Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder on board another Italian train. Oh yes I am. But this one is a little bit special. Let me tell you all about it. I have been travelling for the day from La Spezia on the

coast of Liguria. It's on the Bay of Poets and an absolutely lovely place. But I then went for the

day up to Palmer, P-A-R-M-A, not the Better No Palma in Mayorka.

And it is an absolutely adorable Tuscan city, so I have had a lovely day.

But then coming back, I wanted to go to the town of

Sazana and there wasn't a direct train but there was one to an intermediate

station where you could change for a train which was going through to Pisa and

Florence but also stopping in Sanzana.

I hope you're following this, I'm going to be asking questions later.

So, I thought, well, that's great.

It had a six minute connection.

I thought, well, that's fine. Italian trains aren't as bad as some people say.

Anyway, we got there 20 minutes late. The train

have long gone. So what's going to happen now? And I imagine the answer would be a rather gruff,

well, wait for the next one in an hour and a half or two hours or whenever it is. But no,

what they did, and I've never heard this happening before.

There were perhaps 50 of us all trying to catch the following train, catch the train through to Sarsana, Pisa and Florence.

But instead, they did something quite remarkable. They could have put us on a bus, they could have made us way, but no.

They said, right, this train that you were on, which was going to stop here permanently,

is now going to operate a special service for you through to Florence.

So it's going to stop at all the stops along the way.

It's going to be about 15, 20 minutes adrift of the schedule,

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