hello,
for anyone interested in our travels and main report about how we found travelling in Italy in September 2020, please see other post - 'Reporting bacl - still in Italy'
I don't mean to knock Toronto's Pearson airport or the efforts being made to offering testing. All good. I just wish that there was a bit more of 'hello and welcome - we are glad you are here' in addition to all of the ' musts and cant's. Like others, we are a bit stressed with the ongoing situation, but know we are incredibly fortunate to have gone away.
This is a post to thank everyone for their comments and questions and to advise that we enjoyed our travels without any adverse incidents. We had purchased a covid 19 travel insurance policy applicable to Europe only and are happy we did not have to file any claims or call for help.
I wish we had gone across to Europe a bit sooner and stayed longer - although we were travelling for a month - of course we still did not get to see many of the sights we wanted to see for the first time, or have the opportunity to explore again at leisure in this strange time. The travellers we met along the way were mainly from Germany and the U.K. Unsurprisingly to us, they approached their decisions to travel in the same we did - by evaluating our own risk tolerance in relation to the information we had available to us, in addition to a very strong desire to travel. We all felt that by taking reasonable precautions, travelling was no more dangerous than being in our home countries. Obviously many people disagree with this and want things locked down. We are just regular people with one life to live.
Quite honestly the most stressful part of our trip was the airport both ways with the constant announcements about Covid (we know - we know !!!). Pearson ( Toronto) airport on arrival home was particularly aggravating (to us, anyway), with seemingly endless signs and people with clipboards marketing free Covid testing, that if you took it there were a number of incentives (promotions for Crave tv, 10% off AC flights etc). I am not saying this is a bad thing, but there is simply an air of desperation about the whole situation. There are many, many people employed in the Covid-product machine. I think it is great that the testing is offered, as it was (without the pressure) on arrival in Munich. We elected not to take the tests as we work from home and had mentally prepared that we would abide by the Canadian government requirement to self isolate for 14 days. I get that many people can't or don't wish to do that, and the avaiability of the test could be attractive. In any event, signing off and wishing everyone happy travel planning as we are about to do for next year.
Signing off- buon viaggio