This one is gonna be a doozy!! We’re off on a month-long trip: two weeks in Sicily, a weekend in Malta, and the final two weeks are completely unplanned–just gonna wing it. We’ve never done anything remotely like this before!
We made it to the AmEx Escapé Lounge in Cincinnati by 8:00PM. This is a very strange trans-Atlantic flight for us, leaving so late–typically these flights leave mid-to-late afternoon, but we’re at the mercy of whatever non-stop to Europe we can get, and this one happens to be scheduled to depart at 9:45PM, so here we are. Like we always say, travel either begins or ends in the dark.
This trip begins as usual not only with darkness but also with a delayed flight. Cincinnati-Heathrow is delayed ninety minutes–so far.
We already had our real dinner beforehand at the house (left-over brats); it felt so strange to have a laid-back dinner at home before heading out to the airport. But there are some things to be said for an oddly-timed flight: we breezed through security in like five minutes, and were in the lounge in no time flat. It was jammed with BA passengers though, this was the fullest we’d ever seen it.
The plan is to arrive at Heathrow just before noon on Saturday, then catch our flight to Naples, get to our hotel somehow, then have a late dinner somewhere. What a crazy family travel day! Robert left first with a very early morning flight from Boise to LAX, where he gets to sit around for six hours waiting on his Vienna flight. Next up is Matt, flying direct from Boston to Vienna where he’ll find their hotel, have breakfast, and scout around some. Robert should arrive later that morning, they’ll meet up and have the day in Vienna before flying to Catania to meet up with us on Sunday.
OK–this is the part where you might think we’re annoying entitled whiners… but we paid out the wazoo for these tickets, mostly to get lay-flat seats overnight because I have issues with DVT, but BA Club World is sooooooo not worth it. Prolly the worst trans-Atlantic seats we’ve ever over-paid for. Anyway, lesson learned: we won’t shell out for this again, BA business class is off the list.
Usual insane drive into Napoli…. even by Cincinnati standards, the driving here doesn’t disappoint. I dunno what gets me the most, is it the death-defying bluffing? The nonstop honking? The “I don’t care it I die or not” vibe everyone has? The nutso bikers constantly buzzing by right & left? “Insane” doesn’t really do the roads here justice.
But at last the rollercoaster ride was finally over, and we did live to tell the tale, and against all odds we actually pulled up to our Naples hotel!
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