Getting Stuck in Italy During the Coronavirus Lockdown

You may have seen the post I wrote on visiting Venice during the coronavirus outbreak but that was only half the story of that trip.  When I wrote that I was still in Venice, enjoying the city and making the most out of a strange situation.  Then during our last evening in Venice, the lockdown of the city was announced, our flight got cancelled, that airport closed and suddenly we were placed in turmoil with no idea of how, or if, we would be able to get back home to the UK.  Here’s how that day went down and what it was like getting stuck in Italy during the coronavirus lockdown.

Calm before the storm

The last day of mine and Hayley’s trip to Venice we had got wind that the situation was changing.  At this point, Venice had no cases and the atmosphere was quiet, but relaxes, with museums and restaurants all operating as usual.  On the morning of Sunday, there were rumours that the lockdown would extend to cover Venice and it was all over the UK press, but within the city itself not much had changed.  We got up extra early that last day and headed down to breakfast to see if there were any UK residents there that we’re aware of the situation as we couldn’t find much coverage in the Italian press, but we were the only people from the UK.  We, therefore, went into the city and spent a nice relaxing day exploring the city and even managed to get an amazing deal on a sunset gondola ride which made for an amazing experience I will never forget.  We could check into out flight 24 hours before it was due to take off so we made sure we found a cafe to enjoy a coffee and a slice of cake so we could check-in as soon as possible for some reassurance.  All went off without a hitch so finished off our last day on a high and headed back to the hotel ready to pack and chill out before we flew home.

Our flight gets cancelled and the airport closes

We stayed up quite late hanging out and relaxing, our flight was in the afternoon but we had decided to head to the airport first thing so we were ready to get on the flight and get home as soon as possible as it was clear things were starting to get more serious.  Reports were that lockdown would begin the day we were due to arrive home, and you wouldn’t be able to travel between provinces, but you could still travel within the city you were in so we should have been fine to get to the airport.  However late Sunday night I got a text from British Airways stating that our flight have been cancelled.

This really threw us into a tailspin, we had no idea how we were then able to get home as lockdown was coming into effect the next day.  We called British Airways and all their flights out of Venice had been cancelled and we had no idea how we could leave the country.  British Airways didn’t really have an answer for us, they told us we could attempt to go to the train station and get on a train to another airport, but given we had been told that you couldn’t travel between cities we weren’t sure this would be possible.  They said that other customers were heading to the train station right then to see what they could do but given that it was 1 am we didn’t think that would get us far.  All they could say was if we could get out of the city, they could fly us home from elsewhere, but they didn’t know how to get us there.

After that I called the only other people we thought we could help and called the British Embassy in Italy.  Unfortunately, they were no help at all, they just kept saying we needed to get out of Italy but had no advice on how to make that happen.  They did state that as we were travelling home we legally had a right to travel, but if all transport was closed we didn’t know how much help that would be.

Running out of options we called British Airways again found another flight ran by a different country heading to Germany which they tried to book us on to get us out of the lockdown zone, but just as they went to book it the flight got cancelled, the whole airport was going to close.  We knew if we could get to Southern Italy which wasn’t in lockdown we would be able to get out of the country, but we wanted to hire a car as neither of us felt comfortable driving in a  new country where we couldn’t even read the road signs and would likely be stopped by police.  The British Airways agent who informed us that some customers had gone to the train station in Venice and they had confirmed that the trains would still be running the next morning, so we could try and get a train to the nearest airport outside of the lockdown zone which was Bologna.  As this was our only viable option we thought we had better take the risk and go for it.  We checked train times and managed to book one for 6 am the next morning and British Airways booked is on a flight from Bologna into London for the afternoon, all we needed to do was get there.  We also went downstairs to speak with the hotel staff to see what was going on given that we couldn’t translate the Italian news and the British Airways agent have indicated we might need a written letter to be able to travel.  They confirmed we wouldn’t need the letter as we had our passports and could prove that we were able travelling to get home, which was one of the three exemptions for lockdown travel along with travelling for work and travelling for medical help.

Travelling to Bologna

We were both too nervous and scared about missing alarms to get much sleep so as soon as we could we grabbed our stuff and headed to the train station.  Thankfully wasn’t too far, I thought we would be stopped or checked before we got on the train but there was no one to stop us, it appeared to be like any normal day here.  The journey itself took around two hours and it was actually really nice to see some of the beautiful Italian countryside as we whizzed past on the double-decker train.

We arrived in Bologna Station and managed to find the bus to the airport, there were police in the station but again no one asked us anything or restricted our movements.  From there it was thankfully straight forward, we got through the airport and went straight to the gate to wait for the plane, we’d got there very early just to make sure we could get on it and after a delay, we were allowed to board.  It did surprise me that there was no heat checks or questions about where we had travelled from before we got on the plane back to the UK like there was when we arrived in Italy, but at that stage, I was just glad to be on my way back home!  The plane was unsurprisingly pretty empty and the British Airways staff were really great with us, I slept most of the way home as I didn’t get much the night before thanks to all the anxiety!

After getting home I self-isolated for two weeks just to be on the safe side, and just one day after that had finished, when I had had just managed to get out and see the New Forest, the UK went into lockdown.  As of the time of writing I have been under some form of lockdown on my own for almost three months.  Thankfully I haven’t had any symptoms so far, and the UK is slowly turning back to ‘normal’.  I don’t think this is over just yet, and who knows what is around the corner, but it’s been a life-changing journey that is for sure.

So that is my story of getting stuck in Italy during the Coronavirus lockdown.  What is your craziest travel story?