Extra days in Rome

Once it was known that we'd have these two extra days in Rome, the Navona Nice Rooms weren't available to us.  In starting to look up where we could stay, it came to mind that we could hope that trip delay insurance could cover us for these days, and we thought of nicer places to book, starting  with the Hotel Mozart where we'd booked last year but didn't go when the trip was postponed.  I reserved on their site, it appeared to be confirmed, but there wasn't an email confirmation.  I called on Sunday about it, and they said to check later; I'd get confirmation once the card was charged.  There was still nothing on Monday morning, when we would be getting ready to move there.  I called and they said they didn't have room for us, they'd emailed that but I never got it.

We were left scrambling for where to stay; I was finding good deals on Hotwire and Priceline, where we wouldn't be given the property name until we committed to it, but Margaret wanted to search for known places, and it was useful to search for B&Bs and apartments in our familiar neighborhood.  As we focused on one, availability for a regular room went away, and they just had a 2-bedroom apartment.  We went ahead and took that.

It was too close to our old place to get a taxi, and one walk with all our luggage was going to be difficult, so we made two trips to our new location, Gonfalone 6.  We had a friendly greeting and marveled at the size of the apartment, although it wasn't quite ready.

It was nice to keep staying in our familiar neighborhood and mix recognizing familiar places and having new discoveries.  We had lunch at Osteria della Moretta, which I'd walked by during my years of school but never tried or heard of others going there; it had likely changed its style since then, but it was nice.

In the evening we crossed the river to return to Da Giovanni, getting a nice view during the crossing.

In the morning, Margaret chose to stay home; I wondered about using the time and chose to go someplace where I doubted Margaret would want to go, the MAXXI or Museum of 21st Century Art, something newish that I thought I should see although it was of more interest for the architecture than the collection.

Many of the galleries inside were closed for setting up new exhibits; there was some mildly interesting photography.

I had used Google Maps to find the right bus routes there; for the return they suggested walking one direction to start, and I was distracted first by the church of Santa Croce in Via Flaminia (1913), then by the Palazzetto dello Sport, built for the 1960 Olympics and which I knew since childhood as of interest for incorporating geometric shapes, now looking grimy.

While stopping to look, I'd missed the bus that Google Maps had first advised, and started on their advice to go the other way for another bus.  I was on the way to missing that, went back in the original direction, and caught that bus.  I'd bought tickets at a newsstand to validate on the bus (confusing to put them in the right way) and there are other ways of getting bus tickets now.

We had lunch from groceries we bought yesterday, did a little more neighborhood walking, to get us to dinner where I'd chosen Giulietta Vino e Cucina.  It wasn't such a traditional restaurant, something of a salon setup with cushioned chairs, but it was a nice final meal in Rome.  We have our return flight tomorrow.

Soriano to Rome, and extra time

On Friday morning there was the Soriano market.  Pictures include pre-dawn pictures as I added a ticket to the paid part of the lot.

In the afternoon we went to Viterbo: another fairly large and active city, interesting to wander the old streets without too much in mind.  I'd located the Parcheggio del Sacrario to park:  Waze routed us through a narrow street.  On exiting, I missed a turn at the start, and what should have been an easy drive to the main route became a harrowing journey through the city: a narrow arch and difficult turns, and entering Soriano through the unfamiliar side.

On Saturday, it was time to check out.  We got the car loaded and took off for Rome Fiumicino airport.  We took our chances with the fuel warning light coming on, and filled it at the full service pumps at the usual spot where we do that on the G.R.A.  On this gasoline car, the price was a little over €100; it would have been a little less if we were sure the fuel would last to the airport on their refueling option.  Hertz was on Level 1 of their garage, as I recall less travel up the ramps than before.

It was time for Emily to go to her flight, and we got the taxi into Rome, to our small B&B Navona Nice Rooms.  It's a complex of three rooms on an upper floor, and the small elevator only worked with the staff's key.  There was a young earnest staff, and air conditioning and breakfast served in the room, but our coffee preferences were sometimes botched.

