Ravenna – My first hitchhiking trip in Italy

Date: 12th of March 2016

Route: Bologna − Ravenna − Bologna

Vehicles hitchhiked: 5

I'm an Erasmus exchange student now, and I've lived in Bologna since the 10th of February. Italy is a very beautiful and multifarious country. That's why I want to travel here as much as possible.

I've heard that hitchhiking in Italy is very difficult (because people are not accustomed to it), and... illegal. I've checked on the Internet if the latter is true; travelling in this way is forbidden indeed, but only on the motorways. Unfortunately, with petrol stations included... That makes it a little bit harder, to be honest, but I've decided to give it a try anyway.

When I'm here, in Italy, I can't hitchhike with Maia ( :( ) cause she's been staying in Tokyo since September. In such a case, I needed to search for some other company (I have to admit that I don't feel brave enough to hitchhike alone). I wrote an ad on the "Foreigners in Bologna" Facebook page, and some time later I found a message from Ola (from Poland), in which she said that she would like to hitchhike with me :-)

We met a few days later, and chose Ravenna as our first hitchhiking destination. The city is situated around 80 kilometres from Bologna; in our opinion it's just the right distance to check how it is with hitchhiking on Italian roads.

Ola and I in Ravenna

We wanted to stay in Ravenna for two days to feel the atmosphere of the city. We looked for couchsurfing hosts who could share a couch with us and show us around; unsuccessfully, unfortunately. In the end, we agreed to come to Ravenna in the morning, walk around the city for a few hours, and try hitchhiking back in the afternoon, or come back by train in case of not-stopping any car before dark.

We chose a petrol station that is a 10-minute walk from my flat as our starting point. It turned out that it is situated too close to the city center. Even though a lot of cars passed next to us, none of them stopped. It's highly probable that the great majority of the drivers didn't drive out of Bologna. While we were hitchhiking there, a guy on a bicycle said that he was heading for Ravenna and offered us a lift, smirking.

After an hour of hitchhiking without success we agreed to change the spot. We walked following signposts towards Ravenna. There was a service station, which was quite close to the motorway heading towards Rimini and Ravenna, on the way. We decided to give it a try and hitchhiked in front of its entrance. 

Piazza Del Popolo

This time less than half an hour passed, and a car stopped next to us. We were so absorbed in smiling to passing drivers that we didn't notice the car at all; the driver tooted the horn to let us know that he was waiting for us. Ugh, so it happened to me again, despite the fact that I had promised myself to be more careful this time, and look behind me more often... (I had a lot of such situations, e.g. then)

Anyway, the driver was really friendly. We shared a nice conversation... in Italian. I had started learning Italian 5 months before, so in my case constructing even a simple sentence required a lot of effort. At any rate, it was a good occasion to make myself speak this language, so I shouldn't complain :-)

We were lucky − it was a direct lift to Ravenna. We said goodbyes near the historical centre of the city; the driver thanked us that he could have a new experience in his life (sic!)

My first ice-cream in Italy - celebration of our success :)

We arrived in Ravenna around 11:30. According to our plans, we were supposed to start hitchhiking back around 5 p.m., so we had just a few hours to sightsee. After having second breakfast, we started exploring the city.

Ravenna is very pretty, and very calm in comparison to Bologna. We wandered around the old part of the city, ate traditional Italian gelati (ice-cream) on the Piazza del Popolo, and visited a shop selling hand-made mosaics and wooden artifacts. It turned out that it was a workshop at the same time. We sneaked into the attic where the products are stored.

A mosaic workshop

A hippo

We wanted to relax and eat lunch on the beach, but we learned that the sea was situated 10 kilometres from Ravenna :-) In such a case we agreed to go near the city's port. It was very pleasant to sit there: the day was warm and sunny, and there weren't many tourists in that area.

The port of Ravenna

What should I see in every city that I visit? A park, of course :-) (check e.g. here) The park we've visited in Ravenna is pretty big and green, and there is the Mausoleum of Theoderic there (Theoderic was a king of the Ostrogoths and a ruler of Italy around the V/VI century).

