7am and its not really light yet, although we are only 5 minutes from the station its the wrong station, so Kate calls in a fleet of taxis to take us to the other station. Each driver wanted paying individually before they would go anywhere so Kate is going round with her credit card paying them, giving us strict instructions to stay where the taxi drops us off until she arrives in the last taxi. This would have worked well if all taxis had gone to the same entrance, 3 taxis went one side and 2 the other. I got a call from Kate asking where we were and how may of us, mine was the only mobile number she had. I was asked to take our group to the platform barrier where she would meet us, on the way I picked up another 4 members of our group who had walked into the station after being dropped off. The next problem was they wouldn’t let Kate buy a group ticket on line, she had to go and queue in the ticket office. She returned to the group seconds before they closed the platform gate, 2 minutes before the train departs. We all sprinted down the platform, some using walking sticks, how we all made it I don’t know. There were two trains on the platform and or course ours was the far one and we all got in the first door available. It turned out that Kate had wedged the door open with her foot until everyone was onboard, something that risks €100 on the spot fine, but it seems being a female blond in France still has some advantages.
We arrived in Turin, where we should have been last night about three quarters of an hour before our original scheduled train was due to leave for Florence. We just time for a roll and coffee under the massive solar panel covered concourse, which is producing a lot of electricity.
We were now back on schedule heading to Florence, here a coach was waiting ready to take us to Hotel Francia e Quirinale where we would be staying for the next 7 nights in Montecatini Terme.
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