I need to mention something else that came up: that word came out of another strike at Barcelona airport affecting Vueling flights.  We saw the list of Saturday cancellations on Thursday evening, on Friday there were emails in Spanish that weren't really right, referring to our inbound travel date, but then the Vueling app showed the Monday flight being changed to a Tuesday night flight (useless for connecting to our Monday evening LEVEL flight) and during Friday/Saturday overnight hours the full list including our Monday flight showed with our flight cancelled.  I had tried to be proactive earlier with all involved airlines.  Iberia, through whom the booking was made, said nothing to do in spite of the Vueling change I was showing.  I'd contacted Vueling through Twitter and they indicated they could provide a hotel and arrange the change of LEVEL flight, but it was somewhat unclear how that would happen, with their site indicating Iberia controlled the reservation.

On Saturday morning, with the flight on the cancelled list, I called Iberia for a change and they said they didn't have official notification of the cancellation, to try again after noon.  I did that once we were in Rome, and they still didn't have it posted.  We asked about a supervisor: one would be available after 6 (noon Miami time).  We were starting to wonder if we'd need to take an early morning trip to the airport to show up for a flight we knew to be cancelled, so we wouldn't be counted as no-shows.

Finally in the evening I called and they acknowledged the cancellation.  This agent said the best he could do was put us on the same airlines two days later.  It was difficult to communicate with him, as I was interested in other Iberia-LEVEL routings that could have still gotten us home Monday, and about European Union rules requiring care during a delay, but all he said was that if we found another way home on our own, we could get a refund, and I wasn't ready to deal with that.  We had to remind him that we were on a Premium award, so we could get seats in the Premium cabin, row 3 rather than 1.

So we'll be in Rome for an extra two days and we needed to find other lodging.  These days we've eaten at restaurants under our B&B, where we have memories from our high school days, and done more wandering in the area.

Villa Lante pictures

Composing on the iPad gets confusing: here are  Villa Lante pictures.  Then we got caught in a downpour returning, including the walk up from our Soriano parking spot.

And on to Soriano

We closed up the house, and as we started the car in Umbertide, I noticed a ticket on our windshield.  We were ticketed for parking in a handicapped spot, although we had a handicapped placard, from the U.S. hanging from the mirror, rather than on the dashboard as done in Italy.  I took a picture of this, and jumping  ahead in that matter, this was Monday; when we got to Soriano, I got the Umbertide police’s email address and emailed the picture with an explanation.  Without an email reply, I called on Wednesday morning; when I got through, the lady said she’d gotten the email and the ticket was cancelled.

Anyway, we took off to meet Emily at Orte station, were a little late, and proceeded, guided by Waze on Apple CarPlay, to the familiar lot in Soriano nel Cimino.  We were welcomed at Palazzo Catalani, where Emily has a timeshare, including the handyman taking our bags from the lot to our apartment in his small utility vehicle.  We have a nice 2-bedroom apartment.  We had some food we brought over to eat on arrival, and had dinner at the property restaurant.

Tuesday we went to Tarquinia with the Etruscan Necropolis outside of town, and museum in town, and had a lunch in town.  A little episode before parking at the Necropolis: we started to park at a spot marked reserved for apartment residents, then decided not to, and lights went on the dashboard with warnings of imminent engine failure.  We went cautiously to a more appropriate parking spot, visited the Necropolis, and no longer had the warnings.

On Wednesday we stayed to explore Soriano, and had a disappointing restaurant lunch.

On Thursday we went to Villa Lante nearby at Bagnaia di Viterbo, an interesting estate built into a hill.

Time goes on, on to Rome

Margaret’s sister Emily arrived, and we spent a week entirely in the Umbertide area, giving attention to the house and, if we ate out, staying nearby.  One day we took off for Assisi and, before getting on the superstrada to go that direction, decided that instead we would go nearby to Montone; we had a nice visit and lunch in that hill town. During the week we also had nice times with friends.

And then it was time for our planned trip to Rome.  Since Margaret and I would be returning, we decided the best way of doing it would be to take the train from Ponte S. Giovanni.  We went there, with multilevel parking, and into the station.  Now we’re pretty well forced to buy tickets from a machine. Emily was buying, and I pretty well knew the procedure, but a car service driver was guiding us through it.  We decided to get first class tickets.

The station had been remodeled since I was last there to have an underpass, but only to the more distant platform; for ours we still needed to cross the tracks.  We saw a car go by towards the front with a 1 on it, and went in that direction, boarding another car first during the short stop. As we went forward, there was a sticker on the car saying  2nd class, and there was no first class car at that end, only in back, so we settled in that car.