Around 5 p.m. we started heading for the motorway leading to Bologna, looking for a spot that would be good for hitchhiking. We chose the entrance of a petrol station situated on the city road leading to the motorway.

After several minutes a couple stopped the car in front of us and offered to give us a lift; unfortunately, to Russi only (20 kilometres from Ravenna). They claimed there wouldn't be any problem with hitchhiking to the motorway from there. Well, as it turned out, we were left on a small road in the middle of the town, and  in order to get to any road leading directly to the motorway we would have to walk a few kilometres...

We didn't have much choice, really; we just hoped that someone would give us a lift to Faenza, from where there is a state highway (Strada Statale) to Bologna. Moreover, we started to be worried − the more time we were waiting, the lower the sun was...

Half an hour later we were sitting in a 3-person van, fortunately, with two Italians who offered to give us a lift to Faenza. There wasn't much space inside the car, and my legs were almost touching the steering wheel; because of that the driver had problems with changing gears. Nevertheless, I liked the ride a lot: the men were really funny, and the landscape visible outside the windows was picturesque.

In Faenza we managed to catch a short lift to Castel Bolognese (less than 10 kilometres only). The sun had gone down by then. I generally don't want to hitchhike in the dark; unfortunately, this time there weren't any other sensible options to choose from, so we continued hitchhiking.

Luckily, neither did we have to spend the night on the train station or in bushes somewhere in Castel Bolognese, nor walk 40 kilometres in order to come back home − after around twenty minutes a car stopped next to us, and we were given a lift to Bologna. Hurray! What's more, the driver left us in such a place that in order to reach my flat I needed to walk 50 metres only :-)

Well, in a nutshell, it seems that hitchhiking in Italy IS possible. Time to organise longer trips! :-)

Yoga photo near the port in Ravenna

Summary of The Trip

WHY MAIA AND I WANTED TO GO ON SUCH A TRIP

At the beginning of this year's summer holidays Maia (my significant other) and I came up with an idea to hitchhike to Croatia through Budapest, and come back from there through Vienna. Our first common hitchhiking trip had taken place in May; we had gone to Czech Republic for 2 days then. We had liked the experience so much that we had planned to go on another longer trip, further from Poland this time.

Our initial plans had to be changed though, since Maia was going to have an important meeting for the participants of the "Vulcanus in Japan" programme in Brussels on the 6th of July. Should be hitchhike to Brussels instead? Why not!

HOW WE CHOSE THE ROUTE

We decided that it was going to be a hitchhiking-couchsurfing trip. On couchsurfing.com you can find people who want to host others in their houses for free. We spent a few days writing messages to people from different cities in Europe, describing what our plans were, and asking them for a couch for us. We left Poland still waiting for some replies.

We wanted to have better chances to arrive at our hosts' houses before dark (or at all), regarding the unpredictability of our "hitchhhiking luck", and to have time to sightsee places where we were supposed to stay; that's why we decided to cover only around 300 km per day.

In the end the route looked more or less like this:

The map of out trip, made by Maia

HOW MUCH MONEY WE SPENT ON THE TRIP

During the whole 18-day trip both of us spent together around 160€; that was around 5€ per day per person, only. Food and tickets for public transport (it would be hard to hitchhike in city centres) were our main expenses. 

The collection of tickets bought on our trip

WHAT IS DESCRIBED ON MY BLOG

While reading about our EUROTRIP you will find out:

• how extremely nice and hospitable people who hosted us were,
• how helpful some of the drivers who gave us a lift were (especially: Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 12, Day 16),
• how lucky we sometimes were − even when we were in a situation that seemed hopeless, everything turned out to be alright in the end (Day 1, Day 3, Day 8, Day 14),
• how we managed to get some things for free (Day 2, Day 8, Day 12),
• how we managed to hitchhike a bus (Day 8),
• what happened to us when we weren't careful enough (Day 10, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14),
• what kind of funny situations we had (Day 5, Day 8, Day 13),
• what kind of equipment we took with us (Day 1, Day 8) and how we managed to get something to eat with,
• in what places and how we were trying to catch a lift,
• how we managed to survive a heatwave that came to Europe at that time.

