Hello, I am in the pleasant position to introduce you the third chapter of my report from Italy. I am still using English so that can be readable from others as well. In this chapter I am going to mention some things about the Island of Ischia.
First of all, the island is located in the western side of Italy, near Napoli (a little bit to the South). The island is quite small. Local citizens said that you can walk around the island within 7 hours. Maybe this is too much, but still you can do it in around 10 hours. I had some time around the island during organising and running the outdoor part together with some friends (Luca (It), Eszter (Hu), Ieva (Lv), Roxana(Ro) and Patrizio (It)). So, I have quite a lot of pictures in my mind.
To begin with, there is a volcano in the middle of the island. It is not active the last a lot of thousand years, but still it exists. It is a typical Mediterranean island. You can find a lot of them in Greece, in Italy, in Spain or even in France. Nothing special in my opinion, but still there are a lot of tourists (mainly Germans and not Chinese). A guy told me that there are 40.000 citizens who live on the island, and during easter there where 1.000.000 tourists. I do not believe him, but anyway, there were a lot of them.
Since we are talking about a typical Mediterranean island, you can imagine some palm trees, and very clean and crystal water. The beaches were moderate or worse (compared to those I have been or seen in Greece) but still interesting enough. Actually, there are some very good beaches, but they are not near the villages, so you have to smell you fingers to find them. By the way, there were some tourists who went swimming. The weather was quite good (around 25 Celcium degrees), but the water was really freezing.
There are some villages on the island, but they are everywhere. I mean that you can not tell where the one village finished and where the other started. In the seaside there are a lot of marines with luxury yahts but the whole image of the island is not very rich or luxurious. Small houses with no special architecture. They had big walls to keep them cool during the summer and frozen during the winter, but apart from that they were just some common buildings.
People there were open and happy enough. Noone could speak English and there were no Chinese to communicate with. But if you were seeking for an information, everyone was willing to help you (in Italian of course) apart from the bus drivers. A, by the way the bus ticket costs 1,20 Euro (if you buy it on advance, or 1,50 Euro if you buy it on the bus), they really know how to steal your money. Moreover there are inspectors coming in the bus every two stops (I do not exaggerate, this is a fact). I should advise them to relax a little.
Things on the island are quite expensive, compared to Greece actually. They asked 2 Euros for a tin of Coca Cola. Finally I paid only 1, but this is another story. Anyway, there are a lot of churches (like everywhere in Italy) and some towers (and one castle) that worth seeing. Beside that, you can enjoy walking on the mountain seeing the view when all the island is under you feet. They really pay attention in some details, like have all the parks and the squares clean and well organized with benches and stuff, but there are a lot of things that can be improved, such as roads, pavements, signs, etc.
To conclude, it is a very interesting island, but for sure it is not the main destination in Italy even though this rumor exists. I would highly recommend the thermals, especially the one called Poseidon. It is luxurious enough with a variety of warm pools (up to 42 degrees) and other facilities. I gave it a try (with 3 more friends) and I was really impressed.
That is for the moment. Thank you for keep on reading till the end. The next chapter will be either about my way back or about Napoli. I will thing about it. Ciao for the moment…