Italy ~Travel in a QR Code World

Our destination was Italy.  It was a trip to a neighboring country, less than two hours away by plane. Yet, it didn't take long to realize that while we knew where we were going, we were definitely traveling in a whole new world: the world of the QR code.

We'd flown from Athens to Bologna, the start of a 10-day trip, on a brisk November day two weeks ago. After unpacking it was time to get to the business of what we had come here for: eating and drinking Italian food and wine. 

The Scout, the wine and the QR code menu - Bologna

We were seated at a popular bar in Bologna's historic market district, on which two-inch by two-inch laminated cards with a QR codes served as the menu.

Italian wine - Mama Mia!

Now, I can't tell you how much we love Italian wine and how much we dislike QR codes. If you've followed our adventures for very long you know we call ourselves, 'techno dino's' for good reason. We are dinosaurs in a world of technology that long ago moved beyond our skills and understanding.  We are people who - heaven forbid! - often leave their mobile phones at home.

It turns out that  QR codes, short for 'quick response' codes, were invented back in the 1990's by a car manufacturer to track the components in car production. In the last year they have become the access point to menus, shopping, travel and are being used by any number of industries. The little black and white graphic squares hold far more information than the 'old' bar code.

No QR codes here - Yay!

Some retail stores place bar codes in windows so shoppers can make purchases without entering the store. Tickets for public transportation sport the little guys. And since the pandemic turned the world upside down, public health agencies on this side of the pond use them in contact tracing efforts --  notifying travelers of possible Covid exposure.  

We concede that in this Covid-influenced world, we must credit QR codes for providing a 'contactless' means of conducting business. And as a result, we techno-dino's - out of necessity -- have been forced to learn how to point the camera of a mobile device (aka smart phone) at them to access the information we need.  

So many wine bars from which to choose - Bologna

Information like the wines available at this bar we'd chosen in Bologna. So I aimed my Android device's camera at that small Italian square and read: 

'No network connection.' 

"But, of course!! (Fisica!) as we say in Greece. . .our Greek phone network doesn't work outside the country - so we had no way of accessing the mysteries of the menu in Italy. 

Explaining our dilemma to the 30-something waiter, we asked for a menu.  

Problem was, he explained, they didn't have a printed menu. With frustration causing greater thirst, The Scout, sought to solve the problem by saying, 'We will have two glasses of wine.' 

Well, that was far too simple a solution. There were choices to be had. A menu would be found! Within minutes our young waiter  presented us with a phone borrowed from a staff member - and on its screen was the wine menu. 

Yay, for the printed menu!

I am happy to report not all trattorias and bars have moved away from the printed menus and that made the trip a whole lot easier! But our experience at the bar highlighted the impact of  the QR code when traveling these days in Europe.

Don't leave home without it

One of our many QR codes for travel

'Check in now for your flight' came the email notice from Aegean Airlines, the day before our departure. Following instructions we promptly had two emails in return each with a QR code that needed to be shown at the check-in desk. 

Worried that we wouldn't have internet access in the airport (which is a well-reported problem for many travelers, as is the 'dead phone battery') we took both our Greek phones, charged them overnight at the airport hotel and opened each of them before we left the hotel to display a QR ticket code - The Scout on one phone and The Scribe on the other.

As if presenting gifts we placed the two phones showing the QR codes on the check-in counter. (Opening them and having the code displayed really was a gift in our minds.) The ticket agent glanced at them as he asked for our passports and then using the passports typed our names into his computer and said, 'You are going to Bologna?'  

With little attention paid to our QR codes, he printed paper boarding passes for us with the baggage claim tickets stuck on the back, just like in the 'good old days'. 

Off to Italy - PLF QR code in hand

The European Union rules for travel require completed the EU PLF's (that would be, European Union Passenger Locator Forms) for entry into each country. And each country has a slightly different take on them. Italy required one per passenger, Greece requires one per family. Forms are to be completed on-line prior to travel. 

The form is a lengthy document requiring, in some cases, details down to your seat number and the exact hour and minute your flight is scheduled to arrive.  Others aren't as detailed. The purpose of each however is to know how to reach you should it be determined you were exposed to Covid.

Immediately after submitting that form. . . .(you guessed it). . . a QR code is sent via email to your mobile device.  Our QR for Italy provided a link for downloading as a PDF document to our phone, which could be accessed without internet. We tried several times to download but got no further than the message reading, 'We are experiencing difficulties, try again later.'  So, we'd also opened those PLF QR codes before leaving the hotel and left those pages open - as they also had to be shown at check-in..

Rejected for not being 'official' enough. . .

