I spent a total of two days in Italy, both times while in transit; the first time between Greece and Croatia, and the second time between Croatia and Spain. It was nice to be able to add another country on my itinerary and have a little taste for a different country.
Going to Croatia, I had to take the ferry from Greece to Bari, Italy before continuing on to Dubrovnik in Croatia. My 12 hours there were fun. I ate gelato, Italian sandwiches and pasta. They were all very tasty! I took a few Italian classes in Calgary and was able to use some of that while I was there. That was very fun.
The town of Bari is very small but the people are super friendly. I enjoyed walking the streets there and visiting the sights.
I came back to Italy and visited Pisa and its’ famous leaning tower. This is also a very small town. I was expecting to get lost here but that was not the case. Other than the beautiful tower, there weren’t much to see. Nevertheless, it was fun to be there and the locals were very nice. It’s also a fun to check that off my list of things to see in this lifetime :o)
In Italy, I had a chance to go through the Ryan Air experience. For those who don’t know, Ryan Air will fly you from one end of Europe to the farthest opposite end for ONE Euro ($1.32)! Yes, if you book ahead of time long enough you can fly for that amount. I book mine two weeks ahead of time and I paid 29 Euros ($38) to go from Croatia to Italy. The catch is they charge you 20 Euros for a 15 kg bag. This means sometimes people pay more for their luggage than for their airfare :o) The money they don’t make on airfare they make up for it by selling all kinds of stuff onboard (from drinks, food to calling cards and scratch cards). They announce it loudly on the PA then walk around with the merchandise. It is never a very restful flight with Ryan Air, forget about a quiet nap on these flights. At one time, the PA said: “we would like to remind you this is a non-smoking flight and please wait till we land to go to designated areas to smoke. In the meantime, we do have duty free tobacco to sell. We have three brands for you to choose from...” Hahahaha! Priceless. Also, there is no assigned seats on these flights, it’s first come first serve. The Italians (and European in general) don’t have the same concept for queuing for something. I was waiting in line politely with an Italian girl and we were there an hour ahead of everyone. But when boarding time came, we suddenly saw a mass of people elbowing their way to the front. She looked at me and said: “I am sorry for my country.” All that is a very small price to pay for really cheap airfare and I would do it again if I can.
