[July 2024] This year’s summer holiday was modest, only one week on the island of Ischia in southern Italy.
I know that might be frowned upon by people who can’t take long vacations.
Ischia is located just outside the Bay of Naples, and on the map it is diagonally to the upper left of the famous island of Capri.
It is a larger island than Capri.
First, we drove to Milan Airport and parked in the airport car park that we had reserved in advance.
It was our first time using this car park, but since we had printed out the reservation slip, it was easy to park there.
However, this is what they say: “it’s easy to go, but scary to come back,” and we had a hard time later.
But that’s for later, first the flight to Naples.
It was a small ITA flight with 2+3 seats, and it was delayed by 40 minutes.
This was within our expectations, so it wasn’t a problem.
We hadn’t done any research on how to get to the port from the airport, but I happened to notice a counter selling tickets for a boat to Ischia Island in the airport.
Without hesitation, we bought a ticket here.
It was €59.20 for two people, but it was €55.10 for the return trip which was bought at the port on Ischia, so it was a little more expensive if you buy it at the airport.
As the salesperson told us, we went to the “Alibus” bus stop outside and got on the bus.
The bus fare was €5 per person.
The bus was extremely crowded, but most people got off at the train station in Naples, so we were able to sit down after that.
I looked out at the city of Naples from the window, and it was more crowded than Palermo, where we went over the New Year holidays.
I know that it’s the city with a lot of beautiful things to see, but I had a feeling that it is not very nice to walk around the streets.
According to my husband, on the bus, a man from Caracas, Venezuela, was speaking Italian with a Spanish accent, saying, “I feel familiar with this town. It seems better maintained than my hometown, though.”
Hmm, then we don’t need to go to Caracas…
When we arrived at a port called Beverello, my husband checked things out, and although the ticket we bought was for 2:35pm, there seemed to be space available, so we were able to board the hydrofoil that departed at 1:10pm.
According to the timetable, it was supposed to take 1 hour and 10 minutes, but we arrived in 55 minutes.
We were staying in Forio, the second largest town on the island.
I was sure we would be taking a bus from the main port of Ischia, but the boat arrived directly at Forio port.
When I got off the boat and looked around, it seemed like a pretty nice town, and I was excited.
