Ahhhhh Roma Once Again

We met our driver as planned and got to our hotel without any problems. We are staying at the Hotel Caravaggio located just a few block from Termini in the heart of Rome.
Ninno greeted us with the lilting verbiage I so love, saying Buono Sera (Good Evening) as our greeting. Our check in was quick and he escorted us to our room on the 4^th floor by way of a tiny lift that is over 80 years old but is the quietest elevator I have ever ridden. You must open a wire mesh door then two glass paneled wooden doors to enter. There is even a small bench if you have a need to sit down. The one rule is you must remember to close all of the doors as you exit otherwise the lift will not respond for the next person needing it, We have so far had to walk up or down several flights to recover the lift because someone didn’t follow the rules. And we have only been here one night. :}
Ninno sent us a block down from the hotel to grab a quick bite since we had eaten nothing since breakfast on the plane before landing in London this morning. This little place is called Pasta Love and as Ninno say “it has a good kitchen”. Good basic food, decent prices. Not bad house red and after about an hour we are back in our room and ready to get caught up and on to Rome time.
We have a queen bed that is very comfortable except for the pillows which are like pancakes. Very very flat. But so far everyplace we have stayed in Europe has really flat almost non existent pillows. And believe it or not no washcloths for bathing. So if you really want one bring your own. I should have remembered this from 2009 when I did remember to bring some old ones that we discarded when we left to board the ship. They give you great towels and hand towels but washcloths forget it. Needless to say we slept great.
This hotel is very quaint and very well run. Our room has its own tiny little balcony and private bath. It has a TV that we never turned on, plus a phone with a personal wake-up call if you request it. In addition to breakfast they have a Happy Hour each evening from 6-8pm offering complimentary red & white sparkling wine like Spumonti and snacks like bridge mix and popcorn. Breakfast in the morning consists of boiled eggs, several types of bread, cereal, two types of yogurt, and coffee or cappuccino. Plus of course the requisite pastries and pastries and pastries. These Europeans eat more pastries and bread than protein. If I ate like them I’d be back to 225 lbs in no time. Whew!! And all this for around E50 per day. We will definitely stay here again. If you want more info let me know and I will give you all the details.
We picked up our Roma Passes on Wednesday and made a dry run to Piazza del Popolo where we will meet our guide for a day trip to Tuscany on Thursday morning @ 7:30am. All went well and we remembered the station at Flaminio where we had taken the train to our little bungalow on our trip in 2009. We ate lunch on the outskirts of Piazza del Popolo at a sidewalk café that was a tourist trap, but we have learned to decipher a little better as to what to order. We order an antipasto plate and either a bottle or half bottle of the house wine, and after sharing this we then decide if we are still hungry for anything else. They sometimes try to force us to order more but we just smile and say no thanks. So most of the time we get by with about E12-15 including wine for both of us at lunch. That is a bit under $20 US and still cheaper than a hamburger at home.
Tonight Ninno has recommended another local restaurant called “Spiga”. Their food was good enough that we ate here twice. Their prices were a bit more expensive but not unreasonable and the wine was a bit higher but still good.
Time to get some sleep as we have a very full and long day tomorrow when we go to Tuscany. Stay tuned….

An Eternity to get to the Eternal City

The trip to Rome was filled with stops, starts and frustrations. We have been so lucky in the past with no delays, no missed flights, no cancellations and no woes. This time wasn’t horrible but it also wasn’t our best trip.
We started with a delayed flight out of Redding due to overbooking after having to leave at 6am because they decided to cancel our original flight at 10:30 am. We had to pay for an extra bag each because the idiot at United Express insisted they didn’t have a baggage agreement with Virgin Atlantic and then having to retrieve our luggage in San Francisco and carry it around with us from a little after 7 in the morning until 12:30 when we were allowed to check in for our flight to London Heathrow. Then a 45 minute or longer delay leaving which caused a need to change to another connecting flight from London to Rome. This flight was with Alitalia but at least Virgin Atlantic checked our bags all the way to Rome. So we’re thinking yeah this is gonna work and they honored what we had already paid United for the bags and so didn’t charge us again. United could really afford to take some lessons in customer service from them.
When we went to check in for our Rome flight on Alitalia we had what we thought was going to be a nice 4 hour layover to spend in the United Red Carpet Club with snacks wine and comfortable seating. Think again cause we got the supervisor from HELL who insisted that unless we paid him an extra E55 per bag yep that’s right folks I said E55 per bag. That comes out to over $75 per bag in USD. He said we wouldn‘t be allowed on the plane much less would our luggage be transferred. And this guy wasn’t even Italian!!! He insisted that Virgin Atlantic had not released Tony’s reservation from their system and that we had to traverse back across London Heathrow and get it straightened out. We asked him to call them and he said he didn’t have time. Mind you we had no one in line behind us and we had 4 hours till flight time. Away we go back thru security which by the way we had passed with no glitches two times in a row. Back on the bus to Terminal 3 and Virgin Atlantic easily finds Tony’s ticket and says Alitalia is nuts cause it is in their system and has been since San Francisco. We tell them about the luggage problem and they say if we have to pay it they will reimburse us but that they have an agreement with Alitalia that should make it okay.
Off we go back to the bus and over to Terminal 5 again. By this time we are down to about 2 hours before our flight time and we have ridden this bus enough times we are greeting the drivers by name and singing “To Market To Market to by a fat pig” under our breath on the ride. Back thru security we go. BEEEEP!!! All our bags set off alarms and it takes 30 minutes for them to open and empty everything to discover one small bottle of hand sanitizer that we forgot to put in the zip bag. Have you ever tried to repack a suitcase in the middle of an airport that you have originally spent over a week packing just so in order to make use of all the little nooks and crannies? Yeah, you do understand. In the meantime while I am showing off my new collection of Victoria’s Secret underwear to all the old codgers in London, Tony is again dealing with the Alitalia guy who still insists his boarding pass is not there until a nice little girl comes to start the shift transition. She finally discovers that this guy is pushing the wrong button the whole time and Tony’s boarding pass was always there. She finally took pity on us and after the idiot guy left she got on the phone and spent another 20+ minutes getting the baggage fees waived for us. We had just enough time at this point to find our gate and start boarding.
Instead of getting to Rome while it was still daylight we arrived at 8 pm after having an emergency crew board the plane and take a girl off that was having either an appendicitis attack ,a panic attack or she was having some sort of reaction to what she drank on board. The girl was refusing to go with the medics until someone got her mother on the phone. We never found out for sure but it was pretty interesting for a while with all the Italian crew waving their hands and talking at the top of their voices. I can barely pick up on one of about every 20-30 words so it was no help at all in the long run. At one point we had every attendant on the plane in one spot discussing what should be done next. And of course everyone of them had their own opinion. It was quite entertaining to say the least.
We finally arrived and were blessed with the arrival of all our luggage at the same time. We were told that the day before was a strike and no luggage was off loaded all day. Things are really looking up indeed. To be continued…….