Day 18 – Zombie Is Back

Date: 13th of July 2015

Route: Nysa – Cracow

Vehicles hitchhiked: 3

We had spent Saturday with Maia's grandparents.

On Sunday morning the grandpa gave us a lift to a slip road leading to a motorway towards Cracow. We were hitchhiking next to a toll booth; we were wondering if anyone would want to take us (for free), despite the fact that they were obliged to pay to drive on the motorway.

One truck driver did. We drove with him to Gliwice, talking with him about differences between people from various European countries, and places worth visiting in Europe.

On the petrol station where we left, it took us around half an hour to find a man who agreed to give us a lift. We drove with him only to the next petrol station; but it didn't matter – at least he was kind enough to help us.

From there we caught a direct lift to Cracow. A woman that took us had been coming back from a spiritual meeting, which was held somewhere abroad. From what she said about it, it seemed to have been an interesting event.

We got out of her car on a bus stop in Cracow, we only needed to walk 3 km from there to get to our house. When we entered it, it was around 2 p.m.

We were tired (Maia joked that I behaved like a zombie) but satisfied that we had managed to have such an adventurous trip.

Day 16 – Welcome Back To Poland!

Date: 11th of July 2015

Route: Berlin – Nysa

Vehicles hitchhiked: 6

Nysa, where Maia’s grandparents live, was our next destination point after Berlin. This time we had to drive more than 400 km – it was the longest distance per day on our trip.

We got up around 7, and ate breakfast on an U-Bahn station, because we didn’t have time to do it before leaving Philipp’s flat. A slip road leading to a motorway towards Cottbus was a place where we wanted to start hitchhiking that day. We hadn’t suspected that it would be such a bad choice – we were standing there for an hour, and only around twenty cars passed next to us. 

We had a lot of free time while waiting for cars to appear on the road

We were starting to think of looking for a better place, but, luckily, a Nysa van pulled over, and the driver offered to give us a lift. We asked him to leave us next to the motorway, before he turned in some other direction. It turned out to be not such a good idea – cars were driving veeeery fast there. After we saw a guy who showed to us a sign which was supposed to mean that we were crazy [if we were standing in such a place], we started looking for some other place to stand.

It wasn’t an easy task. We didn’t want to walk many kilometres, so choosing some other point next to the motorway (a bad idea) or hitchhiking next to an airport were basically the only options that we had. Despite the fact that we had a resolution to never try catching a lift on any airport again (because of our experiences in Frankfurt), we decided to give it a try.

As expected, we spent a very long time on the airport. There wasn’t any good spot where we could hitchhike there. We ended up standing next to traffic lights just before a slip road leading to the motorway, and asking people through the windows if they were going in the direction of Cottbus. We spent certainly more than an hour in that place.

There wasn't any other better place to try catching cars near the airport

Eventually, a friendly guy let us get into his van. He said he lived in a village nearby, but, if we wanted, he could drive us further, because he had time. We asked him to leave us on the nearest parking lot (which wasn’t near, actually), so that we could have a better chance to catch another car.

Fortunately, we didn't have to wait long there; a few minutes after our arrival at the parking lot a van-driver from Miechów (a town in Poland) agreed to help us (so far it had been a “van-day” for us). He told us that he had once taken four hitchhiking girls inside his car, and his wife had been very suspicious when she had heard about it. 

We often tried asking drivers for a lift on petrol stations or parking lots

After we got out of his car, on a petrol station near Cottbus, we asked several drivers for a lift, but none of them agreed; so we moved to try catching a lift near the exit. A few minutes later a Polish truck driver stopped in front of us; he took us to the Germany-Poland border.

While we were driving with him, he asked a few other truckers (using CB-radio) if they could take us to Wrocław. One guy offered his help, but he asked us to wait for him, because he had something to do before departuring. We arranged that we would meet with him an hour later if we didn’t manage to catch any other lift until then.

