Italian ferries

After the cool night in Lörrach, we packed up quickly in the morning. It was Monday morning and I didn't want to arrive in Genoa too late because of traffic jams. OK... I guess I'm being a bit too cautious ;) We had about 11 hours for almost 500 km - actually enough!

After Lörrach, you basically crossed the Swiss border straight away. So I quickly got a toll sticker beforehand. What I didn't find out was that Switzerland only offers annual stickers! Oh well... so 46 euros for 3 weeks - so what. When I think about what we paid back then for a 10-day vignette through Austria for a round trip, the Swiss vignette was a bit cheaper in comparison. It's just annoying that we had a rental car and I basically paid the toll for the next one xD Eeeeeeally....

We went through the mountains, past lakes and through the 16 km long Gotthard tunnel. As someone who lives in the flatlands, I always find the mountains very fascinating! Even if I don't have the stamina to hike through them ^^

For some reason, Google Maps sent us off the highway before we reached Genoa and took us through some hairpin bends for the last few kilometers. Do you know those videos of very narrow roads where two cars can barely fit next to each other, there are no guard rails and it goes steeply downhill?! We were on one of those roads 8-0. I was just glad that I was able to avoid the 3 cars that were coming towards us in appropriate places!

When we arrived in Genoa, we simply drove down the main road towards the port according to Maps. It was only about 3pm at the time. You should be at the jetty around 7pm, so I wasn't worried and was patient when we got into a traffic jam just before the port that was moving at a snail's pace. There were a lot of trucks on the road and a lot of honking - typically Italian! In the end, there was a roundabout that was blocked not by trucks but by some incompetent car drivers.

You can imagine that in Italy they don't take road markings or the correct position in a roundabout so seriously ;) hence the chaos! But when we finally got through the roundabout, things continued normally and without any traffic jams, it was only 1 km or so from there. Then came the big surprise for me, as I have no experience with ferries!

At the first port counter, our ferry ticket was checked, which I showed in print just to be on the safe side. At the second counter, our ticket AND our ID cards were checked and we were given a blue sticker with the word "Palermo" stuck to our windshield. At the third counter, we were given our ticket AGAIN and directed to the correct "gate".

So we arrived at the gate - or as I call it: the jetty - and were asked by the attendants there to line up as space-efficiently as possible. So we were pretty far up front, about the 4th or 5th row, with at least 4 cars lined up next to each other on one side and all the vans and mobile homes parked to our left.

Well, it was now about 4:30 p.m. when we parked and I thought, "OK, we still have at least two hours until we'll probably be allowed to get on the ferry." But I urgently needed to relieve myself and asked the parking attendant where the toilets were. After answering my question, he immediately made it clear to me - first in Italian, then in broken English - that we still had to check in. But since it was my first time on a ferry and we had already been checked three times, I just said, "Why check in again?"

Well, the end of the story was that because some computers were supposedly not working, we had to "go up" and check in. In this case, that meant: up the stairs, walk along the bridge, into the shopping center, back out through the shopping center in the opposite direction, and there were containers with counters where we could "properly" check in and get our personal and car tickets. In the end, that was a bit stressful, because the walk to check-in was, no lie, 566 meters (I measured it on Google Earth xD)! And the same walk back... OK, that doesn't sound like much at first. But when you don't know exactly when we'll be allowed to board the ferry, it was a bit stressful for me.

I mean: The information and the text messages you get from the shipping company say that you should be at the port at 7 p.m. (i.e. 2 hours before departure), so it was good that we were there so early. So getting there, checking in (including queuing and waiting your turn) and walking back again took about 45 minutes. So it was almost 5.30 p.m. when we got back to the car. There were already 2 ladies walking around asking for the tickets you get at check-in so that they could stick the car ticket behind the windshield wiper. It took about an hour to get in because all the truck trailers had to be loaded first, but when I look at it that way, arriving at 7 p.m. would have been incredibly stressful!

When we were allowed to drive in - as I said, we were standing quite far up front and "parked in" - the first row was almost exclusively filled with cars, whose passengers were nowhere to be found. So there they were, the cars that should actually be allowed to drive in first, but couldn't. So the attendants navigated the cars behind and around them out of the parking spaces in order to avoid the empty cars! In my opinion, it was all a bit disorganized...

So I got on the ferry, went down the ramp to deck 2 (!) and parked in the opposite direction - I should have taken a photo! But it all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to pull out my phone. ;)

So we took our valuables and 2 blankets with us. We hadn't booked a cabin. Apart from the fact that I was afraid of becoming claustrophobic, I was also too stingy to pay another 125 euros extra for a cabin. So we were assigned numbers for the so-called Pullman seats on the ship, where we put our blankets. My son waited there for a moment because I wanted to look around - actually I wanted to see how I could get to the outside deck to take a quick breather and go vaping a bit ;)

Up on deck I looked down to the parking lot, where the empty cars from the first row were still parked! Unbelievable... who would do something like that? Be the first in line and then leave until the last minute? Phew, I can't understand it...

