Overnight train...Italian style...YUCK!

The overnight train that began the evening of the day before from Rome to Paris was not quite as pleasant as the previous overnight train from Vienna to Venice.

We found that Italian trains were not really the best to use in comparison to other countries’ trains, such as IC, TGV, Thalys, or my personal favorite, Germany’s ICE. Perhaps we couldn’t really compare this particular train as it was an overnight train. But in comparison to the Vienna-to-Venice overnight train, Italian fell far behind in impressing us.

First of all, the room was much smaller. Most of the inside seemed to have used wood-like wallpaper. The carpet was loose and moved around when we dragged the luggages about. The seats that turned into a bed had distorted old turquoise color and were incredible dirty even to look at. Sitting on them almost felt like sitting on a garbage bag filled with garbage ready to break free from the bondage.

The top of all these unpleasantness of the train’s features was what we found attached at the side-bottom of the sink. Initially I thought it would have been a trash compartment. But inside, we found a bucket that we immediately realize to what purpose it was there for. The air began to stink of urine. This attachment was an in-room urinal, perhaps for old men who could not walk far to the restroom. The smell was so foul that Sheilla immediately reached for her perfume and sprayed nearly a dozen times into the air.

That was not all. The train ride itself was rocky at best. Whenever the train used its brakes to slow down or stop, we could smell the rubber brake pads that seeped into our compartment through the window that probably was improperly insulated. Had we given a commentary card to fill out, we’d give a piece of our minds to give the lowest grade for the experience. And to think, we had to pay for all these.