Nutsmuggling

So how was Clermont Ferrand?

Well, definitely a nice city, tidy and decidedly French, quite predictably. The centre develops around Place de Jaude, a huge square presided by Vercigetorix and General Desailly, nonetheless.

Just a short walk away, there’s the town Cathedral, a colossus of black stones.

The town centre is actually Clermont; Mont Ferrand, the old rival city, has been united to the municipality of Clermont in the seveneenth century. Nowadays Mont Ferrand is reduced to a neighbourhood, but it has preserved a medieval charm that is nowhere else to be found in Clermont Ferrand.

The funny thing now is that there’s slight chance I will not be getting back to Verona soon, not as soon as I had hoped. The train I am on is presently stuck somewhere near Lyon, in a narrow railway canyon.

Which is not uncommon, not by Italian standards, except for the stone noises that scared me shitless just before the train stopped. Stones (hopefully) where bumping under the train, quite violently, one hit right under my seat. The aforementioned canyon has one of those rock nets, so I guess there’s been a light landslide just before the passage of our train. The problem is that my us is due to leave in 2hs and I have a 70 minutes window to get on it after getting off the train. More correcly, now I have got a 50 minutes window, which narrows every minutes we’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere. If I don’t get on that bus, I will be stuck in Lyon for the night, until god knows when…

The only options is to keep my fingers crossed, before starting saying my prayers…

UPDATE I
It was a bloody animal, and I mean bloody in a literal sense, for the poor guy is now departed and gone. Some train employee passed us the good news, adding he has no clue when the train is leaving again. My time window is narrowing more and more, I can hardly see any light now.

UPDATE II
The train is moving now, but at an amazingly slow speed. On a lighter note, I have found a plug, so I have hopes of working with the laptop a bit longer. There’s still a good chance I will be stuck in Lyon for the night, so I’d better amass as many resources of diversion as possible…