Nimes to Livorno

First class Eurail passes... quite a pleasant way to travel.

Packed and ready to roll. Breakfast at the railway station.
When we tried to make reservations to travel straight through from Nimes in France, to Livorno in Italy, we came across a few who said it can't be done. The French lost interest in the plan as soon as we passed out of France. Riccardo was even looking into hire cars when we finally found a helpful young man who, while still thinking us crazy, took up the challenge. He clicked away on his computer, alternately cheering his success at making a tricky connection, or looking dismayed when it seemed impossible. We ended up changing trains several times, and arriving in Livorno at ten at night but we did it!

Marseilles; the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde on the hill behind us.

Genova railway station even had a display of flowers worth a photo.

I managed to catch glimpses of the French Riviera.

Olive trees, azure blue sea, luxury boats and grafitti on the train window.

Another train station.

Another glimpse of the sea.

Mountains and hills as we arrive in Italy, but the tunnels were not so photogenic.

Arriving in Livorno at 10, we could not find a phone or a taxi. Our google driving directions to the hotel read out at 39km, although I was sure I would not have booked us into anything so ridiculously remote!
A kind stranger offered to use his mobile to call us a taxi, and when he had no luck with that he shepherded us into his daughter's station wagon ( with their puppy) and insisted that it was no trouble to take us to our hotel.
"Livorno is not so big, it can't be far," he assured us as we protested halfheartedly.
His daughter was completely ok with helping us even though she didn't know where it was... she just set it into the Navman and off we went. Hotel Touring turned out to be a lot closer than 39 kms, but too far to walk at that time of night.
Many thanks to our kind stranger and his lovely daughter!