My Intro to Europe

My intro to Europe was less than ideal. Before I even got out of the airport, I nearly injured myself, and my romanticized vision of Italian cuisine led me to go 24 hours without eating! I’m hoping that you will find this story and many others helpful (or at least amusing) as you pursue Europe your way.

The Story

My husband, 21-year-old son and I decided Italy was going to be our intro to Europe and foreign travel. To save on airfare, I wanted to use frequent flyer miles but only had enough for one ticket – mine. It ended up being cheaper for the guys to fly a different airline but we were able to coordinate schedules so that they arrived in Rome about an hour after I did.

When I arrived in Rome, I decided to use my time to have my first cappuccino in Italy. So I collected my large wheeled suitcase and my duffle bag and got onto the escalator to go up to the airport café. As the escalator stairs expanded my suitcase wheel got caught and the bag started to tip over backward. I tried and failed to keep the suitcase upright and, even worse, found myself falling over it, headfirst down the escalator. The escalator came to an abrupt halt and my momentum sent me crawling on my hands rapidly down over my bag. Totally embarrassed I managed to get myself upright, get my suitcase firmly onto the step in front of me and expected the escalator to resume its upward climb. There was a man at the top of the escalator (I was only about a third of the way up) who indicated that the escalator was not going to move while I was on it and that I would have to carry my bag up the motionless stairs. Thankfully, another man who I believe worked at the airport, helped me carry my luggage to the top of the escalator at which point they turned it back on. What a humbling intro to Europe that was!

So after the escalator incident I did go get a cappuccino but decided not to get anything else to eat until the guys arrived, assuming that they’d be hungry and we’d share the experience of our first meal in Italy. As it turned out, SwissAir fed them extremely well so they were not hungry at all. Okay, so I’d wait until we got to our resort in southern Italy and be hungry enough to thoroughly enjoy the multi-course meal I expected to get there.

It was early afternoon so I anticipated having my gourmet dinner around 8:00. Well, things did not go as expected. In those days before GPS was readily available, we were working off of directions provided by the resort. Of course we got lost, horribly lost. It was after 11:00 pm when we got to the resort by which time I was starving. At check-in, where we played a sort of charades game because nobody spoke English, we figured out that the restaurant at the resort had closed for the night. Hoping to find something to eat somewhere, we backtracked to the nearest town only to find that only bars were open and they do not serve food. We gave up the quest for food, returned to the resort and went to bed. As you might imagine, we slept in the next morning. Around 10:30 we made our way to the resort dining room for breakfast only to discover that they had stopped serving breakfast and the dining room was closed. Lunch would not be available until noon.

This comedy of errors resulted in me going a full 24 hours without anything to eat but part of a bag of chips I had left over from my flight the day before. We quickly learned that Southern Italy is not a foreign tourist hotspot and strictly adheres to local customs for mealtimes.

I can laugh at this story now but I was really lucky that I didn’t get hurt and ruin the trip. That I saved for another trip, another country, another story.

Please explore my blog and let me know what you think. Some basic information on research and planning can be found here. If you are more interested in travel stories, more on Italy is also available.