No Room at the Inn.

The plan for the Florence-Ljubljana leg of our journey went something like this: leave Florence early on Thursday morning, taking the cheaper (non-Eurostar) train to Venice via Bologna; drop our bags in the left luggage room and spend a long afternoon in Venice, visiting the Rialto Bridge and the Basilica and eating creme caramel gelato at my favourite Venetian gelato shop; head back to the station in the early evening and catch the nine o'clock train to Ljubljana; arrive at half past one and walk to the hostel; bed. Done.

This is what actually happened on the Florence-Ljubljana leg of our journey: We checked out of the 7 Santi hostel on Thursday morning and set off for the station. As we stood in line at the ticket office a small pug, a row or more in front of us, took an intense dislike to Harry and began to bark and lunge violently towards him. This prompted lots of bemused stares from the people around us and the chant, "P-U-G-L-Y! Harry ain't got not alibi (he pugly)", from Charlotte and me. Upon reaching the ticket window we discovered that the next available Venice-bound train was the Eurostar, departing Florence in two hours time; so we bought our subsidiary tickets and sat down to wait.

Cut to four hours, 123 miles, several unfinished crosswords, two guidebooks and a box of grapes later and we were stepping onto the platform at Venezia Santa Lucia. The Grand Canal was tantalizingly close and we could see the blue water and the dome of a church as we joined another long line at another ticket office. "Do we need a ticket for the Ljubljana train?" we asked the lady behind the counter, in the cautious, questioning tone that acts as a substitute for the native tongue in situations like this. "I'm sorry, which Ljubljana train?" replied the lady (or words to that effect). It transpires in due course that a train strike is scheduled later in the day and it is unlikely that the Ljubljana train will run. Our best hope is to take a train to Trieste, the ticket lady explains, as soon as possible. She directs us to another office and we talk to a man, who tells us the same thing. The Trieste train departs in an hour's time and will take us as far as the Slovenian border. We don't ascertain whether we can catch a different train there, but we can hope. So, with an hour to spare we rush from the station and into the Venice throngs. I am hopeful that we can make the Rialto bridge in an hour, but it is hot and we are carrying our bags and there are so many people around (oh winter Venice, how you spoilt us!). We take a couple of mandatory canal/ Venetian mask shots to prove we were there and head reluctantly back to the station.

The train-ride from Venice to Trieste was beautiful and under normal circumstances I would have enjoyed it completely. The final leg of the journey, where the train ran parallel to the coast, was nearly enough to wipe thoughts of Slovenia from my mind; but as it was, we had a hostel reservation to make and I didn't realise we were staring out over Trieste until we had rounded the bay. The train strike was already in motion as we stepped onto the station concourse; the 'Arrivi' and 'Partenze' boards were awash with orange ANNULLATO notices and the lady at the ticket office pointed hastily in the direction of the bus station round the corner. But our haste was to no avail; the Ljubljana bus had gone and the ticket office was shutting up for the night. That is how Trieste found its way into our itinerary.

The lady at the station gave us the details of a local hostel, but it was quite a way down the coastal road and there was always the possibility that it would be full when we got there. Harry was all for sleeping on the beach or in the park; Charlotte was decidedly against. So we found an Internet cafe and began jotting down the phone numbers and addresses of hotels and guesthouses in the local area. Cue walking around Trieste, Mary and Joseph style, knocking at doors and inquiring about rooms to detached voices over crackling intercoms. We were all but ready to concede and attempt the seaside hostel (we weren't giving Harry the satisfaction of a park bench), when we were buzzed in to a building by a two star hotel, among the last on our list. We walked up a grand and winding spiral staircase until we came to the door of the Hotel Alabarda, which we fell through and asked breathlessly whether there was any room at the inn. Thankfully there was and we spent the rest of the evening revelling in the ceiling fan (which, after three nights without air-con was greatly appreciated) and watching BBC Robin Hood in Italian.

This morning we got up early and after a quick complimentary breakfast we rushed to the station to check on the strike situation. Still in place, we went next to the bus station (jostling past a group of fellow travellers, just in case they stole the last few spaces on a bus to Ljubljana), where we discovered that the bus had enough free seats to go around, but was not departing until 2 o'clock. In one of the rashest decisions of my life I decided against paying €4 to leave my bag with the ticket lady (I mean, it was only €4 for god's sake! It was hardly a bank-breaking amount!) before setting out into the early-morning sunshine. At first it seemed pleasant enough, but after walking along the harbour, out onto a jetty, up a hill and round the castle, I was all but ready to throw my rucksack into the sea. When we went into the fort-like castle they expressly told us to leave our bags in the foyer and I didn't need to be told twice. We decided, on further exploration and contemplation that Trieste is a lovely and very interesting kind of place to visit (in accordance with the newspaper article pinned to the wall at our hotel, "where have all the tourists gone?", where exactly have the tourists gone?) and permitting that we made it back down the hill and onto our Slovenia-bound bus, we were glad that our Trieste adventure had been thrust upon us.