SERENDIPITY

I believe travel should be like a well oiled machine. The saying goes that Mussolini “made the trains run on time” in Italy and I figured I should take advantage of that. Upon our arrival in Rome, I navigated us on the Airport Express train to Rome‘s main train station, the Termini (named not for being the “terminal” but for the nearby ancient Roman hot Baths of Domitian) and then, though sleep-addled after a long trans-Atlantic flight I was able to expertly, efficiently, promptly and indeed aggressively get everyone on the train ahead of time. We were bound for Florence. Except that I got us on the wrong train. It was not just the wrong train, but it was going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. And with great efficiency it was heading there at 155 mph. And it was an Express train that didn’t stop until getting to Naples.

So, this was not a well oiled beginning to the holiday. The more gracious among our party brushed it off, saying that we got to see Naples, something not originally on our agenda. “We’ll always have Napoli.”

Indeed, this really was a serendipitously situation. Being scattered about the train car as we were, one of the people in our party happened to be sitting next to Stefano Ferragamo, as in the label Salvatore Ferragamo, shoemakers to the stars. They had a fascinating conversation and even got his card from him. He also gave her a new website for the upcoming Caligarius line. He told her to spam all her friends to buy the new shoes.

Bill Petro
www.billpetro.com