Getting to Rome (and the first of many transportation snafus)

When we decided to change our plans and fly to Rome for several days, we already had a flight booked on RyanAir out of Catania. It was super easy to change the flight on their app - in fact, their app is great. Easy to make changes, easy to see schedules, they even show you the fare differences as you scroll through the choices.

Italian airport workers had called for a strike on our departure day, but politely scheduled it in advance for 1-5 pm. So I booked a 10:55 am flight to avoid whatever impacts the strike was going to have.

We arrived at the Palermo airport, and proceeded to experience delay after delay after delay - all while watching other flights board and take-off with no issues. Including the 12:15 RyanAir flight to Rome. No explanation was provided. At some point, we figured out that we could get food vouchers by presenting our boarding passes at the two food vendors (and the food was pretty awful).

And I was getting The Cold. Just to make everything even more miserable than it already was.

Palermo airport is small and definitely not set up for passengers hanging around for 6 hours - no lounge, very little seating, limited electrical outlets. We were masked, but kept moving to keep away from people as best we could. Bob at least was COVID negative, but as the afternoon wore on I was pretty sure I wasn’t.

SIX HOURS after our original departure time, we boarded a plane for Rome. Got the train into town, where it started to rain, because of course it did. We walked by the Hotel Cellini twice before spotting the subtle brass sign on the side of the doorway.

The room was nice, and spacious, which was good since we would be spending some time in it - I tested positive for COVID that evening