We made our way to the train station. Dad had already bought the tickets so we didn't need to stop to buy them which is good because we were running late for the train. We ran all the way to the station, all the way to the platform, and just made it to the train in time.
On the train we played some cards. My dad has a book of card games and we've been learning a lot of new games. This particular time we played Ranter Go Round, which just call Change.
We got to our stop and got off. We went to the ticket office and asked how to get to the bus stop for the caves. She told us we would have to walk 1.3 km to the town next door. So we did. There was a really cool bridge on the walk and lots of flowers along the side of the road, but there was no sidewalk! We were walking on the road for cars!
This picture was taken on the bridge I mentioned and that was the only part of our walk that had a sidewalk. Meanwhile, as you might also see if you look carefully, Arya had a meltdown! Dad had to carry her for awhile, but she calmed down eventually. :-)
We finally got to the bus stop. There was only one place for us to buy tickets, but of course right as we got there the man working at the store left...for three hours! We looked around the town a lot, but there were no other places to buy them. We thought we would tell the bus driver the store was closed so we couldn't get a ticket and that we'd pay him directly. While we waited for the bus, we went to a food truck where we got some tasty rotisserie chicken (by the way, we haven't seen much chicken in Italy, so we were super excited). It was delicious! The bus arrived and we told the driver about our problem with the tickets and he said (in Italian) "That's ok, you don't have to pay me." What a nice guy!
The bus ride to the cave was very windy. Mom, Arya, and I got a bit carsick which was a bummer. Our bus driver had to honk a ridiculously long horn every time we went around a blind turn because it was a one lane road, so that got kind of annoying. We did make it to the top though and the view was pretty awesome. We saw a river below and a forest around us. It's weird to think some people live up there in tiny towns along the mountain side. For me, it's hard to imagine having to drive up and down that windy road every day. We got to the town and asked the bus driver how to get to the caves and he said (again, in Italian) "Oh...I will just drive you there." We were excited! On the way there, we were glad we didn't walk because it was a long way up another windy road and it had started raining!
We finally got to the caves and I was happy to get out of the bus. It took me awhile to feel not sick any more. After buying our tickets for the one hour tour, we went inside. The guide spoke in Italian, but we had headsets that translated it to English. Here are a few pictures of the caves:
The caves were really cool and I mean that in two ways. One, it was cold in there. The temperature is normally 10.7 degrees celsius, so naturally everyone was freezing except Dad. Two, the cave looked pretty cool. There were many stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. I wondered what it would feel like to put your hand on one of them. To me, it looked like wax that could scrape off with your fingernail like a candle. We loved the caves so we think we may come back for the 2 or 3 hour tour.
After finishing our tour we went to the shop where Arya and I both got necklaces, I got a tree made of geodes, and we all got some ice cream. We thought there was supposed to be a bus leaving from the caves back to the train station, so we asked the people at the desk. They told us the bus doesn't come here, but only stops at the station our bus driver had driven us up from! So we ended up walking down that same windy road we had come up. A mile walk later, we reached the town of Fornovolasco, where the bus would pick us up. We waited an hour here and had a chance to look around. It was cool to see the bridges and waterfalls that are part of this town. We even took a little hike to see another waterfall.
editor's note from Dad: This Alpine town was amazing. It was exactly the kind of place we wanted to find this year. Completely off the beaten path and just breathtaking. It felt like a village from a Disney movie. Back to Ashley...
The bus arrived and it turned out to be the same very kind driver we had on the way up! My dad asked him (in Italian) if this bus went to the train station as we thought it should. He said, "No, but I will take you there!" So he did! No more long walk to that nearby town like we had on the way up.
On the train we wrote postcards to friends. We've just finished a great tasting pizza while watching one of our family's favorite shows (The Amazing Race) on Amazon Prime.
This day turned out much better than I thought it would!
1 comment:
Proud of you Dave for speaking Italian. Ashley, you did a great job telling us about your adventure. Can't wait to hear more. Love you guys.
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