Fasten your seat belts it’s going to be a bumpy night

Apologies to usurping Betty Davis’s famous line from Joe Mankiewicz’s “All about Eve” but our flight was both late and bumpy. Now I fly a lot as many of you know, so much in fact that some might consider it a lifestyle. Thus, I am not a nervous flyer and have been bounced around in regional jets for forty years. So, when I’m flying in an Airbus 330 (read jumbo jet) and am bounced around until it is like I’m being shaken awake, I’m telling you that this was one of the choppiest flights I’ve ever been on.

Prior to the flight all was calm with my compatriots either meditating or watching their phones intently while we were in the Sky Club. Hard to tell the difference. Lol

Anyway, once boarded, fed and watered I settled down to try and sleep, an endeavor that I think would have been reasonably successful had it not been for the periodic, intense, turbulence which occurred at random intervals throughout the entire flight after about 2 hours in. On top of that, William got to be a tangential participant in an onboard medical emergency when a lady had a diabetic crisis, which required medical intervention, which was discovered when she slumped into William on the way to the restroom. All I knew until after the flight was that I had heard “Is there a doctor on the plane” never a good sign. Fortunately, a little orange juice and oxygen fixed her up and we landed in Rome. I did get a picture of Paris in the distance at sunrise but there wasn’t much to see on our approach to Rome.

I must say entering Italy was one of the more pleasant international entrances I have experienced. One did not feel like a rat being shunted through a maze and passport control was reasonably nearby and our longest wait was for our luggage of which mine was last of course.

Upon exiting customs we met Victorio our driver. He spoke as much English as I do Italian but took us on a quick tour of a couple of the sites in Rome on the way to the train station.

Stephen took some better pictures that I will add later

The train was a bit nerve racking in that the track wasn’t assigned until ten minutes before departure not a problem except that there are 27 platforms at Roma Centro Termini and nothing told us in a strange forward manner that the train was running 15 minutes late.

I am never really happy with pictures I take from a moving train and this time is no different but here goes nothing. Mountains on one side the sea on the other. It was truly an interesting 5 hour ride during which I caught some zs

Finally, 17 hours after we started, we arrived in the beautiful little resort town of Pizzo. With this view from our rooms.

More on Pizzo next submission 😃