It's a holiday on Tuesday, and given I'm relocating I thought it'd be a good chance to do a "ponte" (a bridge) on Monday, getting back to work Wednesday lunchtime. Only problem is, the Pisa flight home leaves early, 11am ish, and was expensive. So I checked and found that the flight from "Milan" Orio al Serio (actually in Bergamo) was cheaper and later. So instead of a 1hr direct train, I took a 2h30 train to Milan, followed by a bus for 1h15 (most of which was spent getting out of Milan of course), thus being able to work till 1:30pm, then picking up bags and grabbing a quick lunch before heading to Santa Maria Novella.
As my Intercity was late and the Eurostar before it, I, like many others jumped onto the "Cisalpino" headed to Zurich. Though this is a reservations only train, the rather confused ticket inspector eventually let a pile of people on, though it wasn't clear if the capotreno had authorized it. People muttered that we'd have to stand as we didn't have reservation, and others that there'd be a supplement to pay. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I a) wasn't kicked off, b) got to sit the whole journey (only moving once to let someone into their reserved seat) and c) only had to pay a rather reasonable 3 Euro supplement. Apparently this train has a great restaurant car, and great views as it crosses the alps, worth a try sometime.
At Bergamo airport there were signs saying "Vodafone: Wireless hotspot" but the only access point I scanned was encrypted, and there was noone to ask about how to connect. I should really get a UMTS mobile in Italy (and then work out how to get it to work with Ubuntu...)
