Wednesday 17th April 2024

Wednesday 17^th April

SHE SAID:

It was a 5.30am start for us this morning with our flight to Rome leaving at 9.25am. Mum kindly drove us to Horsham station for the Gatwick Airport train.

The flight was 2 ½ hours, the coach from Rome airport took about 50mins, & then it was a 15-minute walk to the Residenza Termini accommodation. 

Julia greeted us & showed us to the apartment on the 4th floor. A nice fairly recently renovated place, with all the basics we need, though apparently things like salt, pepper, tea & coffee aren't allowed to be provided anymore!

We had a wander to the local supermarket then around the area a bit. Of course, I managed to take a few photos. It was nice just wandering, not knowing what you will find.

As we are both still recovering from colds, we had dinner in & an early night.

Leaving Gatwick & England
English Channel wind farm

Clear skies as we crossed the French Alps, 
a lovely sight

Heading for & arriving into Italy

Around our apartment

An Australian hotel & church?

The ugly British Embassy
Geoff outside the apartment

This plastic Citroen is the same length
as the motorbikes!

HE SAID:

We were up early and got to Gatwick Airport. Our budget airline, Vueling, was having problems with their self-serve kiosks so we had a long wait in a queue to drop our bags. Our breakfast at Pret, in the departures area, was also not smooth, as they seemed to be disorganised, expensive, crowded, with plain food. Oh well. But wait... On arriving at Rome Airport it was almost as if the authorities were not expecting any planes that day, as they seemed surprised when a few plane-loads of passengers needed to be processed, but half the passport reading machines were closed, meaning long delays, and then there were just 2 officers blindly whacking stamps into hundreds of passports after we'd already had our passports checked by the machines. They didn't even look at photos! I have no idea why this bit was necessary, but it slowed everything down even more.

Luckily, we managed to find our coach service easily, and only had a very short wait before being whisked into the centre of Rome. After that it was a short-ish walk to our accommodation, which was very nice. Our unit is in an area near embassies, as well as the central train station. We walked past some1800 year old Roman baths along the way. Amazing!