The Reality of European Summer

Written By Nelma Memic

European summer.

I was so excited for it. 

I consumed so much media convincing me it would be movie-like and worry-free.

Sadly it was so so so far from that.

A little background:

My family is from Bosnia and Herzegovina and we try to visit every summer since most of our family lives there. We were fortunate enough to get semi-affordable tickets for the four of us for this summer, ranging around $1,000-$1,200 per person roundtrip, which is amazing considering the prices nearing the summer months for people who decide to travel last minute, which average around $1,600-$2,000. Since I spent the first half of the year serving at a local restaurant, I managed to save up a lot of money. Yay me! So, I thought it would be smart to take advantage of the fact that I was already in Europe and to travel to another country while there. Flights to other countries are anywhere from $40-$200 depending on the country’s tourist season and distance.

My friend came over one day in March and instead of watching Love Island as planned, we used the boarding pass TikTok filter that decides what city you should travel to for shits and giggles. It landed on Milan and I let the thought sink in for about 2 seconds before I let out a giggle and said “Why not? European summer!!!!!!!!”

Cue the planning.

I automatically knew I didn’t just want to be in Milan for a week.. which after the trip I realized probably would’ve been a better move. We thought about Rome, Lake Como, Florence, and Portofino. All the places you see online, bookmark, and hope to one day come back to, but most likely never do. However, after a couple searches we came to the conclusion that even though the train tickets weren’t that expensive compared to the U.S, we would lose a lot of time in travel, so we did our research and decided on two days in Milan, two days in Portofino, and one final day in Milan. Sounds reasonable right? Not that bad? A two city itinerary in 7 days is more than manageable.. right?... Wrong.

Until then, every trip we had gone on, both in the U.S and international, had been okay.

They all came with the occasional flight delay, baggage loss, itinerary change, and expected travel stress.

Unfortunately, you have to be ready for a lot more, especially traveling internationally. 

Flights getting delayed, canceled, and losing hundreds of dollars on the way to and back due to it; standing in trains for 2 hours straight because people just hop on instead of paying for seats, so the train is over capacity; no access to Uber/Lyft/FreeNow, so you have to pay $50 for 10 minute taxi rides because the area you’re in (Portofino) only has fancy Mercedes van taxis available; the weather apps lying horrendously, your waiters being able to sniff out the average person vs the millionaire and treating you like a peasant; things just not going according to plan. 

Essentially, you have to be prepared for the sky to fall. 

I’ll summarize the trip that I made look so good in my photo dumps on Instagram by sharing my original itinerary vs what actually happened… (Yes, I use Canva to make itineraries for every trip, I’m insane and a PLANNER!!)

With the travel included, we had four full days in Italy. We chose a later flight for our first day because it was cheaper, which brings me to my first realization:

First Lesson: It’s better to pay an extra $50 to get to your destination earlier and have time to collect your bags, find a taxi, get to your airbnb, check into your airbnb, and settle in. It’s also wiser to research airlines and their history of delayed and canceled flights.

Our trip was supposed to be from June 29th-July 4th. Like I said before, we had a later flight and you guessed it! Shit hit the fan before we even got on it. Once we got to the airport we saw that our flight was delayed and we only had an hour stop in Belgrade, Serbia from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ofcourse, there was no one to give us updates on whether the next flight would wait for us. Not only was there no one at our gate, but there was no one at any of the gates to offer help.

I got on the phone and called Air Serbia’s customer service to see what would happen and after being on hold for 30 minutes, they told me we wouldn’t make it (no shit) and that the next flight to Milan was the NEXT NIGHT.

Spectacular, so we already lost the first night in Milan. About $50 each? Cool.

When we finally got off the flight we ran to the gate in hopes that by some miracle the plane would still be waiting for us. Google showed that it was boarding, but TSA wouldn’t let us through. They showed us back to a help desk lined with about 20 people who were on our previous flight and had also missed their connecting flights. They told us that they would take us to a hotel and bring us back to the airport for our next flight the following day. I’m going to leave out my Karen behavior spiel, but just know that I lost my shit, especially after hearing everyone talk about how this happens with Air Serbia very often and they just suck.

Second Lesson: Never flying with AirSerbia again.

While on the way to the hotel we decided.. Fuck Air Serbia and wasting ANOTHER day, and found a flight to Rome at 6 am with WizzAir. I believe we paid $100 each. We took advantage of the free buffet at the hotel and got some wine before heading to bed. The next morning we got to Rome around 8am, had breakfast, hit the tourist spots and got on a speed train ($50) to Milan around noon. That morning (2am-12pm) felt like a fever dream for me because I had already been in Rome the year prior when I was interning abroad in Spain and I never expected to go back??? It was cool though, I felt like a travel guide since I already knew everything we had to see and the time we needed to see it.

When we finally got to Milan, it was 9 pm and pouring. Of course it was!!!!! <3

We had to leave for Portofino at noon the next day already. We had the airbnb and two hour train paid for, we couldn’t cancel the day prior. After checking in to our Airbnb, which was in the Central Station area, we walked to Ramen Shifu Filzi and enjoyed our delicious ramen in the enclosed outdoor patio while we listened to the rain come down. After a while, we headed back to our Airbnb to make sure we got our sleep for the next day. We’d explore Milan on our last day when we got back from Portofino.

