Homeward Bound

 HOMEWARD BOUND

For the last time we had our coffee and breakfast in the Aleph's restaurant.  Several of our group had already left for the airport, while others were sleeping in because they'd stay another day in Rome. In fact, when I first entered the restaurant, I was the only soul from our Tauck group there.  I'll miss having a cappuccino each morning! Soon after breakfast Susan and I rolled our bags down to the lobby, met our driver, and began our journey home.



It was harder leaving than I expected, though probably not in the ways one might think. I meant that literally. Traffic in Rome this Sunday morning was quite heavy, and there appeared to be a daunting amount of construction resulting in detours.  Our driver drove us around in circles for awhile, muttering to himself, before we finally found a break and headed about 20 miles out of town to Leonardo da Vinci - Fiumicino Airport. It was a bit of a zoo as we tried to find where we should check in for our flight to Amsterdam on the Dutch airline KLM. Eventually we remembered that flying business class had another perk, and we were able to find the short line for their "priority" customers. After a little effort we were able to have our bags checked through to JFK in New York rather than having to fool with checking and rechecking them in Amsterdam. Our layover there would only be 2 1/2 hours, and we darn sure didn't want to miss our flight back to the US, regardless of whether our bags made it!

Our streak of good flying luck continued, and we left and arrived on time. Business class on KLM was as it had been on Air France from Paris to Naples, i.e., an open middle seat. It was raining as we landed in Amsterdam, but we could see the vivid colors of lawns and flowers. We could see why people liked visiting there. We had a nice, long walk to the international terminal and found the KLM lounge, which as business class passengers we had access to.  The food, beverage, comfortable seating, clean restrooms, etc. were a real bonus. Again on time, we boarded and found the arrangements on the plane and professionalism of the staff to be top notch, as had been the case with Air France. This time we hadn't eaten dinner ahead of time, so we enjoyed an elegant dinner and wine not long after takeoff.  That meant that we had a little less time to sleep, but since we had taken off at 5:15 PM European time, our body clocks weren't set for sleep mode until we were well into the flight. Still we were able to stretch out fully in the little reclining beds and with the aid of masks and ear plugs get a few hours' sleep before landing at JFK in New York City.

Our travel luck at last began to run out ... but just a little.  Our flight from JFK to Atlanta, which was supposed to leave 9:35 PM, boarded on time, but the pilot came on and said we would wait on a few passengers and their bags whose connecting flight had been delayed.  So for the first time on the trip we left a few (about 40) minutes late. 

The real delay occurred in Atlanta, when it took a full hour from the time we landed for the bags from our Delta flight to begin coming down the chute in luggage claim.  They both made it though. We had to wait a few minutes for our shuttle to arrive to take us to our off-site parking lot, 

Our parking spot -- lest we forget!
then it was about a half hour drive to our hotel.  After a long day of traveling, we needed showers, so we finally hit the hay around 2:30 AM. 




The next day we drove the remaining 4 hours home at a leisurely pace, stopping to have lunch with our daughter and oldest granddaughter in Birmingham on the way. When we walked into our house, our little dog Georgie greeted us enthusiastically. I guess Dorothy was right: There's no place like home. As for us, we can't speak for Oz, but Italy is certainly worth visiting!

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