Sleepless In Italia

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September 22 & 23,2013



Miracle of miracle in this day and age: All of our forms of transport left and arrived more or less on time (and some were even early), and all connections were made. HOWEVER, it was a grueling 33 hours of being awake and negotiating the details of travel. For this reason we were delighted to find our B&B and its owners beyond amazing! But more on that later...

We've decided to utilize a long standing Biagi/Ogden family tradition to structure this blog. Each of us will report a good thing and a bad thing for each day according to our perspective. And of course, we'll illustrate the posts with some selected photos. (Disclaimer: this plan assumes the spotty Internet access is available.)

Sharon: BAD THING-- The sleepless for 33 hours ordeal. (Note to self:You are too old to ever try this again!). GOOD THING-- The owners of our B & B, Elisabetta and PierAngelo, who realized our train was arriving in Lecce just about the time PierAngelo was retrieving their daughter from a birthday party, and swung by to pick us up just as we were disparing we'd never find a taxi.

Sandy: BAD THING-- Over 30 hours of travel without a place to lie down. GOOD THING-- Elisabetta's homemade fig & strawberry tarte waiting in the kitchen for us when we arrived.

Dave: BAD THING-- Four hours in the Rome train station with no comfortable chairs and falling asleep with head on the table. GOOD THING-- As Elisabetta was leaving after showing us the basket of goodies she had prepared for us, she asked, "Do you like wine?" She then went back to her apartment and returned with yet another basket of meat cheese and bread (in case we needed dinner) and a bottle of Chianti Classico Riserva!

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Photos

Waiting in SFO
Dave is still under he illusion that coffee is going to get him through...

Waiting in SFO.2
Sandy monitoring the group's carry on luggage. Clearly we don't know what the phrase "pack lightly" means! And that came back to bite us when we confronted the 3 flights of steep stairs at our B & B!

Waiting at O'Hare
Last junk food for awhile

Sandy Attempts Some Shut-Eye...
...on the second flight to Rome, but is largely unsuccessful due to full plane of chatty/social Midwesterners and Southerners getting to embark on a cruise from Rome.

Siamo Arrivati
Classic Italian scene outside the Rome train station--the ancient, the bit newer, the state, and religion (Can you spot the golden statue of a saint poking up above the building?)

Hurry Up and Wait
Since all forms of transport getting us this far had been punctual, we had 4 hours to kill in the Rome train station, so when in Rome...

Here At Last
Sandy and Sharon at the entrance to our rooftop apartment.

Our Bedroom....
...looks inviting, but that bottle of wine is waiting.