I visited Florence last month and I loved the city but...

... I didn't like the airport I flew into!

I flew to Pisa airport, which is in Tuscany, about 1.5 hours from Florence. I used some "bad" airports in the past, but I have NEVER flown to an airport which is so disorganised like Pisa. I mean, this is Europe, Italy, this should be working fairly well but not in Pisa!

Basically, I managed to miss my flight from Pisa back to London due to following facts:

1. They don't call outgoing flights at Pisa airport - you actually have to keep checking the monitor all the time (apparently, most airports in Italy don't call outgoing flights - i.e. boarding, last call, etc.).

2. I hated the airport inside, past the security point. There is one monitor ONLY which shows the flights, the passport control is on a different floor just before the actual boarding gates, and I must have actually missed the flight because a group of Moroccan citizens needed their passports checked in so much detail that it took forever to go through the passport control. Italian passport control officers were SO slow, it's like they use different watches to measure time!

3. I could actually see the EasyJet gate personnel from my queue and yet none of them actually came to the queue to ask if some people were flying to London. It's truly shocking, I've never seen such badly organised airport.

Ok, yes, you might say "well, it's partly your fault, why didn't you ask to go in front of the queue?" or, "why didn't you keep checking the monitor", etc. I should have perhaps but I had no idea how bad it's going to be.

I have to say that I was lucky to get onto the next EasyJet flight to London Gatwick, which was about 1 hr later than the flight I missed. Full points to EJ for letting me change the flight, I had to pay €60 change fee but better than buying a new ticket to London...

Nevertheless to say, I will NOT be flying to Pisa again unless absolutely necessary :)

30 days free Navigon SatNav navigation for Symbian OS

Navigon is currently offering a 30-day full European Sat Navigation for Symbian OS phones. You can download it from www.navigon.co.uk. It's about 2GB in size so prepare for a lenghty download if your net connection is slow. I've used Navigon software in the past, mainly on my car Sat Nav (Fujitsu Siemens Pocket Loox). I liked the interface although the navigation was a bit "iffy", things have moved a lot since then - I have never updated my maps on PocketLoox since Navigon charge arm and a leg for their maps updates. I think it's ridiculous to charge that much considering that Nokia provides free maps and you just pay for the actual navigation (which, to be honest is still quite pricey I think).

I am going to give this Symbian's Navigon edition a go, hopefully things have improved since the edition 6.0. By the way, this is Mobile Navigon 7.0 edition.