Placido,
Yes, agree completely. Everyone returned to Switzerland enthused about the trip and it was thoroughly enjoyed by all. We did have one fluent Italian speaker and a couple others that could muddle through, but interestingly enough that really only made a difference at Reggio where they spoke significantly less English than elsewhere. In Brescia and Balzano we were served in German (the primary native language of the group).
I would certainly encourage any pilot to not hesitate one second about planning and making a trip to Italy. Our experience also confirms that the aviosuperficies are a much better experience from a handling standpoint than the airports designed to operate commercial airlines. They simply seem to manage the bureaucracy requirements better when necessary and avoid when not required. The airports are of course unavoidable when IFR arrival is needed. People were friendly everywhere.
I landed in Genova and twice in Perugia in the last two weeks, both with considerable international commercial traffic and no Zika hassle at all.
Luckymaaa,
I’ve posted Pireps for most of the airfields on eddh.de and Paul Rhyn who was in the group has already posted a couple too. Some of the airfields have current info and there isn’t much I can add (e.g. Bolzen or Fano).
Emir wrote:
Every time I land in Italy customs is there asking if I carry more than €10k. Croatia-Italy is EU flight so no customs should be involved.
Just because you’re traveling within the customs union doesn’t mean that everything can move freely. Cash is one of the things that are still regulated. E.g. if you go to Germany and carry more than IIRC €10k, you have to declare it (there is a list online with limits for each EU MS). Similarly there is a limit on the amount of cigarettes you can carry IIRC. They’re not required to be there but they AFAIK can.
Don’t know about Sicily, but some territories, especially islands, are treated differently. One example is VAT where the directive has a list of them where it doesn’t apply (e.g. you’d have to pay VAT if you bought a plane from there as if it was imported from outside the EU).
