Travel from Eygpt to Italy

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Journey from Egypt to Italy via Austria

We experienced a beautiful sunset over Cairo, went to sleep and got up for our journey to Austria. We exchanged gifts with Hamdy at the airport and moved on to our Austrian Airlines (a United Airlines Star Alliance partner) where we had business class seats out of Africa to Italy. Due to flight availability and scheduling we needed to link through Vienna where we overnighted at the airport (a NH Hotel, like a Novatel hotel) then back into the airport for our flight to Rome.

Funny story here...we landed in Vienna and behaving as the road warriors we are, got our bags and headed for the exit to find the shuttle to the NH Hotel. We got outside and did not see where the local hotel shuttle stop was so Ginny headed to the Taxi stand to ask where the hotel shuttle pickup might be. She came back with a grin ear-to-ear pointing across the street - where the hotel was!

After a good laugh we rolled our bags across the street about 60 meters into the lobby and checked in.

We went downstairs for drinks and snacks and met two gentlemen, British and Japanese, and had yet another excellent world conversation on a number of topics. The Brit works for Haliburton as a trainer of adminstrative personnel and has traveled extensively throughout the world and the Middle East. The Japanese business man was extremely open and accessible on the myriad of topics we discussed. Time flew by and it was after 11pm when we adjourned. Bottom line: intelligent, thinking, active people can EASILY get along and frame their discussions/positions clearly whereas our collective governments continue to stumble on the basic communications level. (subtle message here: the world thinks Bush is an A-hole and it is hard to argue their points against!...can you?).

We were up early the next morning for our flight from Vienna to Rome. We arrived, met our dirver and were escorted to the Bailey's Hotel in Central Rome within walking distance from the Colosseum (classic vacation comment from John: ...Is that what I think it is???..) the Spanish Steps and other Roman antiquities. We have tours setup over the course of 3 of the next 4 days and we are on our own for the rest of the time. After we complete the Rome segment it will be a train ride to Florence.

Tour de France starts on Friday with EuroSports coverage on TV and Wimbledon wraps up as well. Lot's to be excited about!

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Photos

Plane ride Cairo to Vienna
Austrian Business Class - three seats but no one in the middle! Nice, but why??? Put is nice seats and be done with three seats in a row.

Plane ride Cairo to Vienna - John
What time is it? What day is it? Where am I? Who am I???

Early morning flight to Vienna to Rome (1 of 2)
A early morning mimosa...why not???

Early morning flight to Vienna to Rome (2 of 2)
Wait! Is this the plane to Italy????