Finishing a trip blog I always feel a little like J.R.R. Tolkien.
In “The Hobbit” they had myriad adventures and challenges getting to the Lonely Mountain, they defeated the corrupt town officials, the dragon, the minions of darkness in the Battle of Five Armies…and then they went home.
Nothing special, nothing remarkable, nothing worth writing about. They just went home.
So we woke up Sunday morning docked in Civitavecchia.
Luggage had been placed in the hall last evening so all we had was today’s clothing and backpacks.
We joined the Hunts (and the 5,000 other passengers) for breakfast in the buffet and, at the appointed hour, made our way to the luggage hall to find our bags and get in line for the bus to the train station.
We did check with taxi stand but their rates were as you’d expect and we thought we’d have better luck (and better rates) farther away from the ship.
I’m not sure if that’s true but we were able to book an Uber to take us to our hotel.
By the time we got there our rooms were ready so we set about arranging lunch (ended up eating at the hotel’s ‘pool grill’) and settled in to an afternoon of lounging and swimming.
Later we gathered in the lobby for a few games and dinner of delivery from McDonalds.
Then it was off to bed and sleep and then it was Monday.
We had the earlier flight so the Hunts came by our room to say good bye as we were leaving to catch the airport shuttle.
The airport was pretty smooth (and the new biometric passport clearance process wasn’t that bad) and we were soon on the plane for the 11.5 hour flight to Seattle.
The main objective in Seattle was for at least one of us to stay awake during our 4 hour layover.
That accomplished, we were off on the last leg of our journey to Boise.
We arrived 23.75 hours after our wakeup alarm this morning, headed for bed, and began the (seems longer every time) process of readjusting our body rhythms to home.
So that’s a wrap.
It’s been a great trip with unexpected surprises (some bad, but mostly good), good food, good time with family and new friends. And most importantly it followed the basic theme.
“It’s always an adventure.”
Till next time,
TTFN,
R