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Watching the Rising Water

This article is part of the #20Again series: in these texts, I do not intend to advise anyone to travel, nor I want to convince people to stay at home. Simply and generally, I will tell my experiences and share my thoughts, without the presumption of wanting to influence those of other people. I firmly believe that everyone can decide for themselves, through their own evaluation parameters. In addition, during my travels, I always respected all local restrictions and rules, on which I constantly tried to inquire beforehand.

In the previous article (you find it here) I talked about why I traveled in July 2020, during a pandemic; in this article, I will explain how I traveled. More or less.

But first I should explain briefly how I usually traveled before 2020. I have always planned a lot, well in advance, in detail, perhaps even too much, leaving safety time margins, but little room for improvisation.

Then luckily somebody thought about teaching me how to live. Who? I will tell a story.

One day, around a nice building in a nice town, it started raining. A lot. After hours, days, it was still raining. And it didn't stop. On the ground floor, there were people of the Far East, who began to see that the water level was rising until it entered the house.

Someone, who instead came from a small island, already from the first raindrops sensed that it would not stop raining soon and turned his apartment into submarine mode. You know, these islanders are very wary.

Instead, those on the first floor, who came from southern Europe, were very confident. "Okay, but the water won't get so high." they thought. So they closed the windows, put two rags under the door and went to sleep peacefully. And they woke up inundated.

On the second floor, there were other European boys. And they too thought, "Yes, that's fine. It will stop in a moment." They were wrong.

On the third floor, there was a group of North Americans. And the guys did the same reasoning. On the fourth floor, there were nice South Americans... In short, we all know the sequel to this story.

And what could I do, except than learning from such mastery? After centuries of Enlightenment, industrialization, progress, rationalization pushed to the extreme. After fifteen years of work, where every day I hear about project management, risk management, crisis management, plans, protocols, emergency procedures and many other things that are just as "fun", I can't help but observe the rising water and understand that, no, there was never a plan. We have always played it by ear. Maybe even well, but always by ear.

Conceptually, psychologically, optimistically.

So, if the most brilliant minds of humanity, moreover jointly, have established that the way to deal with things must be to improvise, even making 180° changes of direction, who am I to act differently? I take notes, learn, apply.

We started like this, improvising. Also because 2020 = #20 again. Isn't it?

We have basically booked nothing, except for a few long-distance bus vouchers. I had prepared a kind of rough itinerary, but I was unconvinced to respect it fully. And in fact, I didn't. My original idea was:

- bus Rome - Trieste and city tour
- bus Trieste - Ljubljana, and then spending a few days in Slovenia
- bus Ljubljana - Luxembourg...

Luxembourg?! From Slovenia? I know it's weird, but in the new world of improvisation, flexibility is the most important characteristic. And this also changes the geographical perception of the territory. What is really near cannot be considered near anymore: what is directly connected and compatible with your program becomes near.

I had aimed for visiting Luxembourg, because I had never been there, but I would have gone wherever it was easy and new for me.

Up to that point, more or less, we have respected the program. Then we totally improvised. We ended up in Berlin. And then again in Austria (through which I had already transited from Slovenia) to Innsbruck. And finally, we went back to Rome. Directly from Innsbruck? Obviously not, because there was no direct connection: we had to go back to Munich to take a night bus to Rome. A bus that would have touched Innsbruck again without stopping. A counterintuitive graph that saved my vacation.

And what about hotels? We booked them with a short advance, sometimes even on the day of arrival. In two out of four cases (Ljubljana and Berlin) I also found good deals. But I don't want to boast about it, because I understand this happened due to the unique period. I saved some money, it is true, but this is a symptom of the fact that they're in difficulty. Also because I traveled in the high season. I hope I have to go back to book well in advance: it would mean that this period is finally behind us.

However, at some point, I must have gotten carried away by this new way of dealing with travel. Today it is very simple, we have an infinite source of information even while we are roaming around: the internet. And in advanced countries such as Europe, the internet tickles your laziness: you have photos, itineraries, faster routes, prices, timetables in real-time. I had already tried to rely on my smartphone the last time I was in Japan, in the Fukuoka area. It had worked. And so this time I had decided to do the same for the whole holiday. In summary, I didn't do my homework as a good student and I departed uninformed.

This technique has many advantages, not only the one of indulging in laziness. I will confess one which is not much refined. Sometimes I happen to arrive in front of a tourist attraction, for example a church, and stop in front of the cashier for the payment of the entrance fee. If the price seems a little too high, I leave the church and I "visit" it first from my smartphone. I know, I lose all the vibration given by expectation, but more than once this check allowed me to evaluate that the show was not worth the ticket price. And here not even the nefarious period moves me to pity: sometimes the entrance prices are disproportionate compared to the real offer. I don't want to do the "Roman of Rome" now, where (if nothing has changed) the churches and basilicas are free of charge. And they are certainly not just whatever buildings. What did you say? Did I just behave like a Roman? Ah, okay. So be it...

But I have noticed that I am not alone in making these assessments. While in Bled, I sat for a moment with my wife on a low wall at the entrance to the castle. Maybe I was unlucky, but I observed that more than half of the people walked the short rise that leads to the ticket office and went down two minutes later. A slightly too quick visit, I suspect. But I guess they made their calculations when they set the price. I hope so, at least.

However, this reliance on technology also has limitations. It allows extreme flexibility, it is true, but without a minimum of organization you lose efficiency. Unfortunately, when I travel, I already have a return date that I must try to respect. Therefore I try not to waste time, unless I consciously decide to do it. But the worst part is that you risk getting to like it.

And in fact I got punished for it.

Near Postojna there is an interesting castle nestled in the rock: the one of Predjama. And no, I don't have a photo to show, because I haven't been there. What happened? It happened that once I arrived at the Postojna caves, I discovered that the shuttle, which usually connects the two attractions in the high season, is not available this year. It's not the only thing I missed during the trip due to the current pandemic, but it is the one that struck me most (together with the closure of the Casemates du Bock in Luxembourg). At other times, I would have perhaps shared a taxi with other tourists in the same situation or there would have been a good chance of finding some other tourist with a car, who would have offered to give us a 10km ride. But in this period it is not possible to do it and asking it would also be tactless. So I relied on my smartphone, as always. It found a solution!

A bus, which would not have brought me right to the castle, but a kilometer away: not bad. And so we stopped for a moment to quickly eat something. Not quickly enough: we missed that bus for about ten minutes, but we were aware of it. "Okay, we'll take the next one." I thought. And I thought wrong, because "next" would have been the next morning. We could still look for a taxi (I try to avoid them to keep the budget down), but it was already a bit late in the afternoon and in the end we gave up, to go back to do something else in Ljubljana.

Lesson learned. For the rest of the trip, I decided to get informed a bit, to mediate between planning and improvisation. And maybe I'll keep this mode in the future too. On the road, as in life, who knows.

It's nice to observe the flowing water, as in this photo taken in Innsbruck. It's also interesting to see it rising, but buying a pair of armbands for swimming doesn't hurt. Or perhaps an umbrella. Maybe an inflatable dinghy. They wouldn't be an annoyance.