Back in the large room with the Pullman seats at the stern of the ship, I told my son and Peter that we might be better off sitting in the large bar. There was enough space to chill out and, above all, to stretch our legs. ;) Because, in contrast to the pictures on the GNV shipping company's website, the Pullman seats were not particularly comfortable. More like an airplane without much legroom! Peter has often taken a ferry (mostly in northern Europe) and said that the ship was from the 70s and this lack of organization was foreign to him. You can probably imagine how "shabby" everything was.

We sat in the bar and killed time until we finally set off. Because as long as the ship wasn't at sea, the toilets were still locked ;) and I really needed to get rid of the water again xD

When we left at 9pm it was of course already pitch black. But I found it very impressive to slowly drive out of the harbour and see the city of Genoa with all its lights (which I found quite ugly in the daylight).

Back at the bar, I got my son a fries with mayo for €6 and Peter and I got a 0.33 liter Peroni for €5 each! The prices were steep, but I'll know what to expect next time... The ferry alone cost us €182.20 for 2 people + car, of which €94 was tax! You have to let that sink in. But if you want to go to Sicily, it's cheaper than the cost of fuel overland.

I already knew that the food on a steamer like this wouldn't be particularly cheap, but I really didn't expect it to be THAT expensive.

When we wanted to go to sleep, we had the Pullman seats (PMS) left. But since many passengers had rented a cabin, there were many PMS free in the large room. So we did what the other passengers did and slept across 3-4 seats ;) A few people even lay on the floor against the wall. Sometimes with a sleeping mat and sleeping bag, sometimes without anything at all - funny when you consider that these people most likely have more experience with such a long ferry journey. After all, you have to get through 20 hours on the ship. In any case, I was glad that I had taken the blankets from the car with me. Because even though it felt like 36°C everywhere on the ship before we set off, you noticed a noticeable cooling down later thanks to the air conditioning and ventilation system. It was still quite warm, but when you start to fall asleep, your blood pressure drops and you get a bit chilly - at least that's how it is for me.

So I slept relatively well across the PMS between about 11:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. There was only one brief "incident" because the owner of the backpack - which I put on the floor to sleep in - complained in Italian. But hey! What can I do about it? Shouldn't you think that someone had taken the space at around 4 a.m.? Yes, we were assigned numbers, but there was still enough space. And obviously 99% of the time nobody cares where you end up sleeping ;) Anyway, the other Italian was really friendly and let me know that I could stay lying down.

I got up at around 6:30 a.m., but couldn't lie there any longer. My son was still fast asleep. I went up to the bar and thought I could get a coffee somewhere - but no luck! Everything was still very quiet. People were sleeping on the benches in the bar, in the children's play area... I saw an employee pushing a trolley with croissants to the bar. So I thought, maybe there would be something at 7 a.m.

So I went up on deck to vape. It was pretty overcast, very windy and there was a light drizzle. The ship had already started to rock quite a bit during the night. If you looked at the water, the waves weren't particularly high. But I think that has something to do with the ship's dynamics on these small waves. That was also one of the reasons why I was a bit scared of the ferry and had "Titanic vibes" beforehand.

But it wasn't that bad. I didn't feel sick or dizzy. I actually found it quite funny how the ship moved and how you had to be careful not to crash into anything when walking straight ahead ;D

I must have spent about half an hour on deck watching the spectacle. It may not be that spectacular for many people, but looking out to sea from every side of the ship and not seeing any land in the distance was more fascinating than frightening for me.

Back on deck 8 (!) where the bar was, I got a coffee in the self-service "restaurant". It was still pretty quiet, hardly anyone to be seen. So I went to the bar for a nap. The light on doesn't bother me so much when I'm sleeping, especially when I'm really tired ;)

At around 8:30 a.m. I went back to the upper deck and when I went back to the bar, my son was sitting there. He was obviously still tired, but he had remembered to take our backpack with him. He was a little seasick, nothing serious. I gave him a travel tablet for the nausea and he felt better relatively quickly after sleeping on the bench for half an hour, just like me.

So we killed time on the ship by hanging around, playing offline mobile games and walking around the ship ;) By midday the ship had rocked a bit more and my son and I were on deck and had fun testing the gravity on the upper deck hand in hand ^^ shortly afterwards an announcement came over the loudspeaker that it was better to avoid walking on the deck because it was too dangerous due to the weather - oops xD

Well, long story short: At around 4 p.m. the first mountains of Sicily appeared in the haze (Capo Gallo?) and we slowly sailed into the port of Palermo.