Travel Day

Traveling days are a challenge। I pre-purchased our plane tickets on line from Rome to Athens, Crete to Athens and Athens back to Rome through Aegean Airlines, sort of the Greek version of Southwest Airlines. Nice planes, helpful staff but it does not take long to figure out travel arrangements made on line are for the most part non refundable, non transferable and totally inflexible. What should have been an easy 30 minute flight from Crete to Athens and 2 hour flight from Athens to Rome turned into an all day affair.

Can I get an earlier flight from Athens to Rome? I ask the nice lady on the phone। We have 7 hours between flights। I am sorry sir but we cannot do that। Ok। Can I catch a later flight from Creta. No, sir I am sorry you cannot do that. Ok.

I can issue your boarding pass for the flight from Creta to Athena said the very nice Greek lady at the counter but not from Athena to Roma. Why not? Because you made the reservation at a separate time and I cannot print the pass from here. But if I had a printer I could go online and print my own boarding pass myself. I am sorry but the system will not allow me to do that. Ok. Which gate do we go to? We don’t announce the gate until 30 minutes from the flight. Ok.
We started our day dropping off the car at 730 AM and we finally got to our apartment in Rome at 9 PM। It’s the last night of just Nick and I. We are exhausted but we are greeted at our Rome apartment in an ancient neighborhood of Trastevere by Alessio Angeli our host here at Via San Francesca di Ripa 166, a large two bedroom unit above what must be one of the busiest areas for nightlife in the world. Lined on both sides with cafés people somehow manage to maneuver their cars, scooters, bicycles and bodies through the narrow alleys. While Nick rested I chased Alessio around the area as he showed me his favorite pasta restaurant, the best pizzeria and gelatoria, the apartment where he grew up and where he lives now, the local cathedral, a restaurant from the scene in a Fellini film, the Piazza, the best seafood place, the best bar, best sushi (not like you get in San Francisco), and the best brioche (where they still make them by hand) and cappuccino in the morning. In places the streets were so crowded we had to shove our way through the throngs.

Alessio is a young man, with a curly mop of hair and an infectious personality। A surfer, he has been to Hawaii 13 times and was headed that way in the next week. He owns 9 properties that he rents out to tourists and has traveled the world including working on a Kibbutz in Israel for awhile. He treats me to gelato and buys a pound for us and then walks me back through the crazy maze of people and alleys.

Nick…you got to come see this। It’s like the Plaka in Athens. Thousands of people out: let’s get something to eat. We go out walking and wander the streets for several hours, have dinner at the Pizzeria and Alessio was right…it was great pizza.