It was the middle of the night and I was urinating on some train tracks en route from Venice to Paris. During this process, I thought: “You know, in Europe some things are done differently than in Canada.”
Last week, we returned to Victoria after a month abroad — mostly in Italy, a few days in Paris. As part of the holiday, we took an overnight train from Venice to Paris, a 14-hour journey.
Upon booking it, we had vague romantic visions of the Orient Express: rich wood and brass surroundings, perhaps a bottle of champagne chilling beside a four-poster bed.
This was, after all, a pretty expensive train ticket for a two-person sleeping compartment complete with private bathroom (including a shower).
As is so often in life, reality didn’t measure up to the fantasy. The sleeping compartment turned out to be pair of bunk beds contained within a tiny metal cell. Most of the space was taken up by a ladder from the top bunk. There was no wood or brass or champagne — although we did get a free plastic bottle of water. As for our bathroom, it was locked.
We tracked down the Trenitalia attendant, an excitable fellow of about 40.
He said the private bathrooms in our coach were all locked because they were broken. We would have to use a public toilet down the hall. No shower, of course.
“But we paid for a sleeping room with a private bathroom including shower,” I said.
“You get to Paris, you must talk to the office. That’s all I can do,” said the attendant. He flapped his hands about unhappily as though I’d proposed we settle the situation like gentlemen.
We returned to our sleeping cell, the size of a small broom closet. I climbed the metal ladder and perched in the top bunk, sipping my lukewarm water. It was terribly hot in the cell because the air-conditioner wasn’t working.
“My will to live is ebbing,” I said. “If only I had a chilled Negroni or perhaps a refreshing Aperol Spritz.”
Admittedly, I’m not the ideal travel companion, thanks to a habit of complaining bitterly at the slightest provocation and rating any slightly uncomfortable situation on a sliding scale of one to 10.
“Well,” said my wife, who has a more positive point of view, “we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
It was now nighttime. You could open the window in our compartment, but, after being blasted the roar of the train, we shut it again. I stuffed plugs into my ears, partly to shut out the sound of a miniscule sink that wouldn’t stop running. Because it was so hot we decided to sleep semi-nude.
After a time, I yanked on a pair of shorts, clambered down the metal ladder and found the communal toilet at the end of the coach.
Upon opening the door to an oil drum-sized lavatory, the train din intensified to a level of a death-metal band delivering a riotous encore.
I then noticed the toilet emptied directly onto the train tracks. The “toilet” was what we Canadians would call a “hole.”
“How odd,” I thought. “I don’t think the Canadian Pacific Railway would allow this.”
This situation was in stark contrast to the dining car, which offered soft-spoken table service provided by immaculately groomed waiters.
“How was it?” said my wife upon my return.
“It’s more of a hole than a toilet,” I said. “ On a scale of 10, I’d give it about a two — and that’s only because I didn’t fall down the hole.”
We eventually fell asleep. Then, there was a knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer, the Trentalia attendant burst in. We were both, to put it mildly, in a state of maximum dishabille.
“Oh, sorry, sorry,” said the attendant, disappearing immediately. We never did figure out what he wanted.
The attendant was just the first visitor. Because the train crossed the borders of both Switzerland and France, various customs agents knocked on the door at different times in the middle of the night.
“Bonjour,” said one cheerfully as we stared back in bleary semi-nude disbelief.
We reached Paris about 10 a.m. after a night of little sleep. I felt like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke after a stint in the hot box.
At the station, we found the offices of Thello, the train operator that sold us the tickets. However, because it was Sunday, they were closed.
“I’d rate this situation one on a scale of 10,” I said.
“Be quiet,” said my wife.
Still, we’d made it in one piece. And when you’re in Paris in the springtime, it seemed a such a shame to complain, really.
Next week: My comprehensive list of complaints about tourists in Europe includes mindless selfie-taking (“Look, I’m in front of Van Gogh’s self portrait!”) and Germans poncing about with those Nordic hiking poles.