Travelling post Covid 😷

Everything takes longer…

It’s disappointing many have come out the other side seemingly learning nothing… ☹️

You need to allow more time for everything and processes are more time consuming & convoluted and it usually ends up being time that you sit around waiting. Quite frankly, travel 🧳 days are tiring! It’s not a problem when you’ve really got time on your hands but it essentially takes the best part of a day (especially when airports are involved) 🙄 ✈️

Today’s travel arrangements is a classic example: caught the train to Genoa from Riomaggiore at 9: 30 am (3 changes - but very fast 💨) and arrived in Genoa at 11: 30 am. Waited for a shuttle bus for 20 minutes and eventually arrived at the airport at 12:30 pm. We made sure that we arrived at the airport the obligatory three hours requested by Ryanair for check-in. Ryanair finally decided to start check-in at 1:10 pm. If you check out the photos you’ll see the line! There was one service assistant 😫Another passenger turned to me and said it’s completely normal here…! I was led to recall that old saying: ‘…Bad organisation on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine!’ 🙄😬😝

Catching the train this morning from Riomaggiore was slightly stressful because there were three changes and the first train was uncharacteristically running four minutes late which made connections harder to ascertain or understand.

I must say, I am very proud of myself because I booked the train 🚊 & transfer tickets at a ticket machine (mainly because there were no actual staff at station 🚉) i knew exactly where to go and at what times, including the shuttle bus from the final destination in Genoa to the airport! It feels like a accomplishment when you get complicated travel sorted. 👍🏻👏💁🏻‍♂️

Genoa airport is very basic. The food is well below average & priced very high. A .75 litre bottle of water 💧 costs €5 there compared to €1 for same outside the airport ✈️ Richard made a good point at the discovery of the price of water; It is an essential need, especially on hot days like today so gouging prices for it is not very kind. 🙅🏻‍♂️ I suppose it is the same the world 🌍 over. Airports rip people off because they can! 🤐

Know what? it is really bad marketing for countries like Italy when your first and last touch points such as airport staff demonstrate rude, arrogant and dismissive behaviour towards tourists. Every procedure at the airport is made more difficult & more stress and anxiety producing by angry, nasty and downright rude service agents, security & customer service. It is simply not necessary! 👎🏻

Things are taking longer and we all have to play our part in making travel after Covid as pleasurable as possible. ✊🏻

One plus: When boarding had completed I realised I had a spare seat next to me! Gold! Win! 🏆 🕺🏼

By the time you eventually reach your seat on the plane ✈️ or arrive at your hotel room you feel like a nervous 😬 wreck and that you need to ‘down’ a bottle of Valium with a whiskey 🥃 with a side of lemon 🍋 Its sad 😔 really.

I honestly thought we would collectively all learn to be more kind, considerate and caring after going through the pandemic. 😳😷🙏
Apparently not…

Italy 🇮🇹 Lift your game! Please 😢

Anyway, enough of that…

I’m literally ‘…laying back and thinking 💭 of England 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧…

London!
I’m baaaaaack! 🕺🏼😝😍Read more