The train trip went well enough with a nearly empty car--one thing I noted, different from my experience on Regionali, was how announcements were made of the stations and connecting trains and buses-- and I needed to awaken Margaret as we arrived at Roma Termini.  We were at track 1 Est, to the back of most of the tracks.  Wanting a taxi, we exited to he right, and still needed to get to the front of the station to find a taxi stand; we got a woman driver.

She took us to the apartment we’d rented, close to where I’d lived my first year in Rome, near Regina Coeli prison.  Our ride was slowed by vehicles entering the prison.  When we arrived, a man on a motorcycle across the street spotted us, escorted us u[ a few flights to the apartment, and checked us in.  This included reducing our stay tax, since two of us wouldn’t be staying the whole time.

Once we were checked in, we settled in and appreciated the air conditioning.  While Margaret stayed home, Emily and I started looking at the shopping area I remembered from 45 years ago.  The area was mostly  deserted with things closed for siesta; we found one bar to get small water bottles, and then crossed the river.  We found a small Coop market for provisions.

After going home, we went with Margaret to an expensive caffè as one enters the busier parts of Trastevere.  Then back to our area, we had dinner Da Giovanni, a place that our friends of that era wanted to be kept secret, because it was such a good deal.  Even though they now have credit card and website stickers on the door, they were still a good deal.

The next morning, most of us didn’t feel like doing that much. I went on one outing on my own, including the Villa Farnesina which I hadn't seen in spite of living so close, and late in the day we went up the Gianicolo hill.  We had dinner at the other restaurant I’d spotted near us , the Miraggio, costing a little more but nice.

In the morning we had a little more of a walk in our old school area, continuing to Campo de’ Fiori, today pretty much all a tourist-oriented market, avoiding hawkers from restaurants.  We had a quick look at Piazza Navona before going through the back streets to our apartment, and Margaret and I were to leave for Termini station. 

We used the IT TAXI app to get a cab, which was there within a few minutes.  We were left off on the Via Marsala side, where our track was.  I bought first class tickets again from the machine; although we were plenty early, the train was there, with the first class car towards the front (as it would be leaving, away from the front of the station) contrary to what one would hope.  The first class car was pretty much the same as second, just with more room between facing seats and a tray with a power outlet.

This trip went well enough, we had our car at Ponte S. Giovanni station, and were back to Umbertide and our easy-going activities.  Just a couple of days to close up the house and later rejoin Emily for the next stage of things.

Wednesday market, Umbertide

Now just some pictures from the Wednesday market.

Rome to Umbertide

  The taxi ride to Rome had the usual harrowing features, although it had automatic transmission.  We got to the Hotel Indigo on via Giulia.  This is the annual free night we get with IHG credit card, with a $49 fee, and this is the last time it's available for all the group's hotels: in the future it will be for Holiday Inns and similar.  Even with our stays just having been 1-2 nights, the desk manager recognized us.

We got our room, and as we were settling in, there was a knock on the door and they brought a bottle of Prosecco and snacks.  There was a card saying "Happy anniversary"; perhaps they had a record of a previous stay on our anniversary.  We had thoughts of eating in our familiar neighborhood, but being tired and repaying the hotel's generosity, we went on to their rooftop bar.

So it looks like the only advantage we had to being in the historic center of Rome was having the rooftop views (and the pictures aren't on my device).  I had two coupons for glasses of wine, and we had trouble completing the meal of caprese, amatriciana di mare, and a veal dish.

At check-in we'd agreed to have the breakfast buffet at a reduced price.  That was nice as we remembered, we had a nice conversation with the waitress about the current state of living in Rome, and there weren't many guests around.  As I remember now, I may have booked this flight date so the free night at this hotel would be available on our arrival.

Time to  check out, and the hotel called a taxi to take us to the Hertz office on via Sardegna.  There was a wait there, and we were sent two blocks to the garage to get the car, a Renault Kadjab.  I needed to figure out the way to do a push-button start with a stick shift, and we were on our way: not too much traffic in Rome, and we got to Umbertide without incident.  It was the last day of the annual 19th-century festival, with food setups right in front of our house.  With our mid-afternoon arrival, they gave us food during that lull, all for free in exchange for taking up space in front of our house.  It got loud at night, but the organizers were nice.