Greece allows travelers to print the PLF but it comes out as only a QR code on the paper with a small letterhead. We had our printed copy rejected by an airline agent who said it didn't have enough proof of being issued by the Greek government.  Thankfully we found the PDF on the phone with printed information and QR code - it was accepted.

I should mention that you don't get beyond the check-in desk at the airport without showing that QR code, so it is a step key to travel. 

Green Pass -- QR code in hand

United States version of the 'green pass'

The European Union 'green pass', as the Covid vaccination record here is called, is another QR code on a mobile app provided by each EU government. You must show it to travel, for access to tourist attractions like museums, restaurants, bars, to shop in retail stores - nearly every public place you want to go these days.  

Those of us vaccinated in the United States, carry a card that has information about our vaccinations on them. While we don't like QR codes it would be so much easier to travel (and to go about daily life for that matter) if we did have them only a phone away.  

On several occasions in the last couple weeks I have found myself holding out the cards to a perplexed gate keeper, pointing to the notations of our three shots and saying, 'American, Pfizer, ena, dio, tria,' in Greek and 'American, Pfizer, un, due, tre' in Italian.

Our CDC cards were checked by the airline, train and three of the four hotels in which we stayed. Museums also scrutinized the cards. The cards were accepted by all who reviewed them. 

But not once in the 10-day trip were we asked by an Italian bar or restaurant to show our cards. Other customers were being asked to show green passes on their phones. We reasoned that either we looked and sounded like tourists, who wouldn't have been allowed in the country without vaccinations or they didn't want to deal with our cards and matching the names and date of births on them to that information in our passports.

Trains, ferries and buses - QR codes 

QR code on train tickets

Train tickets in Italy carry the QR code which is quickly scanned by the conductor as they make their way through the train. We purchased tickets from a ticket counter and received paper tickets, had we done it on line we would have had e-tickets.

The ferries that shuttle people through the canals of Venice also have gone to an optical reading system, no longer time and date stamping the tickets but using electronic coding instead.  

Paper tickets sold at the ticket office

We traveled on the airport shuttle bus between the Bologna airport and train station, where electronic readers have also replaced the time/date stamp of the on board validation machines.

While traveling in the techno-world is still a bit of a challenge for us, we can't tell you how nice it was to travel again.  There were plenty of tourists and folks out and about but none of the crowds of pre-Covid travel. 

We are wondering what your travel experiences in the QR code world have been like?  Have any of you been contacted by an airline or government agency using the PLF information after a trip? Shoot us an email or tell us about them in the comments below.

Hope you'll be back next week when we'll have another serving of Italy for you. Thanks, as always, for the time you've spent with us today!  

Linking soon with:

Through My Lens

Travel Tuesday

Our World Tuesday

My Corner of the World Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Under the Tuscan Sun ~ Bring on Bramasole!

BRAMASOLE ~ from 'Bramare' to yearn for and 'Sole' the Sun

BRAMASOLE ~ Frances Mayes’ home in Cortona, Under the Tuscan Sun

As our train carried us from Florence, Italy through the dreary, rain-soaked Tuscan countryside, the view through the dirty window had us yearning more for the sun than Bramasole . 

Dirty windows, stormy skies - welcome to Tuscany!

We were en route to Cortona, the next stop on our week-long get-away from our home in the Greek Peloponnese.  As long time readers here know, I’ve often credited Mayes’ book with planting that seed of possibility about ‘living differently’ way back when it was published, more than two decades ago. 

Having now purchased a home and moved to Europe, we can even better relate to her tales of dealing with cultural quirks; those everyday frustrations and wonders of living in a world different from that we've known.

Villa Marsili, Cortona - friends meet, location great, room charming, breakfast incredible

While Cortona has long been on the ‘bucket list’ we’d never made it there during earlier Tuscan travels.  This trip came about when a Pacific Northwest friend, Sharon, and I were discussing Mayes’ books via email and she reminded me that she would be in Cortona that following week as part of a a University of Washington (Seattle, WA) alumni tour group. They’d ‘do’ Tuscany from their Cortona base. 

What a perfect time and place to rendezvous, I thought. And how nice to have short and relatively inexpensive flights between Athens and Rome! Luck was with us, as we were able to book a room at  Villa Marsili where the UW group was staying. 

The hotel, besides having a perfect location (10-minute walk from the center of town and a walking distance to Bramasole), also offered a breakfast buffet included in the room rate that offered so many selections it required two display tables. In the evening complimentary Vin Santo and sweets were served. Everything about this four-star hotel exceeded our expectations.

Cortona, this charming walled city was devoid of huge tourist groups in May

For that matter, Cortona exceeded our expectations.

