Living in Europe was a dream for Nathan and I, but part of that dream was being able to travel around Europe during our time here. Before Covid, people here easily traveled all over Europe - even just doing weekend trips. With flights on the cheap European airlines like Ryan Air and Easy Jet, flights from Catania to lots of places in Europe cost 7 Euro (really!) to 40 Euro round trip.
Here is an example of a quick search I just did on a website called skyscanner. Want to fly to Rome for the day? 8 Euro, or about 10 dollars, and you can be there in an hour! It was also 8 Euro to get home.
Wow, a day in Rome for 20 dollars!
The base here also gives a lot of what they call a 96. That is when there is a three day weekend, with Monday being a federal holiday, they will go ahead and give everyone the Friday before it off as well. Before our quarantine was up, I booked us two trips. A long weekend in and around Milan for Columbus Day and a week long trip from Rome to Venice for Thanksgiving. We were so excited!
Now, Covid travel restrictions have changed things a bit. Here is a map of Europe that changes every day with the number of positive cases that are reported in each area. An area that is green is safe to travel to, an area that is yellow has restricted travel and you need permission to go there, and an area that is red is prohibited and if you do go in that area, you're required to quarantine for 14 days when you get back.
This summer, Europe's Covid numbers were looking good and most of this map was green. In the past two weeks, things have taken a bad turn. Most areas in Italy are trending up, so we have been watching this map every day.
Here is a closer look at Italy. You can see most of Italy is either green or yellow. There is one part that is red - the Genova area... I guess we won't be seeing Columbus' birthplace on Columbus Day this year as planned! We are still crossing our fingers that things turn around, but it is looking like a rough fall here.
At least Sicily is looking good!
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