Several minutes later we managed to stop a car. The driver wasn’t willing to allow us into his car at first, but (from what he told us later) after he looked at me, he realised that there was nothing to be afraid of :-) He was a very amiable Polish man, who worked in Berlin. It turned out that we could go in his car almost directly to Nysa.

After we passed Wrocław, we ended up standing in a very long tailback on the motorway (for about an hour). Lots of people got out of their cars and relaxed, while waiting for vehicles that were in front of them to move forward. Welcome back in Poland!

People relaxing while standing in a tailback

The driver offered to drive out of the motorway, so that we could have it easier to catch a lift to the town centre. It was really kind of him – there was a fee for driving on the motorway, and he had to pay more money because of leaving it, and entering it again.

There were only 30 km to Nysa from the place where we got off. It took us only five minutes to catch the next lift. The driver, after listening to our hitchhiking&couchsurfing stories, eyed us suspiciously, and he probably thought that we were very poor. Or crazy.

We were left on a petrol station in Nysa; Maia's grandpa came by car to get us from there. A smile on his face and the happiness of the grandma only confirmed that it was a good idea to visit them on the way.

Day 15 – Everyday Life In Berlin

Date: 10th of July 2015

Sightseeing: Berlin

Thanks to Philipp’s hospitality we could stay in Berlin one more day. We didn’t want to behave like typical tourists and sightsee the most famous landmarks, such as The Brandenburg Gate, but we chose to walk to a field that used to be an airport, and see some other less crowded places instead.

There are many interesting places in Berlin that are not touristic

While walking around the city, we came across a big Turkish outdoor market. People were selling lots of fruits, vegetables, and other food items there, as well as fabrics, trinkets, and loads of other various colorful things. It was a nice experience to walk there – we could see Berlin (or Kreuzberg) everyday life. If we had walked around the city centre, we would have probably seen only loads of tourists.

We didn’t have any reason to hurry, so we sat in a big park with a rose garden, eating our second breakfast, and looking at people who were relaxing there, for example men who were training their dogs.

Trying to feel the atmosphere of Berlin :-)

Generally speaking, we were just walking around and observing how it is to live in that city. We saw the old airport, a big mosque and other landmarks on the way, but it wasn’t as important for us as trying to feel the atmosphere of Berlin.

On the way back home we encountered a street with around thirty small shops that looked exactly the same. We found out that what was sold in all of them were... license plates (sic!)

Some of the shops selling license plates

As a way to say “Thank you” to Philipp, we prepared delicious fruit smoothies, and cooked lentils with vegetables for dinner for all the three of us.

Philipp was going to work as a DJ in a club that night, and he had to prepare music which he would play on a turntable. Because of that we spent a very nice evening, talking with him and listening to some of entrancing gramophone records that he had in his big collection.

Day 14 – An Unexpected Encounter In A Park

Date: 9th of July 2015

Route: Bremen – Berlin

Vehicles hitchhiked: 5

In the morning we decided to sightsee Bremen, despite the drizzly weather and Maia's complaints that we wouldn’t manage to arrive in Berlin to meet with our host on time. We walked around for an hour only, but we felt the atmosphere of the town at least, and Maia had a funny photo with the statue of Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten.

The Five Bremer Stadtmusikanten

Then we used public transportation in order to get to an express road towards Berlin. We couldn’t stop anyone for about an hour, despite the fact that we were standing in several different places. One guy laughed at us when he saw us walking towards a motorway (German: “Autobahn”), and asked if we wanted to go for a walk there.

While we were coming back from the motorway, along a slip road, we finally managed to stop a car. The woman told us that she was heading towards Hamburg; we had planned to go to Berlin through Hannover and Magdeburg, but since we didn’t have any better options to choose from, we decided to change our plans, and got into her car.

She had hitchhiked to Greece when she had been a teenager, and that's why she understood our situation, and wanted to help us. She left us on a petrol station next to a motorway towards Hamburg.

