Our flight from Philadelphia arrived at Frankfurt, Germany a little earlier than scheduled, at 6:05 AM local Frankfurt time. We were directed to a remote gate, which is one where everyone departed the plane by going down steps on the outside of the plne, there was no snorkel connected to the terminal. Everyone was bused to Terminal 1 to be processed through Immigration. That was a little slow because there were only three Immigration processors for non-European Union visitors. We knew we only had about 1.5 hours for our layover, and in the end, it took all of that to get through to our connecting flight.
First, we had to go through Immigration. Most of the passengers on the plane were non-European Union visitors like us, and there was a fairly long line of people to be processed through Immigration in that line. Then, for some reason, there were some visitors from China that had issues with their passports, and could not speak German or English. It took at least 15 minutes to process those 5 people. After that, the line progressed pretty quickly, but would have gone faster if there were more than the three lines open. We were lucky to be up near the front, the line behind us got a lot longer while we were waiting. After about 30 minutes, we made it through Immigration and started what turned out to be a very long walk to Concourse A. We finally got to Concourse A after about 20 minutes of walking, and discovered we had to go through security again, waiting in another line, and then more waiting. After security, we headed for Gate 30, which again turned out to be a much longer walk than expected.
When we finally arrived at the gate for our flight, they were already boarding the plane. We had our boarding passes for this flight from when we initially departed Florida, but they had us assigned in two seats that were not located together on the plane. Our plan had been to try and get the seats changed, but we had been told we had to do it in Frankfurt, at the gate, since U.S. Air did not have access to the Lufthansa Airlines reservation system to change our seat assignments. However, since we were so late getting to the gate for this flight, we could no longer get them changed. Then, as we were boarding the plane, we discovered that it was over-booked, and there were no empty seats where we might have been able to move to to be closer. Luckily, it was only a 55 minute flight to Milan, so we just went to our assigned seats in different rows and that was that.
We arrived in Milan to find cloudy and rainy skies. We departed the plane and went to baggage claim, hoping our bags had made it through unloading in Frankfurt and then on to our flight to Milan. We only had to wait about 10 minutes before we saw our bags come out onto the baggage carousel. We were thankful that they both made it and we were not going to have to go through the hassle of getting any lost luggage delivered to us all the way to our hotel in Levanto.
After claiming our bags, we purchased our tickets for the shuttle bus from the airport to the Milano Centrale Train Station, and headed to the shuttle bus pick-up point. We were surprised at the number of Asian tourists waiting for the shuttle. I have to add that they seemed to very pushy and rude trying to get their luggage and themselves onto the bus. I think that is how they have to be to survive in their country of origin. We could not tell exactly where they came from, but they were very aggressive in getting their way, but somewhat in a nice pushy way. That was what gave us the impression it was just the way they are used to dealing with those situations in their crowded country. We boarded the bus for the 50 minute ride to the train station in Milan.
Once we arrived at the station, we found the automated ticket machines, and began the interesting process of buying our train tickets to Levanto. It was a little complicated, but the only hard part was how the credit card was inserted for payment, you had to push it into the reader, and leave it there. If you just swiped it like a USA gas station card reader, it would not work. Of course, a lot of other people are waiting impatiently in the line behind you, and it seemed like everyone was trying to get on a train that was leaving in the next few minutes. The first time through the ticket purchase process, we were booted out at the credit card payment phase, and had to start over again from the beginning. The lady waiting behind us asked if she could go ahead and get her ticket before us since she needed to be on her train in 15 minutes. Since we had over an hour to wait anyway, we let her go ahead, and stood close by to watch her go through the process. After she was finished, we tried once again, and on the third time, we were successful in getting our tickets.
Milano Centrale Train Station
We then went to a sandwich shop and bought some Paninis for lunch. We headed for our train platform, and got onto our train to Levanto. It was different from any of the trains we had ever been on in Europe before, this one had compartments on one side of the train car that had six seats in each compartment. We had purchased tickets for the two opposing window seats, and found the Number 6 coach and boarded. We were the only persons in the compartment right up until it was time to depart. Then, three more people came in and took their seats, it was a man and wife, and their daughter. They were only on the train for a few stops, and then we had the compartment to ourselves.
The train ride was uneventful. There was not a lot of interesting scenery to see along the way initially, mainly farmland. As we approached the coastline, the scenery became more interesting, it was more mountainous, and we could get glimpses of the coastline every now and then. However, because of the mountains, we started to go through a lot of fairly long train tunnels, and of course, could not really see that much of the area, just a little every now and then between tunnels. At one of the stops for Genoa, we got two more compartment mates. One of them was a young man from the area near Portofino, Italy, and he spoke very good English. He was very interesting to talk to, and was planning a trip to the USA to visit Las Vegas and Miami Beach. He had been to Las Vegas before, but never to Miami. He was only on the train for a few stops, and then once again, were were by ourselves. It was close to a three hour train ride from Milan to Levanto, and finally we arrived at the Levanto Station. By this time, it had started to rain fairly hard. We departed the train, and went into the station to put on our rain coats that we had pulled from our luggage. While we were in the station, we purchased our Cinque Terre Travel Cards, which give you unlimited access to the trains and walking trails for the period of time you purchase them for, in our case, we got 2-Day tickets for Saturday and Sunday.
We began the walk from the Station to the Hotel. It was supposed to be about 600 meters. We had a Google Map and some directions from the hotel, but it was still more difficult to find than we expected, partly due to the rain soaking our map, and partly due to us being so tired from the long travel day. We finally made to the hotel and checked in. The staff was very friendly, and the room was very nice. We were glad to get out of our now rain soaked clothes that we had been wearing since leaving home, and get hot showers. We felt a lot better after that.
Rainy Beach In Levanto
We ventured out to wander around the town of Levanto a couple of hours later. It was still showering a little, and was somewhat windy.
We picked out a place to eat dinner it was an enjoyable meal. We visited a couple of grocery stores, just to see what was available, and we purchased a couple of bottles of inexpensive red wine. We headed back to the hotel about 8:30 PM, and settled in for the evening. We were quite tired from our long overnight travel day. Hopefully the weather will clear up tomorrow for our first day in Cinque Terre.