The flights to Italy

On the morning of our departure, the first problem was when I went to the Iberia site to do online checkin.  I know the site to be clunky, and when it first said your first flight is operated by Vueling and you should go to their site (not correct), I disregarded that and proceeded to enter our information with our passport numbers and the quirks in our names, and that went well.  When it said approximately "We see that your seats haven't been selected, would you like to choose them?" I knew that to be wrong, so I skipped that step.  They went straight to our boarding passes, and they weren't in row 1; they were in the middle of row 2.  This was very displeasing to Margaret and we made calls both to Iberia and LEVEL who said to try to resolve it at the airport, one saying that for some reason the row 1 assignments were cancelled.

Following other last-minute worries--did Margaret lose her ATM card for use in Italy (not found) and did I lose my Italian SIM card (found)--with a late-night departure we could take the Dartmouth shuttle from Lebanon, N.H., at 5 p.m.  That got us to Boston Logan Airport 3.5 hours before departure.  Their Terminal E for international airlines has counters whose airline designations change during the day.  They had banners for where to stand for LEVEL Premium and Economy, before the signs on the counter designated the airline.  We were first in line, and the counter opened a little earlier than the time they posted.  Margaret told the check-in agent about the problem; this agent silently checked our bags and gave us boarding passes for row 2.  When Margaret asked, the agent directed us to the supervisor at the next counter. 

This woman said we'd been displaced because other passengers had paid for these seats.  I said my recollection was, when I called to make the seat reservations, that I had said we'd be willing to pay the price first quoted for row 1 seats, but the agent said we didn't need to pay in the case of a passenger with a disability.  Anyway, we had a confirmation email printout that said "Seat 01J confirmed," and no indication had been given that someone could pay to displace us, but there was nothing doing.  I know from following many airline discussions that seat assignments should only be considered requests, especially with European airlines.  The excuse that one of the agents we called in the morning gave was that the aircraft had been changed was one that we found not to be true, since it matched the listed type and seat map I'd been following for months.  I know that sometimes airlines make up excuses after they have to give a seat in front to an air marshal, but I don't think that's the case with the two women we eventually saw in those seats.

Before the flight, I try not to relive some tense times between us.  Leaving that aside, Margaret got a wheelchair as she needs, a nice lady attendant getting us through security.  In our gate area, away from the other international departures, the Vineyard Grille was the only sit-down restaurant.  The airport site showed it as open until 30 minutes before the last departure, but over two hours before that, they said the kitchen was closed.  The attendant took us the bustling upper level and we ate at Stephanie's, a high-priced meal of lobster rolls.  That attendant turned up again at the right time and got us back down to our gate.

At the gate, with Margaret in a wheelchair, there was no call for preboards.  They called for Premium Class passengers but didn't look our way, so it was a hassle to board at the proper time.  The ground handlers for LEVEL in Boston were a disappointment, but the inflight experience was better.

With the expectation that all we would get would be slightly better Economy seats, the row 2 seats were fine, with good legroom, until the people in front reclined the seats to an extent that I, in the middle seat, would still need to displace Margaret in the aisle when I wanted to get up. They distributed a cup with amenities including toothbrush and toothpaste, socks, and eye mask.


With a departure after 11 p.m. and having eaten, we'd been thinking of declining the meals, even though they were free for us, but when they were offered we went ahead and took them, choosing the beef meal, which was decent.

Even with a late departure time favoring sleep, I didn't get much.  We had a decent breakfast in the morning, and landed in Barcelona.  They asked wheelchair passengers to wait to alight, and it wasn't for long, with jetways both in front of and behind the three Premium rows.  We had a woman to take us through the connection, with whom I could practice my Spanish with mixed results.  That airport has a bewildering setup: first we had to wait to be cleared by security to enter a certain hallway, then down one level to what appeared to be passport control and security only for assisted passengers.   Then down to our gate level, with many shops, and we cut through one shop.  Then a special waiting area for assisted passengers when our connecting gate hadn't been posted. Margaret went on her own to find chocolate pastries and coffees for us.

After our gate was posted, passengers were put on a motorized cart, and I was instructed to walk along with it.  We got to our gate, and before too long we were able to board first on our Vueling flight to Rome.  I hadn't seen visible signs of  the strike at the airport, maybe we were full because of other cancelled flights, but I didn't have a sense that there were many standbys.

Vueling is a low-cost carrier, charging for bottled water and coffee, but the experience was o.k.  We had our landing in Rome, with a wheelchair attendant waiting.  I noted that our arrival concourse had airlines with baggage claim at either Terminal 1 or 3, so people needed to be alert, and here too the route to baggage claim was past many shops.  We got our bags, and the attendant took us to a taxi.