Where did we go, you ask?

Following up on yesterday’s post…we wound up going to Brescia, a small medieval town in between Venice and Milan.

The only hiccup…okay, okay there were two, and they were so minor, but the boyfriend never lets me tell this story without these two key parts because he likes to know where he is sleeping each night, and I happened to prevent that.

1 – I figured we would go to the tourist center to find out what we could see and do for the day, and of course get a recommendation on where to stay. So we got off the train, and because there was only one or two pages about this particular town in the guidebook, there was not a sufficient map. Since we had our luggage (just one wheelie suitcase each — no rucksacks on this trip) this was not the time for aimless wandering. Suitcases on cobblestone…not ideal. We cabbed it from the train station to the tourist center. Which we quickly found out was closed. Until April. It was January. Oops.

Trying to prove that picking a town and finding accommodation on the fly were still great ideas, I wanted to relax the situation a bit and I figured a glass of wine and some lunch would be good right about now. So we crossed the square to a lovely restaurant where we could sit outside. Yes, we could sit outside. In January. (See, there are positives to all of this).

Another positive was our waiter. He was friendly and helpful, especially with accommodation recommendations. The guidebook had said something positive about places near the train station. Yet he told us, and this was a few years ago so I may not remember exactly…but it was more or less ‘The places by the train station are a piece of shit. You should stay here or here.” So we went to each of the places he named, they were across the cobblestone from each other, and walking distance from the square we were in, ensured there was availability at both, were invited to take a look at each of the rooms at both, and settled in for the nicest, and costliest, accommodation of our trip.

The boyfriend does not let me forget this because…

2 – If you plan ahead you do not have to sleep in a ‘piece of shit’ place near the train station, or spend an hour sorting accommodation with luggage in tow.

Hey, it was still fun, and I proved that sorting accommodation on the fly is totally possible.