Ash Thursday....8 hours in Roma

Click here to see more photos....


33 years ago, I invited my new girlfriend to fly with me in a single engine, 4 seat Cessna 182 from Danbury, CT to Freeport, Bahamas. An all night flight no less, in what was my first red eye flight in my 42 years as a pilot. It even featured an unscheduled enroute maintenance stop in St Marys, GA. (That would be a whole other story.) No food service - so brown bag it if you want to eat. Impressive, eh?

Well, last week I had a 10 day trip with layovers in Rome, Paris, New York and Atlanta and convinced the same girlfriend (wife) to come along on my 300 passenger A-330-300 Airbus for the first part of the trip: JFK - Rome. Neither of us had been to the Eternal City so we looked forward to exploring the sights we have long heard about. Although the flight had plenty of open seats initially, we held our breath at the gate and she made it on board and in first class. Just a little different than our trip to the Bahamas in January of 1977.

Our NYC based cabin crew could not have been nicer or a more fun group to be around. All business on the airplane, but once off, they kept us laughing especially throughout our bus rides. We landed in Rome on schedule but had to wait a bit for our rooms to open at the boutique hotel, the Londra Cargill. After a quick breakfast and 2 hour nap, we hit the streets running. So little time - so much history to see. Our first stop was at a site that contained ancient Roman ruins. We then walked a few blocks to the Pantheon and from there to the Piazza Navona, Rome's most famous baroque square where we took in some impressive work by Bernini and Borromini. We took a roundabout route to the Spanish Steps where we arrived to enjoy late afternoon sun and spent some time taking photos and admiring more work by Bernini and others. We were a little surprised to hear the obelisks located throughout the city had been pilfered from Egypt long ago. Near the Spanish Steps we started looking for an outdoor cafe and found a nice spot to enjoy a prosecco and dinner. We still wanted to see Trevi Fountain before calling it quits and were happy that we saw it at night - quite a spectacular sight. We did the obligatory coin toss over the shoulder and were reasonably sure it made the fountain - so I guess we'll be going back (soon). We walked back to the hotel via another of Bernini's works, the Triton Fountain on Piazza Barberini.After arriving back at the hotel we learned of the volcano eruption in Iceland and its possible effect on air travel, which was especially worrisome for a standby traveler. Friday morning we headed to the Rome airport a little concerned that the flight, which previously had many open seats, was now filling up rapidly due to volcanic ash disruption of other European flights. I boarded to complete my pre-flight preparations and was relieved when Kevin, the Purser, stuck his head in the cockpit to inform us that "your Captain is on board in 5C". Funny guy, but a relief to not leave her stranded in the volcanic ash unknown after convincing her to come along. She was possibly the last non-rev passenger to leave Rome or any other European city for quite some time. Talk about an Escape Artist!

Aside from worries over ash clouds, we had 8 glorious hours of exploring Rome in perfect weather. Well worth the 18 hour flight times. As Arnold would say, "We'll be back." On to New York City.....

Click here for more photos