This city, founded over 25 centuries ago and continuously occupied since then, was pleasantly devoid of the tourist hoards we'd encountered in Florence. It could have been the  temperamental weather that brought rain and wind storms with few sun breaks during our stay or the fact it was still early in the tourist season. We were told that in summer the place can be packed with people. But then it wouldn't take many to pack its streets and shops.

Our footsteps echoed on the cobbled streets at night

There was also little evidence of Frances Mayes's influence, in this town of jumbled narrow cobbled roads (shared by autos and pedestrians), stairways, and piazzas.  We quickly decided she may have gotten us here the first time, but the town is what will be bringing us back.

Copies were scarce of her memoir, Under the Tuscan Sun, which remained for two years on the New York Times Best Seller list after it was published 22 years ago (how can it have been that long ago???). Two copies of her books were for sale in the bookstore. A DVD of the 2003 movie made from the book was available in another. In the wine store off the piazza a peeling poster on a back wall advertised a 2013 tasting and dinner with her. No one had heard of or seen her of late. 

The town was a maze of narrow walkways leading to expansive piazzas

Bring on Bramasole!

“It’s kind of amazing the people will travel because of a book. I admire that.”

                   --Frances Mayes

We spent our first couple of days exploring the town on foot, a rental car wasn’t necessary nor wanted on the narrow winding streets.  As our time in Cortona was growing short, it was time to ask our hotel staff how to find Bramasole. . .after all, the place has been a part of my life for two decades and I wasn’t going to be this close and not see it - no matter how 'tourist' I might sound when asking for directions.

The Strada Bianca - Cortona, Tuscany and under a Tuscan Sun!

Apparently I'm not the only one who's still interested in the place as the hotel staff quickly printed out a set of walking and driving directions to it that they keep on their computer. With directions in hand, The Scout and I set off on foot following the ‘strada bianca’ (white road) that I had envisioned so many times while reading the book. The route, a gradual uphill climb, leads past some beautiful Tuscan homes well worth the walk without Bramasole as a destination. We walked and walked and the road forked and continued to climb. A small directional sign was posted with an arrow to 'Bramasole'. 

Bramasole neighboring homes - Cortona, Italy

“No one had lived there in thirty years and the grounds seemed like an enchanted garden, overgrown and tumbling with blackberries and vines.”

              -- Bramasole, as first described in Under the Tuscan Sun

Then. . .there it was! Whoa!  Far exceeding -- in size and grandeur -- any of my conjured up images, the place is absolutely enormous. The grounds (at least from the road where I was standing) were immaculately groomed. 

Bramasole - Cortona, Italy

How had she done it?  How had she found time to renovate the place – bring it from blackberry brambles to such beauty – AND still find time to write a best selling book about it??  Then to keep it looking spectacular and keep writing even MORE books?? I am finding renovation and upkeep of a much, much smaller home and grounds to be an all encompassing task.  How did she fit in all that research and writing and reading?  

Close up of Bramasole entryway niche

BTW, She wasn’t in residence. I'd never have posed like that had I thought she might be looking out of one of those many windows. (I’d read her blog and knew she was on a US tour promoting her newest novel.)  I could gawk for as long as I wanted. No one else was around. The Scout wasn't as taken with this outing as I was, but he humored me and let me linger until my senses were satiated.

While soaking up the 'spirit of place' I vowed to get out that writing notebook of mine and make time to write about our Stone House on the Hill. I also made mental note to buy more clay pots and fill them with plants on our return. (I’ve bought the pots and filled them, but the notebook is still empty).

Train station is shared by Cortona and Camuccia towns 

The next morning we boarded our train for Rome, where we’d spend our final day and night in Italy.  Next week, I’ll tell you about our time there; actually there are two stories about our time there - one real and one imagined. I can guarantee that one of the two will be filled  with “Diamonds, Danger and Desire”. . . no joke!  They say truth can be stranger than fiction, but in this case, fiction will be stranger than truth! Got you wondering what I am talking about? Well, see you next week and I'll clear all that up!

As always thanks for the time you’ve spent with us in Cortona. Safe travels to you and yours ~

Linking up this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Best of Weekend

Riding the Rails ~ On the 6:20 to Tuscany. . .

To travel by train is to see nature, human beings, towns. . .and rivers, in fact to see life.

-- Agatha Christie

We love European train travel. Nothing can get our travel juices flowing like a train station over here. And our week-long getaway to Italy’s Tuscany last week gave us more than ample opportunity to pursue our passion for ‘riding the rails’.

Roma Termini

We’ve spent most of our lives in the train-starved Washington State where a single train departs for  Canada’s Vancouver, British Columbia or south to Eugene, Oregon, (sometimes as far as California) or east towards Montana and Chicago. These are all one or two departures a day from Seattle.

