There are no humans to help you in Varenna.

The train stops here for a few moments, announced by a recorded voice that tells you only from whence the train last came and to where the train will be going.

There may be an announcement that this is a through train and you should watch out.

This announcement may or may not be correlated to earlier announcements about what sort of train it is.

These trains will not squish a Euro 2-cent coin very well. Something in the weight of the train and the alloy of the coin.

American pennies are way better.

The train we struggled to make slid by without us knowing it was ours. It was late and the robot announced it as some train that was either later or earlier than ours and we couldn't figure out which.

Interestingly, the next train had the same announcement and looked even less like the train we came in than the first.

There are some books that I will always associate with travel or a certain place. I read an English version of The Great And Secret Show coming back from the UK that first time.

I spent several happy hours awaiting the train while reading a Neil Gaiman book of short stories. Good stuff.

I start running the schedules in my head. This train will get us to the bus in enough time that we will make dinner. If we blow the next one its another few hours and perhaps overnight in Tirano or Sondrio.

At least dinner.

The bus waits for the train, or so it says, and we get there with enough time to burn that it doesn't matter, chewing up the tracks after we leave most of the people off at Sondrio.

Despite the car being nearly empty the other American on the train gets pissy when the Italian girl sits in his seat.

So many college kids and families traveling on Friday night, coming home from school or whatever. We leave them at Sondrio only to find them again at Tirano.

They get off at roadside stops and intersections in the middle of nowhere.

We get off at the closed up station, just another ride on Perego and thank you kindly for that.