20260922-23--Ferrara to Trieste to Oosterdam

eylarson

Sep 24

3 min read

22 September--Well we are on board but not without some trials and tribulations. The first was a slight panic when our Air BnB host who has instantly responded to every text did not respond when we asked them to call us a taxi for the ride to the train station. It did arrive in plenty of time, but there was some doubt. The next error on our part was not standing anywhere near where our assigned train coach would stop when it arrived at the station. In larger stations they have signs that accurately predict where each car will be for boarding. No so the little Ferrara station. The result was we missed the train hustling nearly the full length with our luggage. Not the end of the world, but a costly mistake as we had to book the nest train.

Trieste is another beautiful Italian city with piazzas, statues, ruins. The taxi ride to our room was a short one. Check-in was easy. What we lost in room space, this one was about 3/4s as large, but we gained in a shower that was twice as large as the one in Ferrara. We dumbed the bags and did a walk around. The picture of the flowering bush with the tiniest of hummingbirds darting about was a highlight. For dinner we checked the menus out by looking at what people were eating at the numerous sidewalk establishments and in the end decided on a place near our hotel that was overflowing with people when we passed by the first time but had several empty tables the second. Then we committed a cardinal sin—We split a pizza. It’s just not done, but no way could we each eat a whole one.

23 September—Check out was at 1030 and we couldn’t board until 1200, so we left our luggage in a locker and took an AI generated, self-guided, walking tour. It really works well. You give an AI app your starting point and the desired duration and it IDs a list of sites along a circuit that gets you to a number of places and back to your starting point in the allotted time. It even suggests when to take a coffee/snack break and recommends at the least a piazza and sometimes a specific restaurant. We stopped at Eataly for a look around. BTW- I now know why there is a statue of James Joyce here.

We retrieved our bags, wheeled them two blocks to the pier and boarded with no problem. The Oosterdam is an older ship with kind of dreary halls. Our room is more than adequate, and our room stewards are GREAT. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a bathtub on a cruise. We met a New Zealand couple who got “married in prison.” They were both prison officers. She was also a diplomate with assignments Fiji and India. Two couples from Texas and shared a table at dinner with a couple from London and another from Melbourne, Australia. All of this led to great conversations and storytelling.