August 15, 1997 - Friday - Gardaland 

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We woke up to an absolutely beautiful day today.  Leisurely we threw together an adhoc breakfast of things I knew the kids would like.  Cereal, chocolate croissants, annanas (pineapple).  All in all a very satisfying meal to start what would later turn out to be one of the most incredulous days of our life!

After breakfast, I was stuck with a rather perplexing problem.  Today is a national holiday in Italia and I knew pretty much that Trento itself would be shut down tight.  Everyone has left the city for someplace nice.  I knew staying here would've been like death to the children.  They wanted action.  They wanted something interesting to do.  They only have 6 days left in Trento.  And I had to produce!  Well, a thought came to mind.   Gardaland is a place recommended by Vincenzo and Rosa a few weeks back and also mentioned by the school teacher we met back a couple of weekends ago in Molveno.  So, without their knowledge I deviously planned an outing to Gardaland. Gardaland is supposedly the Italiano version of Disneyland.  I told the kids we'd head on out to another city (not a lie -grin) and that we would find something to do there.

We stopped off at the local bancomat (ATM machine) and got some cash for the day and headed down to Trento centre to the train station.  We needed tickets to Peschiere del Garda (pronounced Pes-KI-ere del Garda).  Our train would leave Trento at 12h05 and arrive at Peschiere with no change of trains at 13h30.  Also, the cashier gave me exact return instructions to catch a train at 20h49 which would bring us back to Trento at about 22h40.  We would have to change trains in Verona on the return.  Not a problem I figured.

We had about an hour to kill before the train left Trento so we stopped at the bar in the train station and bought some sandwiches. We then strolled across the street to our swan park and Kristie attempted to capture another feather.  She didn't succeed as they were very quick today and their feathers don't seem to be molting so they were not coming loose.  We ended up feeding the birds all of the bread from our sandwiches and only consuming the internals (mortadella for Kristie, salame for Stephano and prosciutto for me).  This done we had only about 15 minutes until our trains arrival in the station so we headed back and waited.  We boarded our train and man, I haven't seen the trains here as packed as they were today.  It seems like everyone is out trying to get somewhere else.  So we ended up sitting in the pulldown seats in the aisle.  Not a bad way to travel considering it could be worse (we could be standing!). When we hit Verona, a bunch of people got off the train (whos final destination was Milano) and we were able to secure a cabin just to ourselves.  Well, the ride to Peschiere was only another 10 minutes outside of Verona.  All along the way the kids were crying about not having any food to eat and how they were still hungry.  I finally told Stephano that we were going to Gardaland which is like Disneyland so we'll eat there and he said "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"  I said "It is a surprise!"

We got into Peschiere and boarded the free bus to Gardaland, which left almost immediately after we arrived.  And there we were!  Gardaland. And the entrance was a very reasonable 82,000 lire or about US$50.  Can't beat that for an amusement park entrance for three.  I'm beginning to think that I should start a journal specifically on amusement parks as we had hit Disney, Universal Studios and Seaworld only a few months ago back in Florida.

The park, is not to say the least, very nice.  I wasn't sure they would be open on the holiday but indeed they were, and the lines were not that long!  This was surprising to me as we went to Florida on a holiday (easter) and the places had lines that lasted as long as 2.5 hours!  Here, our wait was never more than 30 minutes for any single ride.  And most of the rides were worth the wait.  They also have a lot of these cast statues that you can stick your head into and take a picture.  The view is very realistic.  We started off on the carousel which we ended up riding again before we left.   Then we went to some of the various rides in the park.  What was really nice is that they had a parade in the middle of the day around 15h00 and throughout the day you could catch a very well played Dixieland jazz band that was walking about. The theme is incredibly centered around Americana.  There was a wild western place and most of the souvenir shops sold American style goods.  Great, I bring the kids half way around the world to buy what we can get back home.  Oh well.

There is an Egyptian facade to an entrance of their Egyptian ride and it was gigantic!  Not only that but it was incredibly realistic.  I thought I had seen everything when I recently went through the NY Metrpolitan Museum's Egyptian exhibit.  That is no comparison to the one at Gardaland.  Even the interior frescos made it seem like an ancient Egyptian tomb.  So much so that the kids were scared -grin.

We also went on the water slide and at first Kristie was extremely apprehensive about riding it. But after it was done she was eager to do it again!  Another nice touch, being in the digital age, is they had cameras set up on some of the rides to take pictures of you.  You can then see the picture on tv screens at the end of the ride and purchase them.  Not only that but they are only 5,000 lire or right around US$3.  Very reasonable compared to the rip off prices Disney tries to charge.

Having had our days fill of rides and mind you this is an amusement park that easily spans a couple of days visit we needed to eat dinner before catching the free bus back to the train station.  So we stopped at a saloon in the western world for, what else, pizza!  Fortunately not everything here is Americana.  We ordered our pizzas and drinks and proceeded to wait... and wait... and wait....  At this point I notice that other tables seated after us were being served before us.  I complained to the waitress that took our order and she swore to me that our pizzas were subito (immediately) on their way.  Well, in the time it takes to cook pizza.... we finally got ours.  I was ready to get up and leave without paying at one point but then I knew we'd be hard pressed to get any food before catching the train back to Trento.

We finished our meal and headed off to the free bus back to the train station.  Well, one minor oversight on my part which ended up really screwing our trip back home was considering the bus schedule.  I thought the bus would run on at least once every half hour back.  Heh, never ASSume ANYTHING!  Did I get the lesson of my life.  No, our next bus back to the train station would not leave until 20h45!  Christ, our train left Peschiere at 20h49! It was a short ride back to the train station but would we make it?

