scrapheapstuart3

INTRO — My wife Chris has a daughter, son-in-law and two teenage grandchildren in Italy. The kids call her their English nonna. Her son-in-law, G, is Italian. Chris misses the regular contact which most of her friends have with their families, but it does make for some interesting and enjoyable holidays. She also has a son in Australia, so it’s doubly frustrating but doubly exciting as well. We have subsequently had many more memorable experiences than we would have had if her offspring lived just down the road. Trips to see the many wonders of Italy are now an annual highlight, for example. So far we have travelled to Termoli in the south, Milan in the north and Perugia in the middle, all on family visits.

Perugia is the main city in the land-locked region of Umbria, which is often called “Italy’s Green Heart.” So controversially, our visits don’t involve lying on beaches or having a dip in a blue, sun-kissed sea, the favourite stuff of holiday brochures. But Umbria is still a fantastic destination, with beautiful scenery ( lush, wooded hills, and fields of golden sunflowers), atmospheric historical towns, wonderful food and interesting wild-life. For instance our relative’s garden had delicate swallowtail butterflies floating round it during the day and fireflies and cicadas at night. The downside however is quite a long and complicated journey from our home on the north east coast of England. This year, the journey involved: a short taxi ride, 3 train journeys, an overnight stay in an airport hotel, a 3 hour wait at London Stansted airport, a 2 hour flight, a slowly shuffling passport queue, and a 30 minute drive into the hills, until, finally, Chris was reunited with her family. This blog is a description of the ups and downs of that journey.

THE 30 HOUR JOURNEY. — Our journey from the North Yorkshire coast on the trains to Stansted airport in Essex, took up much of a day. An old, noisy diesel train took us on our branch line from the North Sea coast at Saltburn, through industrial Teesside and on to the east coast main line at Darlington. At Middlesbrough, the noise in the train increased significantly as we were joined by a group of excited school children, setting out on a trip to London. It took me back to my days as a teacher. I guessed they were about 10-11 years old. Their excitement was infectious and many were grinning from ear to ear as they boarded our little train. We thought we would say goodbye to them at Darlington but they caught the same south-bound express as us and were actually sitting in the same coach. In fact, we were surrounded!

At first they all went very quiet, as they all immediately tucked into their packed lunches, sweets and crisps, even though it was only 10.30! The Azuma train sped happily south to York, but then the trouble started. We often have trouble on Britain’s underfunded rail network. We were told by a harassed-sounding train manager ( they used to call them guards) that we would be held indefinitely on a red signal at York as there was a medical emergency down the line. All trains, north and south, had been halted. It turned out that some poor person had ended their life by jumping in front of a high speed train at Sandy in Bedfordshire. Thousands of people were now stranded up and down the line from Edinburgh to London. We were OK as we were not flying until the next day, but I felt sorry for the teachers in charge of the school party. They had planned to have a meal in the capital, go on the London Eye and then go to a show later in the day. As the wait dragged on and on, they were hitting the phones, desperately trying to rearrange their schedule. The school kids were getting more and more restless and noisy, such that we missed subsequent updates from the train manager.

However, at last, after an hour and 9 minutes, we finally moved out of York. We travelled south without further trouble, briefly stopping at Doncaster and Newark to decant and take on passengers as scheduled. Not surprisingly we missed our connection at Peterborough and had an extra hour and a bit to wait. We took the opportunity to visit the station cafe, a dubious pleasure at the best of times. We had drinks and I had a toasted sandwich to keep me going as I had not eaten since an early breakfast. The Cafe Local was a bit grotty with left over cups, plates and cartons littering the tables. The overworked staff had had to cope with lots of extra customers that day. The poor station announcer was issuing a repetitive string of apologies — ” We are sorry that your journey will take longer than planned.” It was here that we found that the “medical emergency” at Sandy was in fact a tragic suicide. It must have been terrible for the driver. One man in the cafe, waiting for his girlfriend to arrive at Peterborough, said she’d been stuck at London Kings Cross since 10am and had still not moved an inch north. It was then 1-30 pm.

Our next train to Stansted was 10 minutes late, due to congestion in the Birmingham area. However we got seats easily enough and it was fairly quiet. We rolled over the flat, fenland countryside. At Ely we saw lots of colourful boats and canal barges and the impressive, dark cathedral with it’s graceful lantern tower. Ely Cathedral is sometimes compared to a ship on the sea as it stands on a piece of higher ground above the low lying fens.

After a stop at busy Cambridge, where Chris grew up, we finally made it to Stansted airport, only an hour and 4 minutes late. We caught a shuttle bus to our overnight Premier Inn about 10 minutes away. We never attempt to travel down to Stansted on the same day as our flight, as our stress levels would probably go through the roof. On the shuttle bus we compared big, heavy cases with an elderly lady who was travelling to Verona to visit her son. We were carrying lots of English language book for Chris’s 2 Anglo-Italian grandchildren. The lady had a huge pink case full of : baked beans, HP Sauce, Tomato Ketchup, jelly and custard powder. These were just some of the things her son missed while living in the city of Romeo and Juliet. The bus driver had to help to carry her case into the hotel foyer.

