Tim & Denise Tiner Travels: 2017 Italy - Day One

October 14, 2017

I am writing my first blog post for this trip on a train that is leaving Roma Termini...the main train station in Rome, Italy. We are headed to Salerno, where we will catch a bus for a ride to Atrani, a town that sits next to Amalfi in south west Italy. We are meeting our good friends, Scott and Michelle Hayden, who have been touring Rome and are now waiting for us in Atrani.

Our adventure began on the 12th. We wanted to catch a flight to Rome from either Newark or Dulles (Washington D.C.) on the 13th. Both those flights departed around 5:30 PM. And from SLC, the only direct flight was to Newark at 7:50 AM. But with each passing day, that flight was shrinking in seat availability. And getting to Denver, the only other option to get to Dulles or Newark, was already over sold. So we decided to make a run at getting out of SLC on Thursday, the 12th.

We listed ourselves on 4 flights...one to Denver, one to Chicago, one to Houston and one to San Francisco. San Francisco was our least desired option. But because it was an earlier flight that was delayed 5 hours, it had many seats open. And if we ended up on that flight, we would take a red-eye to Dulles. Fortunately, that did not happen. Flights to Denver were all booked. Our next option was Chicago. We were #1 and #2 on the standby list. But by the time the flight was boarding, the monitors showed no seats. Nonetheless, the monitors are rarely right. I think we got the last seats nonetheless....but I'm not sure.

Upon sitting down, I quickly pulled up Hotwire and used their method (blind method) to book a hotel. We ended up in a Hyatt (4-star) hotel 10 minutes from O'hare. It was the best $90 I had spent in a long time. It felt good to get a good nights sleep. Anyway, upon getting into our room, I quickly sat down and booked our flights for the continuation of our journey. We decided to go to Dulles because there were 2 flights that would get us there in time to catch the Rome flight that had 28 and 30 seats open respectively.

We arrived at Dulles thinking that it was going to be a no brainier getting to Rome with 15 unsold seats and we were 5 & 6 on the stand by queue. Well, by the time they started lining up to board and handing out stand by tickets, we had pushed back to 9 & 10 in the stand by queue and the monitor now only showed 6 unsold seats. My heart began to race as I did not want to stay the night in DC and try and get on the same flight the next day. But, I don't know how their systems work, but something behind the scenes must have freed up seats and we were given pretty good seats (Economy Plus) albeit in middle of the row seats.

Upon landing in Rome, I thought I had plenty of time to catch a bus, instead of a train, to Salerno. Custom control is quite mellow coming into Italy. Anyway, I thought we had made it in plenty of time to catch a bus to Salerno. And I think we had. But we could not find anyone with viable knowledge on where the bus to Salerno might be. There were many buses parked there. We went to the office to purchase tickets there and they said we were to buy them on the bus. We asked numerous 'bus drivers' and they did not speak English well and could not confirm where the Salerno bus was and when it would leave. So we gave up and headed to the train station. It has been a while for riding trains in Europe and knowing what car to get in, when do you have validate tickets and so on. And re-learning at Roma Termini, well, it is pretty crazy there. But, we figured it out.

We arrived in Salerno faster than we thought. We found where to buy bus tickets to Atrani. In 15 minutes, we were on a bus taking the craziest ride we probably have ever taken on a bus. Smallest, windiest, road I've ever been on with sheer cliffs down to the ocean. Pretty amazing. Bus stopped probably 20+ times to maneuver around cars. One car had to back up and hit the car behind it. We arrived to Atrani with our good friends waiting for us. The little apartment was about 50 meters away and quite a few steps up. It will be home until Tuesday. So glad to be with Scott and Michelle, our 'italian' friends (since they've been in Rome all week!).

One funny story while traveling from SLC to ORD (Chicago)....because we got on late, overhead bin space was gone near where we were to sit. So we took our bags to the back of the plane meaning when we landed, we would have to wait until people were off to go get our bags. Denise was in a middle seat across from my aisle seat. We were sitting in bulk head. After the flight got started, the fellow sitting next to Denise kindly offered to switch seats with me so Denise and I could be together. That was really nice. So we did it. During the flight, that fellow bought food and drinks from the airline staff. It looked pretty good (except the alcohol!). Anyway, when the flight ended, we stepped aside to let people off the plane. While I was waiting, I noticed a bill for services on my United flight. I opened the invoice, and I had been billed for this fellow's food and drink. I was like...'How can this happen?' So I grabbed one of the United employees and asked him what was up. We looked at the invoice and fortunately, the credit card number was not ours. So I knew I was not actually billed for the food. We finally came to the conclusion that because we had swapped seats, that the receipt for his purchases came to me because they thought I was the one in my seat. They did not use the name on the credit card to mail the receipt. They used the info on the person who was supposed to be in that seat. Interesting, huh?

Well, Friday was a blur. It was our 36 Wedding Anniversary. It was a very long travel day...not too much time to do much special for the day other than pray to get seats. I had hoped that we could get business class. But that bubble was popped pretty early on. Nonetheless, being Italy and eventually Greece should amend the inability to celebrate our anniversary much.

More to come in the days ahead!

Pictures:

Tim becoming a United Gate Agent...actually this guy invited me to come around the corner to select my seat. Nicest Gate Agent ever!

Waiting for our train to Salerno in Roma Termini train station....

Salerno train station. SITA is the bus we are waiting for to head into the Amalfi Coast area (Atrani is where our BNB is.).

The plaza outside the Salerno train station....

The bus ride was amazing...not words can describe the cliffs, small road and large buses driving on them. But the view was amazing the whole bus trip!