The third day finally felt a little normal. We had an amazing breakfast at Caffe Panzera, which was directly across from the Milan Central Station where we’d be leaving from in a couple hours. The breakfast felt like a warm hug after the last two days of us getting shit on. The pistachio croissant and cappuccino combo was HEAVENLY and yes, we got the American Continetal Breakfast. After finally feeling like we were done with receiving L’s, we got to our train. This was the train with two times more people on it that it should have had, which resulted in some people standing for two hours and some people having to deal with those people’s asses in their face.

After about two hours we got to Genoa and the next step was to take a ferry to Portofino. I saw it all over the internet. I also saw it was close and only cost 5 euros… Wrong! The port was a 15-20 minutes drive from the train station, so we asked around and figured out we could take another 40 minute train straight to Santa Margherita Ligure and a 15 min taxi to Portofino.

+$50 for the girlies!

KILL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, we’re in Europe, so it’s fine! Everything is fine!

This area of Italy is where celebrities and billionaires vacation… which I missed completely when doing my research because I was mainly focused on how story-book like the town looked. I’m just a girl! I was just concerned about the vibes!!! So of course there wasn’t going to be Uber or Lyft services in a billionaire vacation spot. Thank you and your stupid oversized Mercedes van Ricardo. Will never forget ya. Once Ricky dropped us off, it started drizzling <3 It took us about 40 minutes to find the airbnb because it was a little tucked away, but it’s okay. We’re in Europe! A little wet and tired, but we’re here!

We did pay a little extra to be right in Portofino ($266 a night; $177 split 3 ways for 2 nights), but the Airbnb was beautiful and a minute walk from the little city with the shops and restaurants. It was also only a 5 minute walk to the “secret beach” called Baia Cannone (the only beach there, it’s not hard to find, it’s the main thing that catches people’s attention online and gets us to visit).

With that being said,

Pros of Portofino:

  • Beautiful

  • Amazing and worth it if you’re rich and have a boat 

  • Bus (we found out about it the last day)

  • The pistachio croissants and lattes at Pasticceria/Bar Gimelli (it was a pistachio girl summer)

  • Cosplaying a millionaire

  • Observing the mega ultra rich (I saw a Fendi baby carriage and nearly threw up)

Cons of Portofino:

  • Only accessible by one narrow one way road

  • No Uber/Lyft

  • 17 euro pasta, serving the size of my fist

  • Rude waiters, unless you’re Rihanna

  • Only one beach; extremely small and everyone is lined up like sardines (amazing when you go early in morning/later in the day)

  • No night life unless you’re on a yacht (you have to go to Santa Margherita Ligure)

Anyways, I rate our two days a solid 5/10 compared to all the other places I’ve been in Europe.

Third Lesson: Listen to the people who say Portofino and the Amalfi Coast are overrated. Research harder!!!!!

Second to last day let’s gooooo!

We got back to Milan in one piece and checked into our best Airbnb of the trip. I was obsessed with it and it’s location. It was right by a tram stop and only a 12 minute ride over to the center. On top of that, it was clean, spacious, and a mega Milan vibe. We unpacked and went to go see the Duomo di Milano. We also went to the Starbucks Reserve and thrifted a couple cute pieces at Humana Vintage , a second hand store. We all agreed that we finally felt like we were walking instead of running, both physically and mentally. It was so nice.

Realistically, Milan could be done in a day and a half, but OH how I wish we had more time. It ended up being my favorite city. I felt the best there. The food was the best there. The people were the best there. 

It was the place that filter decided on for us after all, but we didn’t listen!!!!!!!

Some of the places we had on our itinerary that we didn’t get to but, would definitely go back to Milan to experience are:

And finally, our last L after a day of peace on the way back.

My friend got kicked from our flight. Yeah.

We got to the airport the next morning and the person checking people in told her that her name wasn’t popping up in their system <3 HEART EYEZZZZZ!

She told her she had to buy new tickets and there was nothing she could do. After going back and forth with Air Serbia AGAIN, and them being of no help we figured out it was probably because we purchased our tickets through a third party and sometimes they don’t transfer the tickets over :) Everyone in the ticket purchase line had the same problem. People were yelling, cursing, crying. It was a little glimpse of hell if you will.

She ended up paying $550 for a ONE WAY flight back to Bosnia. Remember, we paid around $200 for a roundtrip initially. I paid for half of her ticket because I wasn’t going to let her waste all of her remaining money. In the end we weren’t on the same flight, but still met back up when we landed in Bosnia. She had to meet her family in Neum the next day, which was 3 hours away from the airport so we took a two hour train to Mostar, where our family home is. After finally sleeping comfortably in my own bed, we took her to the bus station the next morning.

Fourth Lesson: Purchase tickets directly through airline sites! (Avoid Expedia, Kayak, Booking.com, Kiwi.com) They won’t always be reliable.

Exhausting huh? If you’ve made it this far, I thank you for going through this traumatizing experience with me again.

So yeah. That’s what most European summers look like.

The next time you see a picture-perfect Instagram post or TikTok, I hope you giggle and avoid any and all fomo because it’s all semi-fake. With all that being said, I don’t want it to seem like I’m ungrateful and just complaining. I’m just being transparent about the reality of my experience. 

Although we had a bunch of shit happen, we also had a lot of small, wholesome, and funny moments occur that we’ll remember forever, like seeing a man’s bare ass on the train because he didn’t lock the automatic door. Or when we were on the train back to Milan and playing peekaboo with 5th graders on their way on a field trip. Or the club we thought would be poppin in Portofino, but had a total of 20 people in it. Oh and of course, the night we bought ingredients to make pesto pasta in Portofino vs spend 17 euros on it and get judged for wearing clothes from Goodwill and Amazon.

Nelma Memic
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