The next day, after a comfortable night and a decent hotel breakfast, we were back on the shuttle bus, arriving at the airport terminal at 9am. We were a full 4 hours early for our 13.05 flight. Chris had been listening to lots of horror stories on the radio about people queuing for over 3 hours and missing their flights because of the extra post-Brexit passport checks to get into and out of the Schengen zone. Apparently there had been absolute chaos at Athens airport where loads of people missed their flights because of the enormous queues. However, we were so early that even the electronic sign told us to sit down and relax as our Ryanair flight had not started the check in process yet. We had in fact already checked in and got boarding passes online as instructed to do so by the airline to avoid a £55 each penalty fee. ( which we had been stung by the previous year.) But we still had to deposit our hold luggage and go through security, so we waited nervously for half an hour until told we could proceed. When we did move it only took us about 20 minutes to get through check-in ( somebody glancing at the boarding passes on the screen of my phone), the do- it- yourself luggage drop off and the security scans. The Ryanair app installed on my smartphone made it very easy, although as a rule I prefer people to apps.

Airports are stressful places at the bestof times, and after passing through security where we subjected ourselves to a demeaning whole body scan, I was just breathing a sigh of relief when I suddenly experienced 2 minutes of sheer panic! I couldn’t find my passport anywhere, despite frantic searching! I thought I’d emptied my pockets and put everything into my little rucksack to be scanned. From my bag I retrieved my phone, wallet and other bits and bobs but no passport emerged. We emptied my rucksack and checked its contents 3 times but to no avail. Without a passport our trip to Italy would be over before it even started. Our cases would travel there but there would be nobody to collect them at the other end. After Chris had called me a couple of choice expletives, I finally patted my pockets and the passport was there. It was in an obscure trouser leg pocket which I didn’t usually use. I had forgotten to put it into my bag and the scanner had failed to pick it up as I walked through and got the green light. So much for whole body scans! My relief was palpable!

Now began a 3 hour wait and a prolonged bout of people watching. A hen party passed by all wearing white veils. Then a stag group appeared all dressed as babies with nappies, tiny sun hats and dummies. Most people were glued to their smartphones, endlessly doom- scrolling. We got talking to a lady who was travelling to do 5 days of dog sitting in Nimes. A little later we heard about a make-up artist who was being flown out to Tuscany to prepare a bride and her bridesmaids for a wedding. Apparently lots of British couples are flying out to Italy to get married. It’s probably a bit more scenic than the local registry office back in Britain. We had drinks at an airport cafe where one was expected to order by phone using a QR code on the corner of the table and then, at the end, we had to pay at a self service till as at the supermarket. I found it a totally dehumanising experience but then, most younger people would regard it as normal and think of me as old fashioned.

Finally we were called to the gate and proceeded to walk down lots of long corridors and up and down flights of stairs to get to Gate 45 for the Perugia flight. We ignored the escalators and moving walkways as after all that sitting around we wanted to get some much needed exercise. We had our special, small ruck-sacks to fit in with Ryanair’s latest reduced dimensions for cabin luggage. It’s another Ryanair scam along with such expensive gimmicks like “Priority boarding.” A Ryanair employee comes down the queue to check bag sizes and if you are caught with a bag that’s too big, it’s a 75 Euro penalty fee! We notices some people hiding their obviously too big bags as the man came down to check. Sometimes the passengers can be as sneaky as the airline!

Our flight was an hour late leaving as it had missed its departure slot. It gave us all a chance to dry out as we had been made to queue in the rain before getting on. Even the priority boarders got a bit damp! The 2 hour flight was relatively smooth although I missed out on seeing the Alps and Dolomites because we were sitting over the wing. In future I must remember to avoid rows 18 to 22!

Umbria International Airport near Perugia and Assisi is very small and usually quiet. The entrance doors feature pictures of St Francis saying: “Welcome brothers. Welcome sisters.” It’s a big contrast to London Stansted. Nevertheless we had to queue for a full half hour at passport control. The Italians and other EU Nationals got through in 10 minutes. British travellers are now classified as “Others.” We have to endure the extra security checks introduced since the controversial 2016 Brexit vote. Some people have to have their photos taken and then have their fingers and thumbs scanned as well as having their passport checked before being allowed through. I had already been processed at Amsterdam airport earlier in the year and so presumably my extra identification data was already in the EU system. Nevertheless I still had to present the fingers of my right hand. The guy next to me was being put through the full works and was having difficulty understanding the Italian border guard’s instructions. It was all a bit humiliating. At last both Chris and I were rewarded for our patience with a “Grazie” and we were free!

By the time we got through, our cases had been round the carousel about a hundred times. We quickly grabbed them, passed through the green, “Nothing to Declare” exit, and finally met up with Chris’s daughter, who had kindly come to greet and meet us. We stepped out into the hot, late afternoon sun for the half hour drive to our holiday base –a converted farmhouse overlooking a wooded valley with a view of the medieval hill-top city of Perugia on the opposite hill. The children greeted us as we arrived. Our Italian family visit had finally begun!