So we took the train to La Spezia, only to find...the train I'd planned to take to Pisa was cancelled.
Dumb, dumb, dumb! As a veteran traveler, I know better than this. You never take the last connection that gets you there comfortably in time, you take the one before that. But the thing is, the more you travel, the less patience you have for getting there early and ending up hanging around the airport two hours longer than necessary.
(Just look at my perpetually traveling journalist friends, who – since work is paying anyway – are in the habit of simply hopping in a taxi to the airport just in time for the flight. I once traveled with a journalist friend who did just that, got a taxi at the last possible just-barely-comfortable time – and then got stuck in traffic. I was already boarding as she was still texting me in a panic from the backseat of the taxi...but thanks to Tegel Airport's fantastic, practical layout, she still made the flight!)
So, we had an hour to kill in La Spezia, then I spent a rather nail-biting train ride to Pisa sure that I was going to miss my flight: The connection I was now on, even if everything went perfectly as planned, would get me to the airport at 1:43. My flight left at 2:15. Yikes!
In Pisa I dashed off the train and ran for the airport connection; as soon as that train arrived at the airport (precisely at 1:43) I hurtled off it and made a beeline for the terminal. Thank goodness for small airports: There were only two people ahead of me at security, and the airport employee overseeing the line took a look at my boarding pass and waved me to the front anyway.
Threw my stuff in the trays on the conveyor belt, grabbed it off the conveyor belt and threw it back onto me, flat out ran for it... and at 1:50 I was on line at the gate, still in plenty of time to board.
I love small airports!
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Here, have a bonus happy picture of my parents and me over breakfast in Cinque Terre.
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