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NOTE: scroll down for my tips on thriving on a long bus journey
The bus timetable in Guardia Sanframondi
Dear Travelling Friends and Lovers of Slower Travel!
The first bus-waiting: a few minutes' walk up steep marble steps from The Arthouse
As I begin writing this, I've been on 5 different buses for almost 3 days running, and have just found out that potentially all the ferries to my island are cancelled for the foreseeable future, due to the typical solstice-time high dramas on the sea. I am hungry, thirsty and needing a shower, and am blessed to have one night in a glorious Glasgow BnB, before I head to the harbour and await what the Gods Of The North will bring.
The longest wait between buses: in Benevento, having arrived from Guardia Sanframondi; station with no station building and the only information being word-of-mouth camaraderie!
And the worst biscuit and tea of the whole trip, in the cafe next to the car-park which is called a bus station, Benevento
Brushing my teeth and stretching my limbs, outside Milano bus station: getting grounded after the first very-long-bus-ride
I didn't think this part of the journey out; checked the local weather a few days ago, and it said raining and a bit windy... oopah. I planned the trip with a seriously tight budget, and am committed to being on the island - or as near it as I can get! - without any back-up plan and with minimal resources to hand. Already I was thinking about the lunch tomorrow I'll have to buy, and about keeping warm if I'm holed up in wintery weather in Ardrossan ferry waiting room for an extended period... Already, the guy in the customer services office for Calmac, was telling me that he can call me back if he hears anything more, to save me using up my trip phone credit - then a dear friend offered me brunch, and will be coming through from Edinburgh to meet me tomorrow morning. She's bringing me a big winter coat that she thought I'd like, which will be perfect as an extra layer, as I sit awaiting ferry sailings to be reviewed...
Afternoon into evening of day two of the ride: steaming through the Alps and across the Italian-French borderlands.
Almost as soon as I thought of each thing I needed, it appeared. And this ran throughout my journey so far: making space for the Divine Intelligence to do what it needs to do, to keep the Universe moving along nicely, but never a moment of real tension, stress or impossible-to-overcome problems. Feeling this in-tune with it all, I can imagine even finding an alternative to the ferry, to get to the island. Or getting a group of co-creative minds together, to make a shift in the weather...
The Alps just coming into view, as we careen towards the north-west border of Italy, and France.
Suffice to say, I was nervous a few days before making this trip: quite a few of my close friends know about it, but my family - and my Dad in particular, who I plan to surprise (eventually??!) with my presence on the island - are unaware that I am now, in this moment, chugging up the M8 towards Glaschu.
The end of day two, as the sun seems to be left behind in the Alps...
My nerves sat with me as I headed out of Guardia Sanframondi on the Monday, laden with food, clothes, technology and a happy wish to bring cheer to the Galloways, who've had a particularly rough year of it. Having not travelled anywhere further than the bigger town with the Saturday mercato, I felt laden not just with the weight of my physical baggage, but with an additional layer of heavy vibes, relating to all the other trips I've made, throughout the years I've lived in Italy - and thinking now of moving on from here. A strange trepidation, echoes of before-ness, a sense of boding and discomfort at actually getting up and moving, when every day for the past around 5 yrs, as been pottering about the Via Dietro Gli Orti, essentially. Movement is always uncomfortable, when there has been no movement.
Talking of movement, the good vibes that I have gleaned and harvested from this trip are a huge difference to the kind of vibes I had on previous travelling experiences. Small movements in full presence help a lot with these good vibes, as does my much-improved state of mind and ability to keep focussed and clear in my energ. In the past I would always get horribly charged-up energetically with whatever I was exposed to. It takes a long lifetime to change deep unconscious habits like this, but the riches of doing the work go without saying.
Surreal to enter the 'UK' and to see all the signs and publicity in English: familiarity, entering the south of England, and yet still very foreign, and feeling like I am still far from home...
I almost can't say much more about the trip than that! Around our bus in this moment, the wind is howling and the rain lashing the windows and roof, and a thick dark occupies all the outside: we slide through all this like an arrow. It is quite a mystical feeling, being tuned into the rhythm of not just the container, the bus, but the people, the driver, and the land which we are sliding through. A feeling of rightness and ease is pervading, following a very symbolically uncomfortable jerking and starting-stopping stretch from my town in south Italy, up and out of the country. The beginning of the journey was loaded down with the stories of how I got there, the folks I spent the past 15 years with, and now we're pushing into the lowlands of Scotland, the Way is rich with possibility and Gifts. Again the sense of pilgrimage comes to my heart; trekking laboriously, worthwhile-ly, back to where my original beingness was birthed and formed - and knowing it as a new beingness.
