So about that second tunic...

So the trip to the Specola was — to a first order approximation — smooth.  Yes, the plane left a bit late, but clearly it usually leaves a bit late, because we were on time to Rome.  I managed to buy my ticket on the express into Roma Termini and my ticket on to Albano on the TrenItalia app.  Woot!

But.  I managed to hit the daily gap at Roma Termini where it is two hours between trains to Albano. Any other time of the day, they run every hour. It's hot and muggy, but I discover the terrace upstairs where I can get a cold drink, watch the trains and the train board and most importantly, sit for the next hour and half.  The Albano train pops up on the board, and I know from experience just how long a walk it is out to Platform 18, so I grab my luggage and go. By the time I get there I am soaked, but the train is blissfully air conditioned and ready to board.  At which point I should be enjoying the cool air and 45 minutes to recruit my strength for the walk up the hill to the apartment where I am staying.

Except. Except they are doing track work, so they are bussing from Ciampino to Albano (I knew this when I bought my ticket). Twenty minutes and we're off the train. The conductor gives me directions to where to find the bus. I haul my growing-ever-heavier bag down from the platform and back up the indicated stairs and seeing a bus ask about the bus to Albano.  Not this one, but wait right here.  I wait in the sun.  No bus.  I check the time.  It should be here in a minute or two.  No bus. Five minutes?  No bus.  I go inside and ask about the bus. Oh, that bus leaves from the other side. Next one? In an hour. Back down and up I go. I find the spot and hope that the bus will appear. A bus arrives with a spate of TrenItalia personnel in bright red polo shirts. Yes, this is your bus.  Up goes the luggage.

It is icily air conditioned, so after a bit I look for my "second tunic"...only to remember with a start that I had left my nice sweatshirt on the bench at the station. I guess I didn't need a second tunic after all.