On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 I left Paris to go Italy for a short 5 day trip. I left the apartment to go catch the first bus of the morning, which arrived around 5:15 am or somewhere around that time. I got onto the bus and got off at the Mairie de Montreuil - Pasteur bus stop and went to the metro to take metro line 9 from the terminus of Mairie de Montreuil to Nation. I then proceeded to RER A and got off after 1 station at Gare de Lyon.
After arriving at Gare de Lyon I walked the long distance to the train terminal where I arrived about 90 minutes before my train would depart.
I arrived at Hall 2 and looked at the television monitors for the hall of where my train would depart and it indicated Hall 1 so I just exited Hall 2 and proceeded to walk to Hall 1 until it would be time to board the train. It wouldn't be that long until the train would arrived but I believe I saw it pull up into the platform about maybe 45 minutes to an hour before it would depart.
My train was a Frecciarossa 1000 operated by Trenitalia, which just started the service back in mid December of 2021, so it's a fairly new route and service, but the goal of the Italian government owned Trenitalia is to compete with the TGV route between Paris and Italy.
Soon it was time for boarding so I proceeded to the boarding gates to get my ticket scanned and then boarded the train. It would be a long train ride to Italy with a connection in Milano Centrale but about 20 minutes shorter than the nonstop TGV service to Milan.
Overall, the seats in the economy section were kind of nice because the train was brand new but the seats looked as though they were made of brown leather.
Nevertheless, the train departed on time, around 7:27 am, and it took about 6 hours and 41 minutes to get from Paris to Milan, but it arrived on time at Milano Centrale around 2:07 pm. I proceeded to get my belongings so I could find my connecting train that would take me to Rome Termini Train Station, and that was a disaster.
It was only supposed to be a 23 minute connection at Milano Centrale but I had difficulty finding the correct train from the departure and arrival boards because I didn't really know the route of the train because it wasn't indicated in my e-ticket details, so instead I looked at the boards for 10 minutes and thought I saw my correct train number and proceeded to the platform even if I got what seemed to be a few minutes just after departure time.
However, there were many problems with most of the trains, mostly because the trains were always wait and a day later there was a national strike by the rail union and its employees, so trains could be potentially cancelled and delayed. But I just boarded my train and it was still there, even if it left about 10-15 minutes late past its departure time.
Instead of leaving at 2:30 pm like it was supposed to the train left around 2:45 pm or around that time and arrived approximately 1 hour late because of the delay at Milano Centrale and the other issues of the Italian Rail System. So the train arrived in Rome about 6:40 pm instead of 5:40 pm and I just got off after it stopped and the doors opened.
I got out of the train station and took my belongings with me to check in at the hotel I booked a while back but accidentally went the wrong way so I wasted 30 minutes of exiting the wrong side of Rome Termini train station, but I just went back inside to the train station after I found it again and exited the opposite side and proceeded to cross the street until I found the hotel. I checked in and went to my assigned room and had trouble turning on the lights because hotels in Italy make you put your key card in a slot to turn on everything so the proprietor can save some money.
After finding out how to turn on the lights I went to buy food, drinks, and snacks from the grocery store near the train station because I didn't want to eat at a restaurant but I also bought a metro pass after I ate in my hotel room.
When I finished eating in my hotel room I went back to the Rome Termini to buy metro tickets from the metro station below. I just followed the signs and proceeded to wait for a machine to open up as many people were buying tickets and passes. It was my turn and I decided to purchase the 2 day metro pass for 12.50 Euros but somehow the machine gave me another 2 day metro pass so I had to pay double because of some issues with the machine. But after that I went back to the hotel and waited for the next day.
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