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Laaazy morning (my apologies to all Monday morning job-goers out there). I only got out of bed after 11 AM, to get to the train station. I did send a couple of useful emails this morning though. More on that later.

Today, I’ve decided to see the North coast of Lake Balaton, and chose a random station to stop to. I was very happy to see the first train coming into the station: it’s one of those old beastie that I took a few days ago to visit Aggtelek NP!

This time, I discovered that the very rear of the train is actually a windowed seating space. The entire back side is made up of one large window and a bench under it, that I had for me alone. Ah it was so fun to watch the rails run behind us and the villages go by and disappear, with the Balaton on the side.

It was only for a short portion of the trip though, as I had to change in Tapolca to continue. I intended to do a bit of grocery or find a sandwich to eat there, but it’s a smaller town than I thought, and everything was far form the station. I’ll have to do with something found at the beach.

The second train was a bigger, more classic affair. Not that much younger though. I dropped off in the tiny tiny tiny village of Balatonudvari. And that’s when I realized that I’ll skip lunch today. The « beach » was also a park, except way smaller than in Keszthely and today there was absolutely nobody except for a few old fishermen. No food in sight. I labeled my earlier laziness as Unforgiven and ate a pair of cookies.

I laid in the grass on the shore of the beautiful Balaton, and took a look at my emails. One of those I sent this morning was adressed to the San Marinese association that restores an old train and a few hundred meters of railway in San Marino. I know they sometimes leave the train on display, and even occasionally, make it run. Thus, I inquired if they had anything planned for June.

Turns out that if weather allows, they should make the train run once or twice! And I think I can climb on it!

Hoorah! That is a quite unexpected turn of event, as I thought I would at best just see it, at worst miss it entirely.

But then an even more unexpected turn of event, uh, turned.

I decided to take a look at the Vatican City train tour availability, since this is only running on Saturday mornings, so I better book it very early. Problem, I couldn’t find any dates at all, from official and third-party websites. I started to worry. As this tour been discontinued? I ended up calling the Vatican Museum tourist information service. And indeed… No more train tours this year.

GOD DAMN IT!

Oh come on, this was still a thing like six months ago! Damn you Vatican City, first I will have to sleep on the floor of your sidewalk, and now you deprieve me of taking a train into your border? I dub thee the Unforgiven II. But eyh, you have almost two months to change your mind and reopen that tour, so please, do, and I’ll forgive you.

That’s quite a blow to the Great European Train Tour, not gonna lie. But still, that’s yet another first World problem, I’m still having the time of my life right now, no need to get negative.

I stayed laying at the park for another two hours until it was time to head back. First, direction Tapolca again, with the same kind of train.

The last train was, however, finally a modern one. A small regional, silent fast and comfortable train, for a change. The sky was turning into crazy shades of orange and purple as I finally approached Keszthely.

Which is absolutely dead on Monday evening. I barely found a small restaurant to eat!