In one word.  NO.  We were back in the train station and, of course, the train had come and gone.  Now I was at a dilemma because I noticed on the ticket counter's list that the next train into Trento wasn't until well past 23h00!  We checked the schedule at the Peschiere train station and the next train to Verona was not until 21h45.  Great, our connection back to Trento left at 21h49 so there was no way we would make our connection.  No sweat I thought, there must be another train to Trento not too muh later.  Ha!  I wonder where I keep getting these rather short bursts of stupidity.

Meanwhile, there was a rather young couple that had arrived at the train station with us.  They were seated not too far away.  Originally, on the bus, they seemed very lovey-dovey... but as most relationships go, that turned for the worse rather quickly and in true Italiano spirit, heated.  Basically, the girl was in tears at one point because the guy had somehow wrecked her bracelet which was a momento to her.  What it did serve for my purposes was to teach the kids how not to treat someone you love.  You don't hurt someone you love and make them cry.  And if someone treats you like that... get away from them.  We did have some interchange with the couple as the girl needed a light and the guy refused to give her one.  Some argument ensued as the guy said to the girl to ask me for a light and she argued that I was Americano and would not understand.  At that point I pulled out my lighter and asked her if she needed a light in Italian.  She was most impressed I think that I understood and took interest in providing her a light.  We saw them once again later in Verona and spoke with them briefly.  I think their final destination was Verona and they were staying with relatives of the guy-jerk.  I hope she gets a clue and leaves him.

We arrived in Verona, of course, several minutes after our train to Trento had left.  After much searching of the posted schedule I could not find another train to Trento!  I went up to the cashier and quickly learned why... I hadn't looked after 00h!  The next train to Trento was at 00h33!  Ugh.  And it is only 22h20!  So what to do.  We couldn't hang at the train station because it did not see all that safe to me.  Having been to Verona before I figured we'd head to the centre and see if there was any life there.  We caught a cab and sure enough, the Arena was lit up and an opera was going on inside.  We would've bought a ticket to go in and watch but we only had a couple of hours and I wasn't sure about the schedule. So we hung outside of the well lit Arena and unfortunately I had used up all of the pictures in the diigtal camera so it would take no more.  The Arena is beautifully lit up at night and there are gobs of people walking the streets of Verona, or sitting at one of the ancient looking roman buildings as we were.  We then headed over to McDonalds and I treated the kids to a sundae.  We also used the toilet facilities which was important as we had a train to catch.  We caught a taxi back to the train station and boarded our train.

As we entered the train station I heard two girls speaking unmistakeable American to a janitor at the train station.  Apparently, they were having some problem with the telephone but the man was not understanding their problem.  Apparently they needed a telephone that accepted credit cards but the one in the only open area at this time of night was broken.  I stopped, spoke to the girls briefly and then in my weak Italian spoke to the janitor that the telephone was broken and that the girls knew there was a telephone in the closed section that would work with their credit card.  "Ah capito" the man says and he motions to the girls to go with him into the closed section.  The girls were overly grateful for the help and I wished them luck on their journey.  We headed off to binario 7 to catch our train.  I'll bet they are wondering who was that dashing young man that spoke American and Italian and took the time to help -grin.

Well, talk about a CROWDED train, this was it.  It was the overnight to Monaco/Munchen.  I guess they split the train later in Brennero.  The kids sat down in the fold down seats in the aisle and I hung out by the door.  When the train started moving people moved into their cabins.  An Italian man and woman in one cabin offered two seats in their cabin for the kids!  And the man sat out in the aisle with me in a fold down seat!  I thanked them and in small talk with the man they are headed to Monaco.  Italians are really great people when it comes to taking care of kids.  I don't think there are many places in the world where someone would've give up a comfortable seat for a child.  Especially as seeing these people were at least in their 50s.

There was a group of young Italians that were about 3 meters down the aisle from us.  There was some German that was making a hassle of himself walking back and forth with his rather large backpack.  The Italians kept cursing the old man out for doing this.  He had problems passing me as I'm big enough to take up a lot of room in the aisleway.  The Italian boys kept saying something in reference to me having to push the man pass me.  Later they were joined by a girl that was one of the guys girlfriends yet for some reason she had an interest in me and at one point there was great debate amongst these Italians as to my origin.  The girl correctly knew I was Americano but the guys kept insisting I was Italian.  I never bothered to tell them she was right but now in retrospect I probably should have.  Anyhow, the kids fell asleep in the cabin.  Me and the old man made small talk in my limited Italian.

When it rains it pours... yes, before we hit Rovereto, the stop prior to Trento, it was not only raining, but raining hard and lightning and thundering!  Christ.  This is all I need.  To get off the train and deal with the rain too.  That would also make disembarking the train more treacherous as the steps would be slippery and the kids by now are sound asleep.  As we pulled into Trento (01h33) I again thanked the couple for letting the kids sleep in their cabin and we made our way to the door. The kids were sleepwalking.  I got off the train, lifted Kristie off the train and put her down and then lifted Stephano up and put him down on the platform.  Fortunately, we still have our bag of goodies we bought at Gardaland.  I carried Kristie to the taxi rank and Stephen walked, complaining about the cold which had set in with the storm.  We jumped in a taxi (thankfully there were several here!) and we headed home.

Stephen walked up on his own and went to bed.  I took off Kristies shoes and put her to sleep.  Now, it is 03h26 and I think someone else needs to get some sleep.  The rain stopped about an hour ago and I'm going to get some sleep. 

 Click here to see the all of the day's pictures - Warning this will download about 4M of data!

Copyright @ 1997,  Alexandre POLOZOFF .  All Rights Reserved.