Everything went off without a hitch. We got up in time, we loaded the cars, and we left on time. The drive to the airport was easy, especially at 3:15 in the morning. We got to the airport and dropped everyone off at the terminal with the luggage, then we took the cars back. It took us a little while to find the right place (not great signage) but it turned out to be very close to the departure terminal. The line to get our boarding passes and check bags was long, but not too bad. Security was also long, but moved at a pretty brisk pace, so can't complain. We had paid for an extra carry-on and loaded up a small backpack with vacuum bags of clothes, the Berkey, and a big container of vitamin powder. It was a challenge to get that bag zipped up, and of course that was the one that had to be hand searched. The guy pulled everything out and I got to load it for a second time. I didn't get it zipped all the way. No biggie.
We got to our gate and grabbed some coffee and pastries. The flight boarded on time (we walked out on the tarmac and boarded from front and rear of plane) but unfortunately it could not push back on time. We sat for a while and by the time we took off, we were an hour late. Compared to Montreal, not bad.
Ryanair is strict on baggage (size and weight), but we didn't have any issues. The smaller bags we bought for this trip did great. And our trusty luggage scale continues to make life easy.
For the first time, the six of us were flying together. The plane had three seats together on either side of the aisle. Cristina, Bella, and I were in row 11, and the Hines were two rows behind us. The flight was unremarkable. No frills, of course, with Ryanair. Small uncomfortable seats, no food or drinks (unless you buy it), no wifi or info screens in the seats. But we knew what we were getting going in. The guy across the aisle from me lucked up and had two empty seats beside him, so he stretched out and slept, but first, he watched Tik Tok videos at full volume on his phone. Headphones, dude, headphones.
I swore I would not just complain about Ryanair, since that's an easy thing to do. So I will share these positives: The flight took the length of time it was supposed to, they didn't lose our luggage, and it was a smooth ride. And it was cheap!
The flight to Rome was 2 hours 45 minutes, and we landed exactly an hour later than our original time. When we stepped off the plane, my first thought was "it feels like Phoenix." After the crisp coolness of Ireland, it was very hot.
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| Arrival in Italy |
I updated our Airbnb host and we got in line for a taxi. We waited. And waited. There were very few taxis. We asked an airport worker if this was normal and he said something about a taxi strike. He seemed kind of bored and annoyed with us. Jeez. The original plan was to get a big taxi that could take all six of us, but since taxis were so few and far between, we decided to just take whatever we can get and go in two taxis. We finally got a taxi and I showed him the address (I had written it on a scrap of paper). He seemed to know where he was going, so the first half of our traveling party set off.
The taxi driver didn't speak much English but he tried and was very friendly. He had driven taxi in Rome for 30 years. Only one time did he ask to see the address again. Impressive. No GPS, no Google maps, no paper map. OG taxi driver. We got to the Airbnb and Michele, our host, was waiting for us. It cost 31 euros to get there from the airport.
Michele didn't speak much English either, but he showed us around the apartment and gave us the important info (how to lock up, how to turn on the stove, how to open and close the shutters). The apartment is in an area with high-rise apartments and our was on the 8th floor (just below the penthouse. The tiny elevator could fit 3 people and had a 300 kg weight limit. So we would have to go up and down in two shifts.
Michele had a nice manual with restaurants and public transit tips. Even though the listing said central AC, the AC units were in the bedrooms...only three bedrooms. The fourth bedroom, really more of a study, only had a sofa bed and a fan. Michele had just assumed that for a party of 6, we only needed 3 king-size beds. Since the king beds in each bedroom were just two twin beds pushed together, Bella and Jacoby decided to separate the beds and share a room so they could both have AC.
We said goodbye to Michele, got settled, and headed down for some food. Our first pizza in Italy. We found a cute little takeaway pizza place near the Zama Plaza, which was just a short walk from our apartment. They sold whole pizzas or by the meter. We went with 4 whole pizzas. They were roughly 5 euros each. So cheap! Since this was a takeaway place, we took them back to the apartment and pigged out.
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| It was so hot, Bella did a Maz and stretched out on the cool terrazzo |
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| The view from our apartment |
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| Trevi Fountain |
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| The Spanish Steps |
Having been up since 2:45 am and all the airport traveling, the hour-long wait in the sun for a taxi, the whole day had just been exhausting. In retrospect, a walking tour of Rome was probably a bad idea for our first night. But we did it. We saw the Colosseum, Trevi fountain (I got yelled out by a cop for sitting on part of the fountain), the Spanish steps, and a bunch of other churches and sights that all kind of blurred together. We were all bleary-eyed. Bella and I thought we were going to eat dinner before gelato, but everyone was so tired that we basically had gelato for dinner. Sensing how we were the walking dead, Pete bought us metro tickets and helped us get on the metro that would take us close to our apartment (Re di Roma station)
We had a Colosseum and Roman Forum tour in the morning, so we got to bed as quickly as possible.
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