Travel Guide Part VII: Strikes!
This topic is particularly relevant right now. Italy just went through a major strike over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend- the long weekend for the program- most of the people traveling were probably affected. The trains, buses, and even the airline AlItalia- or something like that went on strike.Strikes are very common in Italy. They are both very annoying and very easy to plan for. Pretty much all the transportation in the country cooperates with each other, so when one branch of workers decides to strike for a pay raise or whatever, all the others will too. This means everything. Trains, buses, taxis, subways, anything- except airplanes. This makes traveling very difficult because there is no transportation and it causes the country to pretty much shut down for a day or so, but the strikes are planned and publicized so the public always knows that they are coming. Because of this, you can plan your travel times around the scheduled strikes and not get caught in travel hell. When trying to plan around strikes know that the hours before and after the strikes will be incredibly busy for all facets of transportation because all the Italians do plan around the strikes and crowd the last buses and trains before the strike.
Strikes usually don’t last all that long, they are just reminders that the people that work in public transportation do have significant power, so planning around them isn’t difficult, it is just frustrating at times.
posted by Daniel Williams @ 09:28
1 Comments:
Hey D,
A travel anecdote. We arrived in Milan in the midst of a strike. Taxis were running, but that was it. We made the mistake of trying to go to the street corner and flag one down-- New York style. We would have been much better off standing in the horrendously long line at the train station.
Another suggestion for travel topic: pickpocketers, especially on public transit
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