7:10am: high-speed rail to Milan
The Frecciarossa ETR 500 travels at 300km/h and takes 1h 50m to get from Firenze to Milan:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frecciarossa
The high-speed train made a mystery stop outside Milano Centrale... No announcements... I risk missing my connection in 10 minutes! 😥
Arrived in Milano Centrale, with its majestic 1931 iron arches.
Now I gotta run to be at platform 2 within 7 minutes! 🥵
The Trenord regionale 2418 to Domodossola is a big step down from the Frecciarossa 😥
It's one of those double decker trains... I've never seen one in Italy before.
This clunker electrotrain is moving at a peak speed of 140km/h. It's a far cry from the high-speed rail, but still competitive with a car ride and way cheaper: €10.80 for 131km.
Multigrain eggplant & tomato baguette, blackberry tart, small beer and espresso: everything for €12.40, tax included and no tipping.
11:58: Domodossola 🇮🇹 -> 🇨🇭 Brig
Will they check for passports onboard? Actually, do you even need a passport to cross the EU / Switzerland border nowadays? 🤔
Getting off the BLS in Brig (or Brigue for francophones) and looking for my next connection...
No border control, as anticipated by @tagomago and @MarcFramboisier.
@codewiz Hope you don't
@codewiz I believe CH is Schengen, so they shouldn't check passports? But I don't know, maybe there're ad hoc covid norms...
@codewiz No, for European citizens, the ID is enough. For the other nationalities, I do not know.
Last times I crossed the swiss border by road, I was never controled.
On most of the roads there is no control booth on the broader.
@codewiz German speaking does not imply that you are outside of Italy. In the "South Tyrol" they speak german and they are italian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Tyrol
@MarcFramboisier Oh, I have a friend from there. People always assume he's German, and it pisses him off when they he says"Nein, sono Italiano di Tirolo!" and they still seem unconvinced by his distinctive accent 😆
@codewiz There were no passport controls between Germany and Switzerland
@codewiz these are popular in North America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_BiLevel_Coach
The upper level is significantly quieter than the lower one.
@kai That hex car design is cool! Too bad it's not electric!
@codewiz *this* drives me crazy!
The Ontario government study showed that diesel trains only increase the total area emissions by 1% or whatever.
But if you keep doing these studies, you keep increasing emissions based on a new normal… 😅
I believe there are finally some plans to electrify, but doing anything in Canada takes generations. 😔
@codewiz tra questo, il double decker per Domodossola e il lago, mi fai fare un salto nel passato 😍
@codewiz Hm.. "silent area" in an Italian train.. :>
@globalc That's exactly what I thought! 😂
@codewiz ma alla fine era veramente silezioso ?
@ilwoody Si, non volava una mosken. Entrando ho sbattuto un po' la valigia e un signore si è girato e mi ha guardato storto.
6:30am: tram to Firenze Santa Maria Novella station 🥱