✈️ Episode 1: Pre Flight Rituals, Off Site Shuttles & Unnecessary Gear..?
For me, this is flight number eleven of the year, and the routine is now muscle memory.
There is a distinct art to the off site airport car park manoeuvre. You pull up, hand over the keys to your car, swap your luggage from the boot to the mini bus, usually with Smooth FM coming through the speakers, and let someone else navigate the drop off zone madness. A lot of the time, I have no case, only a backpack and that usually confuses the driver… not this time… it is confusing me a little. With the amount of luggage, you’d think we were emigrating. It is always a seamless handoff, provided you have saved the phone number for the post holiday pickup call when you’re standing at arrivals ten days later, smelling faintly of woodsmoke from the pizza oven you’ve been sat next too for all that time and sfogliatella crumbs still stuck in your beard from the cheeky airport snack you had before leaving… luckily for me, I did save it… quite some time ago but there’s always a bit of doubt there and I have to check.
By the time I hit the terminal, I’m pretty much running on autopilot,
Water bottles: Drained completely before the security scanners, ready to be refilled the second the liquid gauntlet is cleared. Manchester is now part of the 100ml is fine to stay in your bag game, the scanners are actually geared up for people to have more liquid in them, it’s just waiting for the FAA to ok it I think.
The Breakfast Snack: Supermarket sandwich… well, wrap, safely stowed, acting as insurance against overpriced airport food… although, I know that bully now, you are all aware, I am partial to the airport meal deal. A chicken based wrap, the bolt from the blue smoothie and soreen, that’s the only acceptable menu in these circumstances, anything else is just wrong. Sandwiches end up dry and falling apart. Crisps are loud and… dusty… you don’t want to be licking your fingers… and the smoothie, well… they’re ’good for you’… as long as you don’t look at the sugar content.
The Coffee Upgrade: Flat White from Joe & The Juice... or Costa, depending on the Manchester terminal you’re at of course… there is a Starbucks too, but, well… it’s Starbucks. You can take this as it is really, a warm caffeinated beverage in an airport. Joe & the Juice, even though it is a large chain, use custom pink LaMarzocco machines, so, they will always get my vote, being a LaMarzocco fan boy/barista hero….
The iPad & Phone Setup: An unhealthy stack of music, podcast episodes and radio shows pre downloaded, ready to drown out the drone of the jet engines… thankfully, I have packed not only the in ear AirPod pros, but also the over the head AirPod Max’s… so noise cancellation is absolutely no issue for this three hour ish flight.
I was sitting in this exact spot just a month ago with my mate Kris, heading off to surprise our friend Andy for his 50th birthday. We were delayed and ended up having a few coffees at this table, whilst chewing the fat. Life has thrown Kris a tough hand (again) since then, which makes you appreciate those spur of the moment trips all the more. Travel has a way of anchoring memories in place, when you look back, you don't just remember where you were, but who you were with and why it mattered.
Today, the bag, the same one I took to Tenerife, the Bellroy Transit Lite. Then… and now to be fair, it was just because I can… I could use a smaller bag… but… where’s the fun in that. Anyway, it. feels roughly three kilograms heavier than it needs to be. The culprit? An unhealthy, verging on the obscene, amount of camera gear and tech. The Leica, the Osmo pocket, the GoPro, the insta360, the DJI Neo2… a couple of keychain toy cameras… I think that’s all of them… I left the film camera at home this time unfortunately… The gear is an bit of burden to carry through airport security, but ‘essential’ for where I'm heading…
Because today, I’m flying back to Naples. Back to my favourite place, back to the shadows of Vesuvio, back to the best pizza on earth, and back into a city that doesn't just welcome you, it collides with you.
Thinking ahead before boarding, I filled both water bottles to the brim, my usual Hydrapak soft bottle as well as the Hydroflask vacuum bottle… a full one and a half litres secured. Keeping hydrated whilst hauling a heavy bag and suitcases as well as the heat… over 30°c, is non negotiable… the cases were both around 16.5kg each, so not ‘heavy’, but heavy enough.
Anyway, the bags are packed, the boarding pass has been scanned and the passport checked… my daughter wearing the Napoli, McTominay shirt I gave her… we’re ready to go… I guess that I will see you on the other side of the Mediterranean…
Touchdown in Naples brings the immediate, inescapable heat of southern Italy as you walk off the plane… it hits you… well, you feel it when that plane door is cracked really, but, when you get off and feel that sun… you know you’re somewhere different.
Then comes the new modern ritual, joining the winding queue for the updated electronic border gates. There’s always an atmospheric tension in passport queues everyone silently judging which line is moving faster while staring at biometric scanners and hoping the technology behaves… for me, it rarely does and the last time I was in Naples was the worst experience I’ve had with this new system so I wasn’t looking forwards to this time round, being the height of summer, more flights, more people and the heat… it wasn’t like this at 2100 on a Wednesday in January… and that was bad enough. However… on this occasion, all the scanners were out of action, in the makeshift tent on the runway, I am guessing, and it is only that, that it’s something my to do with the heatwave that Italy… well l, Europe is having at the moment… we were ushered into the airport building, we still had to queue there, and it was still the facial scanners and fingerprint thingies and yet again, my passport didn’t work… but I was waved on through anyway… soooo that’s a bonus I guess.
Once cleared through, it was straight through arrivals and out to catch the coach heading south toward Sorrento… Oh, wait, hang on, we’ve got suitcases this time… we best wait for them I guess… in that queue at the carousel… but, you read about that last year, I’m sure.
Anyway, once we’re off and out of the arrivals hall, we have a routine, stop for no one, ‘non grazie’ to the waiting taxi drivers as you walk past, asking if you want a taxi… down to the coach stop, cases underneath, hand luggage aka ‘precious cargo’ on my knee.
Watching the chaotic Neapolitan traffic blur past the window whilst sitting with bag full of unnecessary ‘toys’, sipping on cool water is the ultimate transition mode. The engine is humming, the buzzing of scooters weaving through traffic, the unmistakable sound of the Italian emergency services sirens. Vesuvio is looming around every twist and turn in the road, and the holiday has officially begun, it feels like I’m home… Now, what’s for dinner, I’m famished, I’ve only had a lukewarm chicken wrap all day… and maybe a cheeky glass of vino… apperativo doesn’t count… 
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