Two weeks to Italy by Rail            29th May - 12th June 2014

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Day 14 - Wednesday 11th June 2014

Today we started the return journey to UK.  We were travelling the whole way by rail from Desenzano, the nearest railway station to our hotel, to Warwick by rail. There were several changes en route.  First was at Milan where we transferred from a Venice - Milan train to a Milan - Basel train.  That transfer was OK. The new train was comfortable enough. The journey was interesting, working up through the alps and then traversing Switzerland. We managed a cup of coffee at Basel station whilst we waited for the train to Paris, a Zurich - Paris, Gare de Lyon service.  The coffee was poor - lukewarm and very expensive. We got talking to another british traveller who was due to catch the Paris train. He warned that he had been booked on the previous service which was cancelled; there would be fun and games with travellers from the cancelled train trying to claim their seat booking on the next service.  He was right!  We managed to get our seats with only minimal problems, but there were arguments in our carriage about seat bookings with the train manager being called on to settle some.  The train arrived in Paris Gare de Lyon on time and we quickly found our hotel, about 200 yards from the station.  After settling in we popped out to find a meal and ended up in an 'italian' restaurant near the hotel. There we got talking to a couple of chaps, one of whom was an italian from Verona. So that provided a talking point for a while, our italian language skills (?) being put to use to some effect.