Seemed simple enouugh at the time..

3 countries in one day.

A meal in each. The plan was so simple.

Upon arrival in Switzerland, I had made sure I sorted out my reservations out of Zurich - a train journey to Nice which would take most of one day, with an afternoon stopover in Milan for a spot of lunch and a stretch, arriving in Nice in time for an evening walkabout and dinner.

The first train (Zurich to Milan) left on time at 9am, and not only was it comfortable, but it was spacious, cosy and had battery power for my laptop! Using it to catch up on blogging, watching some videos, etc. we were having a riot. Until an announcement came through that the train would be stopping in Chiasso (just on the Swiss side of the border). And not continuing. No real reason given, just that we had a connecting train to Monza, and then another from there to Milan. Excellent - with expected arrival in Milan at 14.45 and connection at 15.10, my Milan-ese lunch and stretch was no longer available.

Funnily enough, we got to Milan and after a sprint for some sandwiches (and a soggy slice of packaged pizza) our Milan to Nice train was 55 minutes delayed. Perfect. No problem at all, if it were actually taking us to Nice. Nope, a French SNCF strike means the train will terminate in Ventimiglia - Italian side of the Italy-France border.

Arriving in Ventimiglia, we fought through a scrum to get onto an SNCF bus, packs loaded, and soon we were once again winding our way around the coastline, over the border at Menton, and cruising by road to Nice.

Despite the pain..

We saw some amazing things which made it all worthwhile. The waterfalls, mountains and lakes in misty Italian speaking Switzerland near Lugarno was pretty special, as was watching town after sundrenched town on the Azure coastline sail into view and into the distance, with pebbled and/or sandy beaches, lines of striped beach chairs, umbrellas up, people enjoying the Sunday weather. Oh, and Suma met a cute guy on the train - a blond looker called Mathieu, circa 3 years.