TRAVEL
Fun Ride Naples To Barcelona In Covid
Experiences to cherish
Travelling in these covid times has its own thrill. Last week I was travelling through Europe with a friend of mine.
Here comes a fun story which was definitely not fun when we were in the situation travelling from Naples to Barcelona. It seems amusing to me now, that’s why I am sharing it here with you.
If you have ever been to Naples, you would know that it’s a beautiful coastal area which is why the airport is quite far. There is a beautiful island Capri near which I would say is a must go. So we stayed in Naples for 3 days and were starting to go to our next stop Barcelona. We did our travel plan a month before the actual dates when we had to travel and booked our flight from Rome to Barcelona as this was the easier route. Going to Rome from Naples is a 1.5-hour journey if you take a fast train.
Our Train from Naples to Rome was at 6 am in the morning. We were living very near to the central train station but we had some luggage with us, so we decided to take a taxi (from Free Now)to the train station just so that we do not miss the train and flight. We reached very early as the Airbnb apartment where we stayed was only 1 km far. We asked the driver how much to pay and he said 20 Euros and we stared at each other and asked how can it be this much as the apartment to the station was so less distant, to show us the charges in the Taxi app. Then the driver said his app is not working, it’s 15 Euros and said there are picking up luggage charges and night charges and stuff. And the best part was he did not speak English and we did not speak Italian, so were arguing all this on google translator. After 5 mins of argument, he said 10 Euros and left after we paid him. Then I got a message from the app that “your driver has cancelled the trip”. All this time he didn’t even start the trip and tried to fool us as we were tourists.
Then at the station, we got some sandwiches packed to eat and sit on the train for Rome. Train view was always amazing when you look outside the window, all peaceful as there were fewer people. We reached Rome before the scheduled time around 7:15 and the flight to Barcelona was at 9:40. We had enough time to reach to the airport so far. We bought the airport ticket but it was very different. In Rome, the regional trains were going to the airport which was strange to us as you see in most cities, there is a local city train which goes to the airport as mostly it’s somewhat outside the city. After taking the ticket we checked at which platform the train will be and we had 5–7 mins to reach the platform and catch that train but the platform was so far it took us more than 10 mins when we were almost running. By the time we reached the platform, the train has left. So we asked the train platform officer standing nearby to us that if we can catch some other train going to the airport. He showed us the train standing on some other platform and asked us to take it and get down at Ostensi (some name like it) station. The train started a few minutes after we got on it and the fun part is it didn’t stop at Ostensi. Soon we realised that we are outside Rome city, we decided we will get down to the next stop wherever the train will stop. It stopped at some station which was very far to the city and by now it was 8 am and we had no idea where are we. Going back to Rome central station would take so long and if we airport from there we would definitely miss our flight. We were left with no choice but to take a taxi again. The taxi itself took 15 mins to arrive where we were. The taxi driver was good and he made us reach the airport by 8:35.
Now we started to run the flight check-in counter. The airline agent asked us to show the passport and green pass (the next fun part).
Green pass is Europe's digital vaccination certificate. I & my friend both are vaccinated with Covishield. It’s not in the green pass but Covishield is also the accepted vaccination in the EU. The airline agent refused to accept this and would not let us go further. We argued for some 20 mins but it was of no use and told us we cannot anyhow now board the flight as it’s too late for check-in. As an agreement she said we should get ourselves COVID tested at the airport and she will put us on another flight at 10:35 am without any additional charges. We got tested at the airport, requested the authorities to provide the result soon explaining our situation. They cooperated with us, we got results early and it was negative. We rushed back to the counter as there wasn’t much time left next flight. All checks, security check-in was done and we were in flight for MUNICH now. HAHAHAHA, yes not Barcelona, Munich. The flight will go to Munich first and from there we had our flight to Barcelona after some layover.
We were supposed to reach Barcelona early and enjoy there . Instead, we had this adventurous ride and finally landed there at 6 in the evening. The whole day went like this but it’s one experience I will not forget for sure.
