I just can't believe that our odyssey has come to an end. The time has gone so quickly...it has really flown by. Some thoughts on all of that later.
Today was our last tour...a self tour of the Academia Gallery especially to see "David" and then the Ponte Vecchio Palace Museum. I must confess that I'm weary and all frescoes and mosaics and marble busts are beginning to look alike. Never the less I put one foot in front of the other and off we go, skipping another long line to stand in a shorter queue to get to see David. And it's pretty amazing. There are a huge number of Davids throughout the city from tiny ones for sale for a couple of euros to the fake one in the piazza to the real one which is very beautiful. So we spend our morning looking and oohing over more old rooms, tapestries, frescoes, statues and of course, a few more chapels. I couldn't begin to know the names and recount all the churches and chapels we've seen on this trip! From tiny humble churches in the South Pacific Islands to the largest grandest in Rome and Florence...and everything in between.
After a nap by both of us, Jeff goes off in the afternoon to hunt for more photo ops and I choose to stay behind to pack up and review all our flights and travel plans for tomorrow. I also want time to just think ...and finish a fat book I've been reading since I plucked it out of the Free Bin in the ship's library...a 600 page whopper of a book by Australian author, Di Morrissey called THE VALLEY. I don't have room for it to come home with me and I've since picked up another freebie in our Assisi Hotel...somewhat smaller at about 350 pages. I'd like to start this new one called Cold Shoulder, a murder mystery.
We never get to have dinner out our last night, but Jeff has brought back cannolis for us and we have a little pastry fest while finishing packing and untangling some wacky travel snafus discovered at the last minute.
We set our wake up call for an ungodly time of 3:30 am, our taxi pick up for 4:30 am to meet our prearranged driver at 5:00 am...and none of those is a normal time! We end up on an empty street in the middle of the night! Jeff manages to free a couple of chairs from their overnight chains and we sit and chat in the dim light of a hotel about our adventures. Little did we know what was to come!
Once at the airport we check in for our Alitalia flight from Florence to Rome. Every bag is overweight except mine! This is a first for me. So we jockey stuff around and end up paying 60€ in overage fees and to have two bags saran-wrapped together to make "one" at the suggestion of the Alitalia clerk...the Saran wrapping costs an additional 10€! When we land in Rome, that bag is missing! Jeff is frantic because his three hard drives are in that bag with all of his music, and every photo he's taken not only for this trip, but every trip for the last five years. It's basically his life in that bag. So we wait and wait and wait ...for more than an hour and Jeff struggles to understand how one bag of six submitted all together at the same time can go missing. Finally we pray to Saint Anthony, who has been very overworked by us on this trip. As we stand looking at a totally empty carousel, up pop his pink saran wrapped bags! Well done, St. Anthony!
But wait! Now we have to check in for our flights to the US. And now it's almost 10:30...no breakfast yet and we have to lug the luggage to another terminal for checking in again...JM at Alitalia and me at AerLingus. Those lines are probably more than 100 people long...and we take a minute to say goodbye because he has to go to another part of the terminal. A hug and kiss and off we go...separated by the airlines after 75 days!
We are headed home...or at least I am. If my cell phone still works when I land at JFK in about an hour, I'll find out if Jeff made it. I'll spend the night at a nearby hotel and fly to Raleigh in the morning.
Our final thoughts and blog when the dust clears...
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