Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The Flight(s) Home


As I think I've said previously in the blog, I spent quite a bit of time on the planning end of this trip working with the airlines. This involved the on-line reservation via Cheapoair.com (whom I'd never heard of before) as well as spending much time on the phone with the airlines themselves.

The most time was probably taken up with insuring that at least two hours existed between the landing of one flight and the taking off of the next flight. I'm an absolute fanatic about having sufficient time between flights to cover any contingency. When there are three legs outbound and three legs inbound on your journey, the slack time between flights can become critical. On this particular trip, we didn't have any problems outbound with the planes being on time. But inbound two out of the three flights were an hour late or more, which would have been disastrous if I hadn't booked intelligently.

I also spent much time on seat selection. Though many might think selecting seats is not that important, I always insist on having the aisle seat and the middle seat for Concetta and me rather than the window seat. This insures that you don't inconvenience anyone who might want to sleep the whole flight away. On this trip, it took at least an hour on the phone on two different occasions to finally nail down the seat assignments for all six flights. Thanks to all that careful planning and diligent phone work, the flying part of our trip came off flawlessly.

Like anything else that lots and lots of people want to do at the same time and place, flying can be a gigantic pain. One of the things that made our experience as pleasant as possible is the carry-on luggage. You see some folks who buy the biggest darn carry-on bag possible in order to, what? Put something over on the flight crew? Then they struggle and struggle to get the stupid things on board and into overhead bin. Take my advice, check one big bag and buy a carry-on about half the legal size with a good set of wheels and a telescoping handle and let it go at that.

Our carry-on bags are easy to get on the plane and easy to get in the overhead. Don't put any clothes in them except some clean underwear and socks in case they lose the checked bag for a day or two. Into mine when the computer and the Nikon, two things I wouldn't dream of checking, and all the electric stuff like phone and laptop chargers, etc. Into Concetta's went the above-mentioned clothes, the medicines, the GPS unit, her headphones (always wonderful to have on an airplane), and a few personal items.

We also take what the airlines call a, "personal item." Naturally, for Concetta the personal item is her purse. For me, I have a small bag about ten inches high, six inches wide, and five inches deep that holds my reading book, my headphones, the passports, the boarding passes, my journal, my glasses, and a bunch of other stuff like a tiny flashlight and a bottle of Tylenol. This bag, which I found at Target, is just perfect for sliding under the seat ahead of me.

By the way, our checked luggage is a rolling duffel bag which has a telescoping handle. This soft-sided bag has a host of separate compartments, won't be damaged from having a ton of other luggage piled on it, and with the handle extended it's easy to put your small carry-on above it for wheeling both around the airport. To make them extra visible on the turnstile, we bought a couple of those fluorescent yellow canvas belts that you wrap around the bag and clasp. We also use the TSA-approved combination locks on the the main zippers to deter crimes of opportunity.

Yesterday, you may remember that I booked us into the airport Hilton in Rome to make our appearance at the terminal at the required hour extra easy. That turned out to be a wonderful idea, one that I intend to use in the future. Staying at the Hilton allowed me to get rid of the rental car the day before, thus cutting down on the stress that always results from trying to turn in the car and get to your flight in the same time period. The Hilton had a van and a very helpful driver who deposited us at the proper terminal at the proper time and we were on our way.

This time we rented from Avis instead of Eurocar. Though the Italian woman at the Avis desk didn't seem to care much for her job the day we arrived, I'd have to say that my experience with them was largely positive. Four years ago our experience with Eurocar was a slightly different story.

Anyway, that's it for now on the subject of airlines and baggage. Next time I'll go into what we packed and what we should have left home.

Ciao.

Monday, October 4, 2010

The Adventure Winding Down


Today started early, about 5:30, as Concetta and I made ready to tackle the last leg of our Greek/Italian adventure. We tried to get into the breakfast room just when it opened because our hotel, the Villa Maria, is playing host to a couple of busloads of Brits who've proven to be a tad noisy when cooped up together in a small space.

Though the food is certainly nothing to brag about at the Villa Maria, the hotel is clean and the staff friendly. It turned out that the extra nice room they gave us when we arrived late was a tad expensive, but not quite as bad as I expected. We did enjoy having the nice patio attached to our room.

Sorrento is a tough place to move around because there's only one road in and out. With all the Italian guys and girls on their motor scooters, the tour buses, delivery trucks, zippy little Fiats, and pedestrians stepping into the street from all directions definitely slowed us down a bit. Probably best to arrive or leave on a Sunday as yesterday the streets were much less crowded.

Our little GPS decided to have a go at us one more time as we wended our way toward Napoli where we would catch the A3 to Rome. Once again, though the sign said go left for Napoli the GPS said go right for another chance to get completely lost amid the ancient neighborhoods surrounding the docks. This time, though, we ignored the little prankster and relied on our intuition to head us north.

