This past month, I have done lots of traveling! To Bologna, Livorno, Venice, Padova, Prato, Pistoia, and a few others, I have been to a lot of cities across many regions in Italy. It’s one of the main benefits of living near a train and having robust train lines throughout the country. Being able to travel between cities is generally a very smooth process, since Firenze is such a central hub for activity, but you can’t see the entire country by only staying in the cities. Especially during the fall, when I have been missing the fall leaves change color, I wanted to get out to see the countryside.

Around Halloween, I really got to know the countryside of Italy by traveling to a small village in hopes to see the gorgeous nature I was missing. Getting to this village, Borgo a Mozzano (quite literally Village in Mozzano) required a transfer through Lucca, another main hub in Tuscany but mostly for the smaller, regional trains. While getting from one main hub to another is quite easy, a train from Lucca to Borgo a Mozzano only runs once every 2 hours.

Sitting through a delay on the way to Lucca, I knew that I would be missing the next one, and seeing crowds of people dressed in costume as I got out at Lucca I quickly figured out that the delay was from the massive celebrations, and these massive celebrations would be going all day… and so delays would be going all day. 

Having missed the immediate train to the village, I had to be flexible. For 2 hours I roamed the festivities, visited my first Italian food truck, and explored the small town busting at the seam with visitors. Being able to adjust my day on the fly in a place that I didn’t even plan to visit was easy, but when the time came for the next train I was ready! But it didn’t come. There were more delays even if they weren’t announced until minutes before the train was supposed to arrive.

Eventually, I got to the village and was disappointed to find that the celebrations had wrapped up the night before; by the afternoon it was a ghost town. It wasn’t exactly what I had hoped, but I was already being flexible, so I wandered, found a gorgeous bridge, and realized that the train delays were a blessing in disguise. The quiet village recovering from the festival meant that tourists like me would not have much to do, and the shorter time interval until the next train ensured that we didn’t get too bored. Even though there wasn’t that much to do, there was a gorgeous bridge, and pretty nooks and crannies wherever I walked.

This trip taught me that even if I have my day planned out, I can’t necessarily expect that plan to be perfectly followed, and that traveling somewhere more isolated can have consequences. It also taught me that it does not take much effort to go off the beaten trail if I chose to, but maybe always double check the transportation. Even if things don’t work out perfectly, it could have been for the best anyways.