Shedding of skins and memories, as we thunder gently into the culture and landscape that began me. I love this; I love being open and power-full: open fully to What Will Be, but knowing also my immense power to charge Life up with my intention-attention-vision (rather than my historically being charged BY life, and passively having been slowly eaten up by that electrical discomfort!)... This time, I can simply listen in, calm down, and free up the potent potential. And every step of this big bus journey, this is confirmed. A beautiful metaphor unfolding for life: hurtling harmoniously into the pitch dark, feeling utterly ready and satiated, whilst at the same time strong and alert for change of all kinds.
Beautiful to walk in my own country's cities, hear my own accent everywhere and take in the lights and cheer of the winterfest
I wonder how long it will take me to get from the city to the fireside in my Dad's cottage. I wonder at the adventure it might be to spend time - hours, days, weeks??! - together with a undisclosed selection of folk-who-also-want-to-be-on-Arran: will I know some of them? Will there be special connections cultivated through our being thrown together. Or will I be alone in foolhardily striding into the storm instead of away from it like most people. i love the unknown of it, and the sense of being pulled, either way, towards a place by such elemental magnetism, that a week-long storm seems like an appropriate foe!
The waves don't seem high on the Saltcoats side of the port town...
but as the train nears the harbour, it is pretty intense: I'm the only passenger alighting from the train at the last stop...
The miraculous moment of the ferry actually swinging into Ardrossan harbour, and our being invited to board.... A fun call to my Dad announcing my arrival.... A cold and dark entry to the island and drive along the shore road and up into the hillside to our family home... cosy by the fire and a hot-water-bottle and toasty bed. Back home.
MY NOTES AND TIPS ON LONG-DISTANCE BUS TRAVEL:
my top tips
- Avoid crappy snacks: choose wisely what foods and liquids we come into contact with - avoid sugar and stimulants.
- Have at least one super-healthy drink and foodstuff for the duration. Fresh-squeezed orange juice in a flask and bags of mixed fruit and nuts were my staple on this trip, and helped keep my throat clear.
- Similarly, discern mental habits and accumulating thoughts which are not positive; keep the mind in the moment and on the basic comforts being satiated, and let go of all build-up of worry by shaking it off and breathing it OUT.
- Get our feet on the earth and fresh air in our lungs at any and every opportunity: getting off the bus whenever possible, and touching soil and trees is vital.
- Breathe deeply and fully at all times: it took me a while to do this after setting off, as I have a tendency to breathe more shallowly when I come into contact with stale air; have to convince myself that I am able to take in this air and transform it - rather than being negatively influenced by any unpleasant shared-air!
What wasn't a bother, which I had expected to be:
- The length of the journey: its natural rhythm of quite times and then bustle as new folks board and leave the bus.
- Not sleeping for several days; professional napping can have literally the same effect as a longer sleep; finding yogic positions, taking the shoes off, etc made a fabulous difference. I was blessed to mostly have a double seat to myself.
- Not having breaks! Modern cheap buses seem to be in much more of a rush, and doing back-to-back buses was intense - but do-able, with a calm mind and dedication to harmonious movement.
- Sitting down for very long periods. This was manageable ONLY with consistent subtle small movements.
- People: having been alone in a quite location for a long time, my concern was being exposed to the collective psychosis - but the beauty of people was there in many forms - feeling like part of a community on each bus.
- And the beauty of the surrounding, changing landscape: especially the more-well-tended landscapes outside of Italy! It was a joy to see beautifully manicured gardens, trees, fields and cityscapes.
What was a bother, which I hadn't expected to be:
- Customs; I forgot about Brexit, and have never looked into what paperwork I need to 'legally' pass through borders in Europe. I was lucky to have some guys who weren't so interested in my A4 piece of paper by Roberto-up-the-Comune who created a certificate for my 'residency for all time' in Italy, hehe.
- Nobody talking or making eye contact; the few who did connect, were sweet enough, but it was a tad disconcerting how focussed folks are on their appliances, even when walking on the streets.
- How inaccurate the bus timetables were! On the way back I will make sure to have more hours between bus connections; it was nerve-racking how long customs took, which then ate into the arrival times - there seemed to be little relation between the predicted hour of arrival and the actual.
