The train to Positano and almost getting ripped off ... again!

Every trip has story. This one begins when I take the train from Roma to Positano. I'm kind of going backwards but that's my style.

The train trip down to Naples was relaxing. For most of the journey, I had my nose buried in a book, and the gentle rocking of the train soon put me to sleep. The four hours went by very fast, and it was an agreeable trip, made even more agreeable knowing that I was leaving the city for the seaside and some rest. 

The Italian railway system functions very well. When you stop at the stations, you can often buy food from a man pushing an aluminium trolley up and down the platform. You can get a mortadella roll and a mineral water for very little money: it’s Italian fast food.

When the train pulled into Napoli Centrale, it was mayhem as usual. There were people everywhere, and I joined into the mass exodus onto the platform. They don’t believe in queues in Italy. Queues seem to be an Anglo Saxon custom and one not entirely taken to by the Italians. Maybe they just hate all the tourists. Once, I remember getting off a train in a big city. It could have been Roma, wherever. I exited the train, left the station with my luggage and waited with a very large group of people for a taxi. There was a man in a very nice uniform whose job it was to keep the lines of people in order and direct those next in line to their taxi. Whenever a taxi appeared, which was seldom, a wave of people would descend on it and the man in the fancy uniform would just stand back helplessly. He looked good in his uniform. He looked very official. It was no different this time, except there was no-one to tell you where you had to be an try and at least make things appear a little orderly. It was a struggle for me. I had quite a lot of luggage: two suitcases in fact, and they weren’t so much heavy as awkward. It was either just before they brought out the ones with the in-built wheels, or the in-built wheels had given way as they do on cheap suitcases. I don’t believe in expensive luggage. 

Anyway, as I was struggling along the platform, carrying my load, a little man appeared at my side. He had on a kind of uniform with a ‘Tourist Officer’ patch written in English and official looking epaulettes with metallic buttons. He looked kind of official. “Signore. Excusami.” He bowed elaborately. “Whicha ‘otel are you going?” He added breath into the words he should have left it out of. I didn’t stop right away, but continued to struggle along the platform with my heavy, awkward burden. “Signore, which ‘otel, please?” I stopped, wondering if the hotel had actually organised a driver and car. It was an expensive hotel, after all. 

“The Sirenuse.” I answered him, and felt the ache leave my shoulders for a minute.

“Good. You come!” He spoke with a mixture of authority and charm.  “Please! Signore! You walka dis way.” Wasn’t that an old gag? I had to stop myself from mimicking his slight limp, and acting it out. When you travel on your own, you have to amuse yourself anyway you can. I didn’t have time to anyway. He stopped me as soon as we began to walk up the long platform. “Porter … baggagli!” Within seconds a tall skinny youth with the long face of a racehorse, was standing there ready to shoulder the burden of my baggage. “Give im twenny thous lire … that’s it.” The ‘tourist officer’ told me what to do, and I did as I was told, but I felt a bit uncomfortable as I handed the young man the banknote. It was all happening very fast.

“Le Sirenuse is good, no?” He talked to me in an animated way all up the platform. “Si.” I answered, practicing my Italian on him. 

“Si. Is molto bene.” He smiled his winning smile, with the shining brown eyes of a hunting dog just happy to be with his master. I liked him. 

“Americano?” He had the kind of face an advertising agency would use for a pasta advertising campaign. You know … autentico, with a deeply olive complexion to his wide, crinkly face, and a good head of thick black hair. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t shaved though. It looked like a three day growth, and it fought hard against his official looking uniform to make him look like a bum. Maybe it was just five o’clock shadow, Neapolitan style. I let the thought go and tried to keep up with him.

When we got to the entrance to the station, he continued to walk with rapidity and purpose, out of the station, right past any mode of transport which would have been appropriate, and across the road. We all crossed the road: me, him and the racehorse that was carrying my bags. It was a busy road, thronged with traffic, which was all blasting away simultaneously on very loud air horns. 

“Dis way please gentleman.” He put his arm up against the traffic, gesticulating with real authority and a quick flash of a smile. Now we had air horns and some terrible language thrown in too.

Some of it I understand having been brought up by an Italian. I heard the word ‘mother’ quite a lot from one bald headed man who was obviously late for the birth of his first son.

I wanted to give him the ‘cornuto’ sign, which I had learned while still in short pants, but had never tried officially – that is, whilst in Italy. It’s a hand thing. You clench your fist, and turn it back to front at your target, making sure to hold the thumb and two inside fingers down and let the other two fingers pop up like rabbit’s ears. It means ‘your wife is unfaithful to you’, which is roughly the same as telling a man down south here that his wife prefers sleeping with pigs, and often does. Down south, it is a formidable gesture, and not one to bandy about, so, I decided not to try it out just yet. Maybe tomorrow on the beach? 

We continued to ignore the insults of the grid-locked driver’s, and walked on, me, the youth and the ‘Tourist Officer’. After crossing three squares, and a lot of busy streets, I was beginning to wonder where it was we were going. Finally, we came to rest outside an Agenzia Viaggio – a tourist office. The man made no attempt to go inside, but, instead, told me to stay with my bags, while he got me my car. I watched as he approached a taxi driver standing outside his cab, having a cigarette. They began to discuss something in earnest, and at one stage seemed to be locked in a furious debate over land rights or something. I was hot and dusty and beginning to get a bit cranky. What the hell was going on. The man came back smiling a smile of victory.  

“She will take you to Le Sirenuse.” He said, adding much gusto to the word ‘she’. It was the little lick of his lips that gave the game away for me. I was tired, and a bit hungover, but I wasn’t entirely brain dead. This man wasn’t an ‘official’ anything. He was just another rat in a uniform. 

“Thank you.” I said, not forgetting to ask him how much.

“Not much.” He said, throwing his head back and flashing me a the best pasta in the world smile. “Speciale!.” A special price for a stupid tourist. He turned and made a profile of his official epaulettes.

“How much?” I asked, beginning to get a kick out of the game. 

“Eighty five thous lire.” I did a quick calculation. It was more than $90. 

“Piss off.” I said, deciding to try out one of our Aussie expressions.

“Comme?” He looked genuinely hurt and puzzled. “Isa dere a problema?”

“I said, piss off. That means you go away.”

“You no like?” He looked quite distressed at the thought that I might have been displeased.

I had already given his son, or whoever the youth was, $20 for carrying my bags, and I had, it seemed, walked half way across Naples. The rosy hue of La Bella Italia was beginning to become twisted and tarnished. “Look …” I said in the most polite way that I could muster. “… just go away.” I handed the man 10,000 lire as a final face saving gesture, and as a way of saying “The charade is over, and you lost, but, you didn’t lose entirely.” I felt like a game show host handing out a key ring to a losing contestant. I would forget the man as soon as he left my range of vision. Even before if I could manage it.  

“Testa dura.” He muttered under his breath. Then he pocketed the note and simply walked off in the direction of the Stazione, and another train in from Munchen via Roma.