night. She offerred a ride to town 'cause she and her boyfriend were headed there. Turns out her and I were the only ones who got off at this stop. My heros Pavla and Bart are skiers and it happens there is an alpine competition at Tarvisio this week. That night I got to see the awards ceremony for races in the past few days.

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In town I find a room at a hotel right accross from theirs. Was offerred a 4 person room for 55eur because it was all they had left. Best stay ever, I took up half of one of the beds. Had supper with Bart and Pavla of left-over shnizel, and just hung out in their room for the evening. I may meet up with them in Czech later in my trip if I can work it out.

Next morning I took a grand tour of the town, which took all of 20min. Left for the train station at 10am, the train to Venice was at 11. The road winded around mountains and there was no sidewalk. After 30min of walking while trying not to get pegged off by cars or falling off the side, the station was still no where in sight. Not wanting to miss my train, I tried to hitchhike for the first time in my life. After a while later and no cars stopping, I manage to flag down a bus. The driver spoke little English but I manage to get across that I'm trying to get to the train. No problem - he takes me back the way I came, back through the city, down another road, and not too long after we get to the station. See what fun happens when you don't use maps ;)