It should have been simple, the first stage of our trip. Ortisei to Innsbruck. Local bus, familiar train, half-day to kill in a city we knew. On the scale of tricky transportation and admin logistics, this one would be a no-brainer.

Of course it then would be followed by a long and complex journey through Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and finally up to the top of Norway – thirty-six hours of trains, boats and planes. Did we expect a few challenges in that lot? Sure. But on this relatively short, first hop to Innsbruck what could possibly go wrong?

You won’t be surprised to know we’d done the research: bus and train schedules co-ordinated; first train ticket printed (if you’re crossing their border, the Austrians like to clip your paper ticket, not scan a barcode from your screen); and the location of the copy shop in Innsbruck noted for printing the onward travel documents. Sorted.

It started as we stepped onto the bus on our last beautiful morning in Ortisei in Italy; the machine wouldn’t validate our tickets.

“That ticket’s no good.”
“Really? Your man out there checked it and confirmed it was valid.”
“What man?”
“The guy from your company, the one standing there providing helpful information and checking tickets.”

Shrug. I pushed the ticket back into the slot, willing the machine to change its mind. It didn’t. Meanwhile Greg, who had the cash, was busy outside loading our bags under the bus, and the jostling crowd behind me had already run out of patience. I stood my ground (literally, not figuratively – for the moment I had no money and so no other option).

Finally the driver harrumphed and waved me onto the bus.

‘My husband…’ I started, pointing, but the driver was already onto it. He was well used to crazy tourists travelling in pairs. To everyone’s relief I grabbed my day pack, crabbed my way down the aisle and dropped into the first spare row of seats. Well that had been slightly harder than I’d expected. But it turned out to be only the first of several small hitches that would add up to a frustrating day.

An hour later, as we watched the bus pull away from the Bressanone train station, I reached down to grab a drink. But wait – where was the trip-snacks bag – with the water, and the apples, and the chocolate?! It was on the bus. Of course it was.

Next stop Innsbruck where we intended to stow our bags in the station’s lockers but, on this day, there wasn’t one (of more than a hundred) spare. So we set off traipsing around the city’s hotels offering euros in exchange for a few hours of bag minding. Fourth time lucky.

Finally we were ready to hit the Copy Express to print the train and plane tickets for our journey north. Who knew the copy shop – the one copy shop we could find in central Innsbruck – would be closed for annual holidays (despite the ‘we’re open’ advice on their website)?

By now the after-effects of the travel sickness pill I’d taken that morning were really kicking in. Luckily we’d planned to spend a couple of hours in a cinema showing a good English-language movie (well, Greg would watch the movie and I would sleep off the pill). Unluckily it turned out instead to be a German-language 3D version of The Grinch Does Christmas (or something similar). Sigh.

Happily there is a silver lining to this story, thanks largely to the brilliant frontdesk team at Innsbruck’s Hotel Adler. (‘No, really, there is no need to pay us … it is our pleasure to mind your bags … and, yes, to print your tickets too.’). And as it happened, the hotel had a lovely bar on the 12th floor with a great view of the city lights. A couple of red wines and some excellent Austrian bar snacks later and we were refreshed and ready to go again. Bring on that night train to Hamburg! After this day the rest would be a cinch.