The next bit of fun we encountered was the chance to be marooned inside a very long tunnel as some sort of crash up ahead brought traffic to a standstill. Neither of us is very comfortable being in tunnels, especially since on our last visit to Italy we were blocked in a tunnel that quickly began to fill with smoke. At that time we had visions of having to abandon the car and sprint for the end of the tunnel we'd just entered. Thankfully, just as the smoke began to look threatening, the traffic suddenly began to lurch forward and we were soon out in the fresh air. We never did find out what caused either the hold up or the smoke. This time, thankfully, we had relatively fresh air -- not counting the contributions from Diesel trucks and buses -- and after a half hour we got rolling again.

Once we reached the A3, we really started to pick up speed. In the past the maximum speed I felt comfortable traveling on the Auto Strada was 140 KPH. Even at that speed the German cars sailed by me in the left lane like I was peddling a bicycle. Today, since the road was so smooth and the traffic so light, I cranked the big Passat up to 160 KPH and we got to Rome in super quick time.

Our first mission once we got to the Rome airport was to find the Airport Hilton where we would be staying. I wanted to check in and take the bags to the room before we returned the rental car. All this worked exactly as planned. The check-in went very smoothly. We made contact with the porter who would drive us to the airport tomorrow morning and we were in our room by just after lunch time. Our next task was to return the car, which always makes me nervous. But this time, with our Avis car, the clipboard guy briefly looked the car over, had me sign a credit card slip, and told me I could leave. I've never seen anything so easy.

Our next task was to go to the Continental ticket desk and check on our seat assignments, a job which should have been dead easy. Au contrar! Because U.S. carriers demand a higher level of security in check-in, they now have their own terminal. For awhile we tried to walk there, occasionally asking non-English speaking passersby where terminal five might be. Finally, a flight attendant, in her pretty broken English, let us know that we had to ride a shuttle bus there. Since the shuttle bus stopped just scant feet from where we were standing, that turned out to be easy. But when we arrived at terminal five, things didn't exactly look right. I tried asking the shuttle driver if he would be back to pick us up, but he just shrugged.

Here things got even more interesting. When we went into the terminal, we found not a soul working there. We looked at each other. The scene reminded me of those sole-survivor films where everyone in the city is dead and only one person is left to wander the deserted streets. Now and again a janitor or similar workman would appear and disappear just to show us not everyone was dead, but for the most part the terminal remained empty. Right about then an elderly couple appeared and informed us that the terminal was closed for the day and no one would be back until the next morning. They, as it turned out, had bought a $50.00 cab ride to the airport to change their flight only to find the terminal closed for the day. Their only choice was to go back to their Rome Hotel -- another $50.00 cab ride -- and come back the next morning. We felt really sorry for them.

Soon after we four gathered in the parking lot and tried to interest someone in our plight. We really didn't know if anyone would be back for us. Why would a shuttle bus come to a closed terminal? The elderly couple tried to use the "wheelchair ordering" intercom to the main terminal to get information, but the person at the other end kept wanting to know if they needed a wheelchair. The conversation would have been pretty amusing if it hadn't been so tragic. Finally, the elderly couple wore the intercom person down and she told them that the shuttle would indeed come back for us.

As it turned out, once Concetta and I were back in the room we easily pulled up our Continental reservation and seat assignments on the PC (finally our last night in Italy we have in-room Internet access) and all looked in order, which I could have accomplished in the first place. But I wanted to have a real person in front of me just in case I had to argue for a certain seat setup that the computer refused to give me.

So, here we are, just chilling out at the Airport Hilton and taking it easy. We are both genuinely sorry that our adventure is over AND very thankful that we will be back in our boring old existence for awhile. At least we won't have to be incessantly looking for the universal "WC" wherever we go. So, I hope you've enjoyed hearing about some of what we've experienced. I apologize for the lack of photos this time. I was very disappointed to learn that the Aegean Odyssey had locked out the passenger's picture uploading ability. In the future, I will have to be even more vigilant in ferreting out suitable hosts for our traveling pants. For now, I bid you the Italian "do-all" greeting, Ciao, and buona fortuna in your traveling future.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

The GPS isn't always on our side


This morning Concetta and I set out to undo the questionable karma we had accumulated yesterday on our visit to the island of Capri. Our plan was to visit the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in downtown Napoli where many of the archaeological finds from Pompeii and Herculano are displayed. Now Napoli is one of those cities that most people, even Italians, will advise you to avoid if you’re driving your own car. Take the train. Take the bus. Hire a cab. But under no circumstances should you drive yourself. Naturally, the intrepid Happy Wanderers enthusiastically ignored that advice.

The drive to Napoli started out perfectly normal. We set the address of the museum into the GPS and it quite correctly set our direction north from the Hotel. Of course, in Sorrento there’s only two ways to go, north or south, so it had a 50/50 chance anyway. After fifteen or twenty minutes we found ourselves on the outskirts of Napoli at a “Y”. We probably should have wondered when the GPS insisted on the left fork when the right fork pointed to our destination, but we went ahead and followed the direction indicated by the GPS. An hour later when we’d only gone a couple of miles, we finally turned off the GPS and began navigating by intuition. In between, we were as close to completely lost as you can get in Italy, which is pretty darn lost. For at least thirty minutes the little electronic wonder had insisted on returning us to the same "no outlet" street with a big piece of earth moving equipment sitting in a field where the road ended. No matter how we tried to outwit it, it would see through our subterfuge and take us back to view the earth mover again. We did see some mighty fine urban gardens in our continuous circling and re-circling, which is something I didn't expect.

