The last 2 days were typical traveling to Europe days. We got to the airport around 4:45 for our 7:20 flight. I had arranged for wheelchair transport to get me through all the airports as I didn’t want to put too much stress on my ankle so early in the trip. But at O’Hare the w/c waiting zone was very crowded and there was nowhere to sit. After about 15 minutes none of us had budged and there were no w/c in sight so we decided we might actually move faster just walking through security instead of standing around waiting, and since we have pre-check, we thought it would be quick. Wrong….we found out that there is no pre-check in Terminal 5 (International Terminal). The line was super long (about 20 minutes) and the only bow to the pre-checkers was that we didn’t have to take off our shoes, which was actually a good thing as my right foot was just a little swollen and it could have been difficult to get my shoe back on if I had to take it off.
Once finally through security, we stopped for a bite to eat before using pre-board to early board the plane, I pulled out my cane to add authenticity; but foot really was hurting, and I was limping a bit, so it really was legit. We settled into our seats which were directly next to the lavs. As expected, we had many visitors during the 7 1/2-hour flight, but it wasn’t as loud as I expected. After pushing back from the gate about 15 minutes late and sitting in a traffic jam on the runway, we finally took off about 8:15pm.
The flight was uneventful, which of course is the only kind of flight I want to have. There was a great selection of movies available and while we both dozed a bit during the flight, neither one of us really slept. Once we got to Paris, we had to wait until everyone was off the plane before getting our wheelchair and in this case, we were glad we had help. The schlep from the plane to our connecting flight was crazy long and complicated so we might have had difficulty doing it by ourselves. Since it was already after 11am local time, there was practically no on in immigration hall so in no time at all we were going back through security and on our way to the gate of our Alitalia flight.
The connecting flight ended up being an hour late, but the flight was uneventful. Once we arrived in Rome, we again had a wheelchair arranged but this time the process was different. Rome is one of those airports where you walk downstairs of the plane to waiting transport that takes you to the terminal. I told the flight attendant I could certainly walk down the stairs and take the van but would need the wheelchair if I had a long way to walk to baggage pickup. She said I definitely would need help as it was a long walk through the airport. There was also a w/c bound woman on the flight so we had to wait for an elevator type thing to arrive so we could get off the plane. It took the crew several minutes to transfer her from her seat to the aisle chair and get her into her w/c, which was in the elevator. Once on the ground we transferred us to the handicapped van for the drive to the terminal. It took them about 10 minutes to get this woman secured in place. Now I’m starting to get nervous as we’d already been on the ground for over 40 minutes and the car, we’d hired to take us to our hotel was only going to wait for an hour after our arrival time. When we finally arrived at the terminal, I was told that it could take 15 or so minutes for one of their colleagues to arrive to push the wheelchair so we decided that Peter would pick up the luggage and find our driver while I waited for the w/c pusher. A few minutes later I got a text from Peter saying luggage was very close, so I bailed on the w/c idea and hobbled into the terminal. Seriously, the luggage area was immediately through the doors where the vans from the planes were dropping people off. I could have very easily gotten in the van with everyone else from the plane and not waited 45 minutes for the whole w/c ordeal.
Well…by this time I was in a panic about missing our ride (for which we had already pre-paid) and to make matters worse, we couldn’t find our luggage. It had been so long since our flight landed that our flight wasn’t even listed on the board anymore and our luggage was no where to be found. To make matters worse, we couldn’t find anyone from Alitalia to help. We decided to divide and conquer….I went out to find our driver, while Peter continued to look for our luggage. I exited the arrival area to find our driver, Alessandro, who was in fact texting his boss to tell him we hadn’t arrived. We were within minutes of losing our ride! It took another 20 minutes for Peter to find someone to help us locate our luggage (which had been removed from the carousal and tucked away in a corner) but by about 6:15pm we were finally on our way to the hotel.
It was a 40-minute trip but since we weren’t navigating the rush hour traffic ourselves, we quite enjoyed it. We finally arrived at our hotel just after 7pm (noon Chicago time), about 21 hours after leaving our house for O’Hare on Sunday. It was a very long day, and we were exhausted but it was a little too early to go to bed so after unpacking we decided to head out to get something to eat.
There was a bit of symmetry to our dinner. During our first European Adventure in 2016, we had several hours between getting off the train from Orvieto and catching the train to Civvetivechia for our cruise. We decided to spend the time in the Piazza di Spagno (Spanish Steps) for one last pizza. We found a nice restaurant tucked away on a side street and had a delicious lunch before heading back to the train station.
Well, we found the same restaurant last night and I enjoyed my first pizza since 2016 there. We ate inside as it was a little chilly and it looked like it was going to rain. Dinner was delicious but we could barely hold our heads up so after dinner we headed back to the Metro for the short, 10-minute trip back to our stop. Our hotel is only about a 15-minute walk from the Metro but as we were barely able to put one foot in front of the other, it took a little longer.
Once back at the hotel, we discovered that I had only packed one of Peter’s flip-flops and his computer won’t charge. It’s my old Surface Pro 4, and it which worked fine at home thank you very much, so I have no idea what’s wrong. But those are problems for another day.
Today we’re heading back out to re-explore some of the places in Rome that we saw the last time we were here, but that Peter wants so to see again. But first, he has to wake up. It’s 8am and he’s still snoring away. I’ll cut him some slack this time; just as long as he’s up in time to get our free breakfast.
Talk with you soon.
Nice to eat the real deal, not what passes for pizza in the States. I’ll live vicariously through you.
It’s so different from pizza at home. Oh, so good!