Not sure if this will be a short blog......or a more extended one. What we do understand is that it is a day or closure. It is not necessarily good or bad, but rather the end to a wonderful adventure. If nothing else, we have a truly amazing trip to be thankful for. We could not have imagined that the experience would have worked out this well. One always has expectations, but also a nagging sense that things may not all go as planned. In this instance, we experienced both the intended and the unexpected, and it all was quite memorable. Some of it was relaxing (which we really had hoped for) while much of it was stimulating, unplanned and revealing. It might be that the surprises are the best part.
As with all travels, we need to find the best way back to where we started from. Traveling has its ups and downs, and flying 'west' is intriguing as we gain back the time zone shift. While the numbers seem to work here......the physical 'extension' of our energy is somewhat of a challenge! This is a real 24 hour marathon! Sorry, absolutely no reason to have any complaints! Driving and flying is what gets us where we want to go!
This gets us to the start of our return journey. We got up at about 6:30.......and had a relatively easy process to get us down to breakfast. We had packed well the night before and had little to do. We (or Fiske) ate quite a bit from the buffet! We have quite a fun tale to tell about a crazy little east Indian man who we have seen around the hotel......a lot......and he was there for breakfast as well. Ask us if you are interested!
We grabbed our bags and lugged them down to the front desk to check out. The folks behind the counter remembered us from the past two days and joked that we had to speak in italian in order for them to help us! "Voi ragazzi parlate molto bene l'italiano!"
The car was waiting and we checked in with Siri again. The drive to the airport was in early rush hour, but not too bad......other than cars swerving in all directions, honking as they flew by. Just a normal commute! The last time we flew out of Linate airport, we missed the turn for rental cars. This time Andrea had done some research with Europecar and had some more specific directions. We made it to the garage without a hitch. Once we checked in, however, we ran into a huge disagreement between the woman and man staffing the Europecar office. She was furious with him......for reasons we are not sure of. In any case, we are somewhat nervous as we have not yet received our Visa charge confirmation!
The Linate airport is realtively low key......probably less so than Malpensa, where most of the direct flights to the U.S. run out of. We were flying Aer Lingus from Milan to Dublin to Boston. After missing some key signs, we found our baggage check in station and everything went very fast and uneventful. The problem now was that we got through all the check-in procedures a bit earlier than anticipated. Look how lonely Andrea is waiting for our flight initially!
The wait was not too bad, and gave us time for an espresso!
Still an old-fashioned bus on the tarmac and stairs up to the plane! Actually, a bit of an adventure!
Front and back!
and inside
PHOTOS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE PICTURES OF CLOUDS
more importantly, a farewell to Italy for this trip! Beautiful images of Lake Como and the Swiss Alps.
ENGLAND AND IRELAND
The White Cliffs of Dover were wonderful!
LANDING IN DUBLIN......THE FINAL LEG