Actually, I don’t usually mind being lost. I’ve had some great experiences and stumbled on some very interesting sights while lost. This time, however, was different. This time – at least after the first half hour – I got the distinct impression that the GPS was out to have a good time with us. The first thing you have to understand is that the GPS has a hell of a bad time pronouncing Italian street names, which are not only twenty-seven syllables long, but have inflections on different syllables than Americans are used to hearing. So when the GPS says turn right on Colle Grimaldi Su Mare, it comes out sounding like CollegrimaldisumaRE, emphasizing the very last syllable as though it was all one word. So, while you’re trying to figure out just what the darn thing just said, you’ve passed the intended street and the GPS immediately begins to fire more streets at you in order to correct your previous lack of expertise.

Now, I have to tell you that I actually like driving in Italy. Even though I’ve driven in both Rome and Florence, which are probably just a tad easier than Delhi, India, I really haven’t encountered any insurmountable problems. In my experience the Italian drivers are more polite than American drivers. While driving with them you just have to learn to assert yourself or they will not let you into the stream of traffic when the highway engineers funnel five lanes of traffic down to one and don’t provide any merge signs. You just have to “nudge” your way out just like they’re doing.

But there is one thing that truly terrifies me when thinking about driving in Italian cities: the thought of being funneled into a one-way alley that proceeds to get smaller and smaller until it deadends. Finally, you can’t go forward any more and there’s no room to turn around, and there’s a couple of cars or scooters behind you. Up to now, though I’ve been darn close to that situation in the past, I had never experienced my worst nightmare; not until today. But our feisty GPS, sensing that I have had life much too easy for the past month of motoring around Italy, quite intentionally and I might say, belligerently, sent Concetta and I and our very large VW Passat into the bowels of a very run-down section of Napoli this morning with the clear intention of ruining our day. In the end we were lucky. The dead-end alley that the GPS sent us down, the one where the Passat could barely squeeze between the parked cars on both sides, the one that was two blocks long, did not somehow come complete with another car to follow us to our doom. AND, through some miracle of fate, at the very end was a spot just big enough to put a king-sized bed and in which I somehow managed to turn that darn Passat by creeping three inches this way and three inches that way in a tight little arc to where I could finally retrace our route and escape. After that, I say, bring on Delhi, India. I’m ready for it.

Anyway, after my heart quit beating at twice it’s normal rate, we ignored the advice of the GPS until I had found the A3 on the Autostrada on my own and once again pointed the car toward Napoli proper. Once on the A3, the GPS had no choice but to behave itself, so we turned it back on and it soon deposited us in the driveway of the Museo.

Since most guide books tell you to be very careful in Napoli, I suppose that many people avoid going there. But I have to tell you that Concetta and I had an extremely enjoyable morning there viewing the artifacts from the excavations at Pompeii and Herculano. The have some of the most magnificent statuary that we seen on the trip. AND, they have some absolutely terrific displays of coinage that was uncovered, sometimes in the hands of victims of the pyroclastic flow from the volcano, and sometimes buried “secretly” under houses where the owners had their own private bank. One of our favorite displays was the glassware. I bet you wouldn’t even think that glassware existed two thousand years ago, but it did. We were just dazzled by the workmanship and the intricacies of design.

While were at the Museo something just amazing happened to us. We looked up at one point to find a young woman standing nearby whom we knew. We had only recently been keeping company with her as she was one of the staff members on the Aegean Odyssey on which we had taken our cruise to the Greek islands just a few weeks ago. The ship had embarked a new set of passengers in Athens after we left and was now cruising the coast of Italy. Incredible that we should be at the Museo on exactly the same day at the same time.

After navigating our way back out of Napoli, we set our course once again for Sorrento and a late lunch. To your great joy, we managed to find an Italian restaurant that advertised “Slow” food on their sign and we spent a very pleasurable hour munching on Paninis and drinking wine and talking with a couple who hailed from, of all places, Long Beach, California. I can tell you if you’re thinking about traveling to Italy, or to any country for that matter, the best thing about the trip will turn out to be the folks you meet along the way. Last night we spent dinner with a couple of guys from Quebec, Canada, who regaled us with tales of their travels together much as we regaled them with ours. They were completely delightful, and we could easily have spent a several hours eating with them. The food was just so-so, which surprised us since we’d eaten their four years ago, but the instantaneous comradeship we enjoyed with them will stay in our memories for many years.

Lastly today, while walking back to the hotel after lunch, we stumbled onto a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition that, while small, was very interesting and wonderfully quiet and lightly attended (tough to find during tourist season in Italy). It also allowed me to practice some Italian on the museum attendant who spoke as many words of English as I did her language. So, here we are, about to enjoy our last night in Sorrento. We’ve had our ups and downs here, but I’d have to say, mostly ups. If you come here, please don’t come during the high season. I’d wait until October, though days may be too cool for sun bathing. But hey, to heck with sunbathing. There’s just too much to do in Italy to sunbath anyway.