(Picture above is of the Milan airport at 3 am in the morning.) Hello All. Now I know I am known for exaggerating things, usually to my benefit, but when I say 36 hours it is to the minute. You see, we (I) decided that rather than getting to mainland Europe by train, we would take the plane as a more efficient route. It was supposed to be 8 hours with connections, rather than 15 to 18 hours from Inverness to Torino, Italy, by train. What I did not consider was this
1. Leaving enough time between flights to transfer successfully AND allow for tardiness
2. Did I mention leaving enough time between flights?
Itinnerary on paper = Inverness to Edinburgh (10 am until 11am) Edinburgh to London (11:20 until 1 oclock) London to Turn ( 3 oclock until 6 or so)
Itinnerary in reality = Inverness to Edinburgh, Major delay because we miss our connecting flight. Me bad. Me realllllllly bad. Note to self, get travel agent next time for transcontinental flights. Edinbugh to London. Another major wait for resceduled connecting flight. London to Paris. Another major delay as our rescheduled connecting flight to Turin from Paris had been cancelled due to an Air France pilot strike. Kick self. Flight gets booked for midnight arrival in Milan, Italy, with promise from airline that we will be bussed to Torino from Milan. Nice, stunning Italian lady meets us with a little sign from the airplane and waits with us to get our bags. Bags..... wait for bags..... no bags... oh wait, I hear an announcement in Italian, Macaskale, Stuuuuarte and Amunde. We are told bags are in Paris still, with all those damned connection tags, applied and reapplied, it seems that the luggage men-women were confused and so left them for someone else to figure out. With no address in Turin as we didnt have a hotel yet, and the bags set to arrive at any time, we decided to slug it out in the airport. In Milan of all places. Fashion capital of the world. Us dressed in MEC comfort, and now slightly smelly, clothes. We did have a handy dandy little toiletry case that we were given by the Air France lady. Really, its the token that says, sorry, I cant do a darned thing for you about your lost baggage but heres something to look at so you feel like you are taken care of. Okay, sleeping in a Milan airport... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning, still awake, not finding marble to be comfortable to sleep on. 6, 7, 8, 9 maybe one hour of sleep. Many people with badges walking by and looking at us now. 10 oclock, bags arrive. YES. I do happy dance and kiss Stewart and jump up and down 20 times (much to the disgust of the 80 people in the Lost Baggage line up who dont know where their bags are) but we dont care. We have done our time and we are on our way. Catch bus to Milan centrale station, get train to La Spezia, Italy (we decided to skip Torino) and then we get a bus from La Spezia to Biassa, which is just beside the Cinque Terra, a UNESCO world heritage park. Very cool. It was 7 pm by the time we got the bed, and we had been up since 6 am the previous morning. Tired is not the word, but we held each other up and decided that being our own travel agents, with the purpose of financial efficiency, might not cut it for Transcontinental trips. We will tell you all about Cinque Terra soon..............
Love Amanda and Stewart
1. Leaving enough time between flights to transfer successfully AND allow for tardiness
2. Did I mention leaving enough time between flights?
Itinnerary on paper = Inverness to Edinburgh (10 am until 11am) Edinburgh to London (11:20 until 1 oclock) London to Turn ( 3 oclock until 6 or so)
Itinnerary in reality = Inverness to Edinburgh, Major delay because we miss our connecting flight. Me bad. Me realllllllly bad. Note to self, get travel agent next time for transcontinental flights. Edinbugh to London. Another major wait for resceduled connecting flight. London to Paris. Another major delay as our rescheduled connecting flight to Turin from Paris had been cancelled due to an Air France pilot strike. Kick self. Flight gets booked for midnight arrival in Milan, Italy, with promise from airline that we will be bussed to Torino from Milan. Nice, stunning Italian lady meets us with a little sign from the airplane and waits with us to get our bags. Bags..... wait for bags..... no bags... oh wait, I hear an announcement in Italian, Macaskale, Stuuuuarte and Amunde. We are told bags are in Paris still, with all those damned connection tags, applied and reapplied, it seems that the luggage men-women were confused and so left them for someone else to figure out. With no address in Turin as we didnt have a hotel yet, and the bags set to arrive at any time, we decided to slug it out in the airport. In Milan of all places. Fashion capital of the world. Us dressed in MEC comfort, and now slightly smelly, clothes. We did have a handy dandy little toiletry case that we were given by the Air France lady. Really, its the token that says, sorry, I cant do a darned thing for you about your lost baggage but heres something to look at so you feel like you are taken care of. Okay, sleeping in a Milan airport... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning, still awake, not finding marble to be comfortable to sleep on. 6, 7, 8, 9 maybe one hour of sleep. Many people with badges walking by and looking at us now. 10 oclock, bags arrive. YES. I do happy dance and kiss Stewart and jump up and down 20 times (much to the disgust of the 80 people in the Lost Baggage line up who dont know where their bags are) but we dont care. We have done our time and we are on our way. Catch bus to Milan centrale station, get train to La Spezia, Italy (we decided to skip Torino) and then we get a bus from La Spezia to Biassa, which is just beside the Cinque Terra, a UNESCO world heritage park. Very cool. It was 7 pm by the time we got the bed, and we had been up since 6 am the previous morning. Tired is not the word, but we held each other up and decided that being our own travel agents, with the purpose of financial efficiency, might not cut it for Transcontinental trips. We will tell you all about Cinque Terra soon..............
Love Amanda and Stewart
2 comments:
Hey it is great to hear that someone thinks Travel Agents are a good thing!!!!!! When I worked as one I really felt under appreciated alot of the time. With all the traveling I have done I've never had that kind of trip before.....but then again I was a Travel Agent! Sounds like you two are having fun.
Pam
Sounds like you are having quite the adventure. When Glenn and i were in Tokyo, we only lasted 3 hrs trying to sleep in the airport before we got a hotel. You did better then us. You didn't kill each other? Well love you guys, hope thinks get a little smoother.
Jen and Glenn
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