We loaded our bodies onto a very crowded train after our Puglia tour and headed to Rome. Masks were required. The train was packed. And every person on it was coughing. It was a tough time to be in Italy. (That photo is from 2013. I’m not sure we even took any in Rome.) We had booked a hotel stay with points and it was very comfortable. We slept 12 hours that first night.
Every day we ventured to breakfast in the hotel, then we’d try to get out a little bit more. It didn’t work very well. In fact, we were fortunate to have a number of nice and affordable restaurants within a couple of blocks of our place, and we took advantage of that. I had wanted to visit the Forum again, but it just wasn’t possible. We were feeling a little better by the time we loaded the airplane for our trip home, but we were both still testing positive. We masked up, stayed away from others, and found our way home. The US no longer required negative tests like they had when we left Greece.
The hotel we were at had a cruise housed there every day we were. I have to say, it made breakfast a little hectic. There was never a good time to go because of the shear number of people they were putting through the restaurant. We lived.
We booked all the way through to Milwaukee with a stopover in Dallas where we spent the night at our condo not far from DFW. We walked in to one of the smoke alarms going off from a bad battery. In a way it seemed only fitting. The trip had been a hot mess.
We’re leaving in a month for six weeks in Europe. Our planning is a little different for this one. And, we’ve spent some time understanding how our healthcare insurance works if we’re out of the country. No organized tours for this trip. Same route over the pond from Dallas to Helsinki, though, to take advantage of another pair of very inexpensive “miles” tickets. Portugal and Spain for this adventure, plus maybe Amsterdam during tulip season. More about that on Monday.
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