One of the benefits of flying from Milan is that it is quite cheap, with many of the low cost airlines flying in and out of its airports.
But the biggest of drawbacks is that you have to negotiate the bizarre nature of the Italian transport system. Typified by this story I had at Milan Garibaldi train station last week.
The first thing I realised was that all the ticket machines had big signs emblazoned across them 'Out of order'.
All, that is, apart from two which were stood next to each other. I thought: 'God. If there are just two functioning machines out of 20 couldn't they have at least spread them out a bit. The previous 18 in a row were all not in working order and then two, adjacent to each other, working just fine. Ridiculous.'
Anyway, that was to prove the least of my problems.
So there we are: myself and a group of strangers that were soon to become close friends due to having the same predicament on the horizon.
Stood, looking at the ten metre long screen with the pending trains, their expected times and the platforms already assigned, a typically Italian story was about to unfold.
See, the trouble began when it became apparent that the train we all wanted, to Malpensa Airport, didn’t have an assigned platform.
Anyway, no problem, I thought. It’s 22:30 and there is still a full eight minutes until the train to Malpensa departs. Surely the platform number will come up shortly. I mean, the train to Centrale has a platform, so does the one to Turin. And the one to another part of Northern Italy, it had its number assigned nearly half an hour ago.
But no one seemed to be going anywhere else. We were the only people at the station in this suburb of Milan at this late hour. The Milanese were all probably using taxis.
22:30, soon became 22:35 and still no platform. Then 22:37. I could hear a train in the distance but was it the one I wanted? Was it the one my newly acquired 15 friends all wanted, many of which were Italians and looking as puzzled as I was?
Some, thinking they were being smart, began to shuffle in the direction of platforms where they could hear noises that seemed like trains but turned out to be nothing more than the snoring of local tramps. They would do this but they'd remain within eyeshot of the big screen, as if they didn't trust their own senses.
Then, suddenly, as the clock struck 22:38, up it came: platform 13.
A mad rush ensued as we had less than half a minute to run from one side of the station to another. We ran, luggage trailing in our wake, towards the platform that just seconds earlier, was unbeknown to any of us.
Some of them, understandably, didn’t make it. The Asians, who always seem to have more luggage than everyone else put together, didn’t make it. The Italians did, but they lost a handbag or two en route. I made it but was sweating like a pig in a sauna once on the train.
The passengers already on board looked a little flustered too but I guess they had had the same experience at the previous station.
Benvenuto in Italia.
