Italian Trains Do Not Run On Time

I was feeling lazy and lounged about most of the day. I walked by the Pantheon again

and found another museum about Leonardo da Vinci. This museum had just opened two weeks ago and was primarily about anatomy.

Leonardo had an incredibly detailed knowledge of human anatomy, most of which he discovered himself. And then wrote down in notebooks.

A lot of it was vaguely creepy, like illustrations from the Necronomicon (death magician's spellbook) or a how-to on constructing zombies.

Still, I now understand why Leonardo was able to paint people so well. This understanding of anatomy clearly shows up in his paintings -- especially e.g. Mona Lisa's hands.

Quite amazing that he wrote all this material and that so much of it has been preserved.

Meanwhile, I amused myself

and crossed the river to the west bank, which is less built-up, with smaller shops and markets

I went to some bookstores, and stayed in the coolest one because it was quite hot

The shops are beautiful though

You again?

Nice fountains

and the bridge has some musicians. No pics though.

The river is filled with seagulls that are sitting in it, because it's water I guess, but it's also flowing southwards and the seagulls are discombobulated. They all face north, trying to prevent this slow movement from happening, but not actually paddling or anything. When they get too far they fly north for a bit, and slide back south.

Beautiful street art

and some playful chasing

and such a picturesque city.

Then...

I had a ferry to Barcelona (which goes overnight and til 6pm the next day), and in order to get to the ferry, I had a train from Roma to Civitavecchia. This is a 1 hour train that runs "like clockwork" every fifteen minutes. I left myself 1.5 or 2 hours of slack time, should be enough right?

Wrong. This is Italy we're talking about.

There was a big strike going on and none of the trains were on time -- some were canceled, most were two or three hours late. The station was a disaster. I finally found someone who knew something -- "Go ask my colleague at desk 4" -- who knew something -- "You can take the Pisa train instead, it should be running" -- which was at the exact opposite end of the station of course.

Finally I'm on a train which may be departing, but everyone is standing on the platform having a cigarette with a hand on the door. I'm watching the time nervously. Ten minutes before I was going to bail and get a massively expensive taxi or a hotel room and a flight or something (this was like 9pm), the train lurched forwards. Everyone cheered.

Somehow we got later and later as the train progressed. It got to the point where I had no reasonable way of getting to the ferry (a 20 minute walk) on time. I called a cab from the train and told him to meet me. When we arrived, I was putting my luggage into the cab and this confused looking woman starts asking me for directions... "Grimaldi lines?" I asked. Yes. "Get in." So we drove at fairly maniac speeds to the docks, through process of elimination found the right ship (the woman had a different one). This traffic director who was loading in the last vehicles took me in and looked at my passport. It was about two minutes before the scheduled departure. Finally he nodded, and led me on a secret route, trying not to get run over by 18-wheelers. I'm obviously the last pedestrian to board by far. Then I physically step onto the freaking boat and I know everything's going to work out. I'm up an escalator and away. By the time I find my bunk, I can feel the vibration of the ship's engines as we pull out into the Mediterranean Sea.