Asking for a lift there took us quite a long time. We started being worried that we wouldn’t be able to arrive in Berlin before dark. Suddenly we saw a friendly woman waving to us; she invited us to her car, which was a van used to transport horses (though, at that moment there weren't any of them inside).

Do we look like horses? :-)

While we were driving with her, something weird happened – a GPS navigation showed her, out of the blue, to drive out of the motorway. The woman followed the advice, but after she drove a few kilometres, it ordered her to come back. A woman went angry; because of that, while turning back, she crashed a bonnet of her car into a stone bollard. She became so disoriented after what had happened that she drove with us further than we needed... So we had to come back to the motorway leading towards Berlin somehow.

Firstly, we had to run between cars across the motorway, in order to be able to ask for a lift on a parking lot which was on the other side of the road. We stood near its exit for several minutes, and a van stopped next to us then. While we were discussing with the driver where he could possibly leave us, drivers standing behind him were tooting their horns impatiently – we had blocked the whole exit of the lot, accidentally.

Coming back to the motorway leading to Berlin

The driver took us only to the next petrol station; we were next to the motorway towards Berlin again, at least. Unfortunately, we had troubles with catching a lift there (again). Hitchhiking was becoming more and more nettlesome that day...

Finally, a truck stopped in front of us when we were standing with a card next to the exit of the station. The trucker turned out to be a Lithuanian, who had served in the army in Kaliningrad. We had a funny conversation with him in Russian-Polish language mix. Nevertheless, we were tired after the ride, because he was driving pretty slowly (trucks have some speed limits) and, to cap it all, there was a long tailback on the motorway.

It was already quite late, and we still had around 200 km to cover, so we started being a little bit worried. Fortunately, it didn't take us long to find a driver willing to give us a lift; he only asked us to wait for him half an hour, because he wanted to relax a little before continuing to drive. However, another man approached us in the meantime, and offered to take us directly to Berlin. We went with him to his car, and thanked the previous guy for his willingness to help us.

It was an exhausting day, so no wonder that I fell asleep while sitting in the car. Maia was listening to the radio in German, and trying to talk in this language with the driver. I was woken up when we were already in the city.

When we got out of the car, we went by U-Bahn to Kreuzberg, where our host lived. We came to his flat while he was uploading his documentary film about Fukushima and wind energy to a competition website. When we arrived at his door, he greeted us with cheerful “Hello! You've made it!”. Yeah, we did, fortunately!

Philipp was very hospitable, he even gave us keys to his flat so that we could be independent. Moreover, when we remarked that we would spend in Berlin only one day, and that again we wouldn't have time to sightsee the city, he let us stay in his flat one more night.

My silliness: I'm pretending that I am traffic lights

In the evening Maia and I agreed to go for a short walk around Kreuzberg. It was a multicultural district, and lots of crazy and peculiar people lived there. The Berlin Wall was the main destination of this short trip. However, we only saw a piece of wall from the distance in the end, so we didn't even know if it was the one that we had wanted to visit, or not.

While coming back to the flat, we agreed to check out a big park on the way. To our surprise, it was surrounded by dozens of black people. A few of them approached us, and whispered something to Maia; I found out later that they had been trying to sell us drugs. Fortunately, nothing bad happened to us, and we managed to come back home safe and sound.

Day 13 – Like Drowned Rats

Date: 8th of July 2015

Route: Rotterdam – Bremen

Vehicles hitchhiked: 7

After leaving Ela and Marcin's flat, while we were walking to the place where we wanted to hitchhike, we did the shopping, and bought stroopwafels and a very tasty “sliced cheese” from coconut.

It was raining cats and dogs that day, so standing near a road wasn't particularly pleasant; but, on the other hand, it was a new experience for us. We had to put a direction card in a plastic document sleeve so that it wouldn't soak.

Standing in the rain

Unfortunately, we hadn’t learned our lesson, and missed one occasion to be taken. When we finally noticed that someone had stopped behind us, it had been already going away.

