30 years well marked

The Hilton Airport Hotel, albeit a bit tired, turned out to be a great suggestion from our tremendous travel consultant, Pam at Travel Trends.  Pam has been fantastic over the decades helping us plan our adventures in all directions.  To my great delight, we found the ristorante to be much better than expected, and our waiter was particularly good.

 Room was clean, comfortable and spacious - the latter being a bit unusual in Europe - particularly the bagno! We made our final packing decisions and turned in early to prep for the upcoming long travel day.  We had reconnoitered the airport so had no trouble finding check in for our first leg from Fiumicino to Frankfurt.  We had time for one last piccola colazione amidst the chaos of new electronic ordering systems that kind of work.  Upon check in at the gate, I was advised that my carryon bag was too big and would have to be checked, no discussion.  May have been because I was lugging all of our carry on instead of having Karen holding hers?  Regardless, it was a bit irritating since there was plenty of overhead bin room on both legs, and this bag has passed size checks many times in the past.  Flight suffered some minor delays getting going which shortened our connection time in Frankfurt enough to make for a stressful walk with no wheels through several passport checks.  The new electronic systems are going through the testing phase so what happens is you go through document and biometric (face scan and finger prints) multiple times.  To add to the anxiety, the border agents could not be more nonchalant about moving passengers through the process.  We found our gate with the boarding process in progress, much to K’s relief as she was well and truly ready to be home.  The long flight was smooth and on time and quite comfortable, so the rumours we heard about Discover Airlines being a poor choice turned out to be unfounded.  The icing on the cake however was getting randomly selected for additional customs screening after collecting our luggage (hurray, it all showed up!).  Once more sitting there watching the CBP officers trying to look busy while passengers being iced in the holding pen.  When our folder finally came up the guy walks up to us, asks what we are bringing eligible for duty free and how much it cost and then just says “exit over there”.  No search, what a waste of time, no chance we’ll be on TV getting the third degree!  So, all in all, we suffered no ill effects from travelling to Europe and using planes, trains and automobiles to move us about.  Crowds were not too intense, but we were glad to not be there during high season.  Weather was mostly pretty good, not great.  The eating and drinking was first rate and we certainly logged a lot of steps! Once home, we did our best to catch up on our allowable water use under the ongoing water restrictions??  So, in the indomitable words of BMW, great trip, glad to be home!