At precisely 6:30am my phone did not start to make the irritating noise I had been expecting, because in my infinite wisdom I’d left it in vibrate-only mode. Fortunately I had my hand on it at the time and so I did wake up. This was therefore not the event that was to make me miss my train some 70 minutes later.I packed quietly, but had a panic when I couldn’t find my towel. Eventually it was located hanging on the bunk above mine, but this was also not responsible for my missed connection.

Leaving the hostel at about 7:15, I realised I was cutting it a little fine. I’d make it with about five minutes to spare, but trains in Italy never seemed to be early, and were rarely on time, so I wasn’t worried. The problem was that with every step I was increasing the distance between me and the station, because I was walking in the wrong direction. At 7:25 I realised this and turning around, ran as fast as I could for about 20 metres before adopting a more sensible pace given that I was wearing an 80-litre backpack.

I arrived at 7:42, and the train had gone. Well, it had probably gone, but seeing as it wasn’t on the departures board anymore I had no way of knowing which platform it might at that very moment be about to pull away from. I headed for the restaurant and ate breakfast while I considered exactly how much of an idiot I was.

Since the train information office was closed until 9, I went back to the internet café and started preparing a backup plan on the Deutsch Bahn website.

I finally left Venice at quarter past ten, and the train wasn’t direct. After the change I began to forget about the time and watched enthralled as mountains loomed large in the distance. The train spent two hours winding it’s way round peaks and valleys, through tunnels and over bridges, finally to arrive in Calalzo, which is the closest you can get to Cortina by train.

Journey 6: Venice to Cortina
3 legs, 200km, 4 hr 27 min. Average speed: 57kph
Origin/Destination	Departs	Arrives	Carrier	My Rating
Venezia S.Lucia Castelfranco Veneto	10:50	11:47	TrenItalia
Castelfranco Veneto Calalzo-Pieve di Cd.	11:57	14:17	TrenItalia
Calalzo-Pieve di Cd. Cortina d’Ampezzo	14:17	15:17	DolomitiBus	(Bus)

The journey was completed by bus, and as it finally pulled into Cortina’s bus station at ten to four, I was frantically prioritising tasks. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I needed to find a place to stay, and I also wanted to plan my hike. I settled for finding a place to stay first, so I headed for the tourist information office. Having acquired a spreadsheet of phone numbers I found a payphone and started making calls. Five calls later, I had not found a single person who spoke English, and in frustration returned to the tourist information office, where I convinced the assistant that even though I didn’t want a hotel she should make the booking for me.

Getting to the place was not difficult from a navigational point of view – there were only a few roads and they were spread out enough for each one to be very distinct on the map I’d been given. The problem was that it was a 2km walk uphill. About halfway there a car pulled up beside me and a woman in her late thirties began talking at me in Italian.

“Solo Inglese” I said with a shrug, but that just encouraged her. “Si, Si, inglese….”

I think she said Katrina at some stage, and I remembered that it was the same name as the woman in the tourist info office had used when speaking to my new landlady, so I decided that I had enough evidence to suggest that getting into this woman’s car would not be a bad idea.

Katrina (I’m assuming that’s her name) drove for about 5 minutes further up the hill and parked next to 31 Col, which was the address that I was looking for. I got out, and to my surprise she drove off. I was confused again. A much older woman came out of the house and ushered me inside. I spent a few minutes being shown around, with accompanying narrative in Italian which I couldn’t begin to decipher.

Before I went out to get some food, I decided I should introduce myself. First I tried the pointing-at-myself-and-saying-Andrew technique, which didn’t work. Eventually I got the message across by writing “Andrew” on a piece of paper, placing it against my chest, pointing at myself and saying Andrew. She couldn’t say it though, so after all that effort I became known as “Angelo” for the sake of convenience. She was ‘Zita’.

In town I bought a hiking map, waterproof and English/Italian phrasebook, then had dinner. I rather adventurously ordered the special of the region, a kind of sausage meat and various types of mushrooms, served with a corn meal called ‘Polenta’. This looked exactly like a bright yellow cow pat, if such a thing existed.