After about an hour of waiting in the rain, we caught a lift to Utrecht (we decided to visit this city on the way to Bremen). The driver was very helpful and he suggested that we go and see city canals; we followed his advice and checked out a coffeeshop on the way.

Signs that the Netherlands is a very tolerant country were visible in Utrecht as well :-)

After sightseeing for a while, we tried to get back to a motorway towards Bremen. Maia wanted to go there with a shorter path, but it transpired to be a very bad idea – after walking for some time through high grass, and then through bushes and small trees, we found ourselves surrounded by ditches (full of dirty water) from three sides. Maia wanted to cross through them, and took off her shoes; fortunately, I managed to explain to her that we probably shouldn't be stinky if we wanted to catch a ride… So we came back with the same route.

What we “gained” from her idea was water in our shoes. Moreover, we had to throw out her destroyed hat and two pairs of my soaked socks.

Like drowned rat

We waited until it stopped raining, and then went to stand next to a slip road, where we tried to catch a lift. After several minutes a Dutch marriage allowed us into their car. I am not sure if it was because of the air-conditioning, or because of standing outside in wet clothes for a long time, but I was shivering from cold while sitting in the car.

The couple left us on a petrol station next to a road to Enschede. There, we ate rolls prepared in the morning, and bought cups of hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. Maia came up with an idea to dry her shoes using a hand-dryer in a station toilet.

Drying shoes in a hand-dryer

Two guys whom we asked to take us from the station seemed to like the idea of having hitchhikers in their car a lot. They offered to drive us almost to Enschede, which wasn’t on the way for them. They were quite friendly, but their lifestyle didn't seem to be very healthy – one of them smoked three cigarettes within the 20 minutes during which we were sitting in the car.

There were lots of trucks on a parking lot where they left us, so we thought that we could try hitchhiking in one of them. Unfortunately, none of the foreign truckers was willing to take two passengers. When we talked with Polish ones, the situation was different – the only reason they didn't want to help us was the fact that they were driving in another direction. Luckily, one guy from Chojnice (a town in Poland) was going to Berlin through Osnabrück, and he agreed to give us a lift.

This time Maia and I didn't share a seat – I sat on the front, and Maia sat on a sleeping place behind seats. The driver only asked her to hide somewhere from German Polizei, when we were about to cross the border. I generally liked the ride, and learned a lot about working as a trucker.

The next car that we managed to hitchhike was a Polish car as well. The friendly driver, who had worked and lived in Germany for a couple of years, advised us to visit the Kreuzberg district if we were in Berlin.

We got off his car on a parking lot next to a motorway towards Bremen. We didn't have luck there – none of the drivers that we asked agreed to give us a lift. We tried standing next to the exit of the parking lot, and then near its entry, but unfortunately we didn't manage to stop anyone in neither of those places. Resigned, we started walking back towards the parking lot, in order to ask a new group of people who had come there for help.

Suddenly, we saw a car backing towards us; its driver invited us inside. It turned out that he had used to hitchhike a lot as well when he had been younger. He had often hitchhiked with his girlfriend and a dog. In order to be more successful in catching a lift, he had used to hide in bushes with the dog, while the girl had been standing near roads alone. Whenever someone had stopped to help her, they had suddenly appeared next to her.

We left the car when it stopped on red lights on a crossroad on the outskirts of Bremen. Maia started asking people who stopped behind the driver if they could help us; she managed to persuade a woman, who had also hitchhiked in the past, to give us a lift. She was so kind that she drove us almost directly to our host's flat – we walked for only one minute to get there.

Our host's kitchen - we liked its style

Mascha, our host, was very hospitable. She prepared pasta with sauce for us, and allowed us to use her washing machine to do the laundry. What is more, she was a really interesting person, who had travelled a lot, and had done many impressive things in her life.

We had had enough of rain that day, so we decided not to walk around Bremen in the evening. We stayed in the flat instead, and enjoyed conversations with Mascha and her flatmates – Fabian and Ania.