Wednesday we got up early, and caught the vaporetto to the train station. At the station, they were preparing for a movie, with video cameras on cranes and lots of equipment. We sat down in the cafe and had coffee and croissants. We then went inside to watch the train status board until it assigned a platform number to our train. We were a little ahead of the grand rush to board, but found our car and seat, and space for our luggage. The overhead shelf is larger than I had expected; my carry on roller bag probably would have fit. Space for luggage seems to always be an issue when I ride trains in Europe; there were huge suitcases sticking out into the aisle. We were assigned facing seats across a small table. A student from Taiwan joined us in our group of four seats. The train made several stops, including Padua and Florence. The top speed was about 245 km/hr, or about 150 mph, only achieved on the sections closer to Rome. We found our way to the taxi stand, where we only had a short wait. Our taxi driver was fun, showing us pictures of his two daughters, and talking about vacations in Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy, not too far from Rome. He took us to our hotel (guest house) in Fiuminco, where we found the front desk and were assigned a room with a set of four keys, which we apparently would have needed if we came back late. This is a fishing port; we crossed a pedestrian drawbridge to find dinner.
We had a good dinner at Seconda Riva, (second shore) a seafood restaurant whose name referred to a fresh start. It was almost the only restaurant open before 7 pm. There was a nice display of fresh caught fish; we kidded the waiter that he was Michelangelo, arranging the fish in an attractive display. We walked down the dock for a while, where there were several 60 foot ships set up to haul huge nets, hence the fresh fish at the restaurant. It is a large commercial fishing port. The sunset was beautiful. As usual, we had gelato at a gelato shop as we walked.