Then we moved to Greece – there are no trains running here, aside from a small metro commuter in the Athens area. (There is talk of a high speed train between Thessoloniki and Athens one day. . .)

So many tracks, so many destinations

So for this pair of vagabonds, being in a train station bordered by multiple tracks with a reader board listing dozens of destinations, we simply felt like  kids in a candy store.

On the Leonardo Express to Rome

Arriving in Rome

We flew from Athens to Rome. Once there we did as so many travelers do: hopped aboard the Leonardo Express, for the 32-minute ride between the airport and Roma Termini, the downtown Rome train station.

 

The cost* was 11 euros per person each direction

(* if booked in advance on-line). It is a quick and easy means of travel into town.

There’s also some great sightseeing as it travels through agricultural land that surrounds the city and then you pass some great historic sites once you enter the city.

Plenty of seats and luggage racks make it a great choice for getting to the airport and there’s usually a train departing every 20 minutes, at most every half hour.

And according to its website, should there be a strike that stops trains from running (we’ve had that happen to us twice during previous visits to Rome) they claim they will provide alternate transport to the airport.

The 6:20 to Tuscany

We bought our tickets for the train bound for Florence at the same time we’d purchased the Leonardo Express tickets - after we arrived at Rome's airport. We paid dearly for having ‘walked up’ so from that point on, we purchased tickets in advance using the internet.

No printer, no problem. They’ve gone electronic. 

(It was the first time we’d done electronic tickets and I was a wreck turning the phone off and on to make sure the ticket would show up when the conductor came past – but it worked, I am hooked!)

We had no metal detectors, no stripping of coats and shoes, no pulling computers out of the bag. We simply walked from the track on which we arrived, to the track where our train bound for Florence was sitting. 

We were reminded that the reader board displaying train departures lists the train’s final destination, in our case, Milan, and a running list in smaller print tells where stops are made along the way. 

Let the Adventure Begin. . .

I never travel without my diary.

One should always have something sensational to read on the train.”

                                             --Oscar Wilde

Old Oscar must have taken a night train to have written such a thing. One of the wonderments of train travel to our way of thinking is the world passing by the windows. I can’t imagine reading anything with a bit of daylight to illuminate the country through which we traveled. We’d have missed scenes like this. . .

Italian Countryside

And this. . .

Tuscan blues and greens

And those far distant towns. . .we wonder what the names might be as we’ve come without our usual travel companions, a map and a guide book. This was a rather spur-of-the-moment trip for us.

Another town to explore one day

With scenes like these to keep us entertained. The hour and a half trip went rapidly. Well, so did the train, come to think about it!

Readerboard on the train told us the next destination and train's speed

As the sun set, we pulled into Florence. . .home of Michelangelo’s David, shops, galleries, eateries. . .oh my! Coming from our small village in the Greek Peloponnese, it was a shock to the system! I’ll tell you more about that stop in our next post.

However, I have just a bit of housekeeping to do today because the European Union and Facebook are complicating the world of blogging through two separate acts. . .  

Arriving in Florence

First, Facebook. Many of you read the blog after I would post it on FB.  I am learning that FB isn’t always feeding those posts to everyone so if you want to be assured of getting posts, you may need to 'subscribe' (its free – but it is a two step process that involves signing up with the link provided in the right hand column on our home page, http://www.travelnwrite.com and then when Feedburner sends you an email asking if you signed up, you must say yes or verify you did).  I have a number of you who are still unverified on my subscriber list. If you do get it on FB, please hit the like button so it will continue feeding through (assuming you want it to!)

Then comes the EU. On May 25, the General Data Protection Act comes into force across the EU (General Regulation 2016/679 of the European Parliament). This means that companies (and bloggers apparently) will no longer be able to use personal data, (Now keep in mind, I don’t have any personal data for you other than your email address – and I don’t even have that, it is Feedburner that sends the emails). But apparently we must have your consent to send such messages. Now I am not going to contact you individually as I don't know who you are. 

So tell you what. If you don’t want to receive the messages, all you have to do is unsubscribe.

There, I’ve satisfied giving you notice – I hope! (And I hope you don't unsubscribe!!)

Bottom Line:  I am going to be writing a post at least once a week to tell you about navigating the world of the ex pat in Greece and our explorations on this side ‘of the pond’. We are grateful for your comments, shares, and emails and the time you spend with us. . .and look forward to having you with us!

Until next week, safe travels to you and yours and hope you’ll be back for a taste of Florence next week!

Linking up this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Best of Weekend