That’s no secret, I love to travel. But who doesn’t? I’m sure most of the people love traveling. And by traveling I don’t mean visiting the next town or going to the fair maybe 100 kilometres away, but taking a city break or a vacation at the beach on an island in the Atlantic, be it on the European side or in the Caribbeans. Eh, well, there are some people who don’t like traveling. Or, to be more precise, they hate the idea of traveling. Mostly because they can’t afford it because of financial difficulties. When you know you don’t have the money to travel you get to ignore people around you leaving for holidays, you get to think traveling is not for you. And there’s my sister’s son, he also hates traveling, especially flying, but I think that’s an induced perception. For a long period of time he used to watch, instead of cartoons, Air Crash Investigations on National Geographic. So he developed a fear to get into a plane and fly. Now she’s struggling to convince him it’s safe to get on board of an airplane so she does everything to go with him to various air shows, normally, held on airports, and get him on board of aircrafts and to talk with the pilots, to learn about airplanes and how they fly and how secure they are and to see them flying safely. He’s still against it but hopefully he’ll get over it. Especially considering my sis used to travel a lot before having him.
I personally love to fly. Last July we visited Rome and a few weeks ago we visited Warsaw, in Poland. What a difference between the two cities. I have to admit, I liked Warsaw more than Rome. Why? Of course, Rome has the history on its side, it’s an amazing city but it’s also full of tourists. Like me, like thousands. Maybe too many tourists. I’ve felt it over crowded, way too many people, sometimes spoiling the pleasure of visiting Rome. One example? The Colosseum, of course. There were long queues at the many entrance gates, hundreds of people waiting to get inside. With thousands already visiting the interiors. We were a bit lucky as we had a Rome pass card or something and we were told to get to a groups entrance. A lot of people there also but we managed to get inside in about 20 minutes (including the security check). Once inside we pushed into a crowd only a few other times seen before. That’s life and visiting Rome.
In Warsaw, lot of tourists also but not so many. Plenty of space, no queues and a feeling you can breath. There are some aspects that makes Warsaw more pleasant than Rome. In Warsaw they had to re-build the city after the war and the result is astonishing. Including the Old City which is promoted as the newest old city in the world.
But more blog posts on Rome and Warsaw to come in the future, I’ll describe my city-breaks in more details.
And there are times when I just spend some minutes, or hours, on the Internet, virtually visiting new places. From time to time I like to open the Flight Radar website and see airplanes back and forth. I also use it when somebody’s going to visit me, from abroad, to know where the airplane is so I know when to leave house for the airport to pick them up. Of course I know the landing time but it’s just visualizing the path of the flight. I don’t know why but I like it. The last time I did it was, I think, a couple of months ago when my parents returned from their vacation. It wasn’t me but my sister to take them from the airport but I couldn’t stay away from my laptop watching the flight getting closer and then finally seeing it landed.
And there’s the Frankfurt airport which shocked me when I first got there (and only time). I had to use it for a connection flight when I went to Hong Kong, years ago. By that time the Frankfurt airport was, and I don’t see any reasons it’s not anymore, the biggest airport in Europe, talking about the number of passengers served. It was huge and colorful and like nothing seen before. When I landed there I had the opportunity to see the city from low altitude with those numerous sky-scrapers and the stadium, it was amazing. And the huge number of airplanes landing and departing, thousands of people rushing to exit or waiting patiently at the boarding gates.
That’s why I go to the website to either departures or arrivals and see the next planes coming and going and I like to imagine those people during the security checks, grabbing some food or some souvenirs or gifts from the duty free area, then getting to the boarding gates willing to start their journeys. Or people coming to the airport building after a flight, short for some, longer for others, willing to get through and continue their day or journey in some cases. You can view here Frankfurt arrivals minute by minute, hour by hour, it’s really happening on Frankfurt airport, I find it amazing to transpose myself there in the middle of those people, filled with emotions for meeting their friends or family.
I also remember when I got back from Hong Kong I first landed at Munchen for the connection flight and, coming from Asia, leaving Hong Kong at midnight and landing at Munchen early in the morning I witnessed an amazing sunrise which chased us from the back, the longest and the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen.
If you ask me where I’d like to go next, the answer is Bari, in the South of Italy. It’s a small city, I think I could visit it in one day or two, but I learned there are some villages around and on the coast of Mediterranean, they’re worth visiting and I intend to go there as soon as I can.
Up in the photo it’s the actual plane that got me from Frankfurt to Hong Kong.
