Sunday 5 November
Tucson to Phoenix

We leave Tucson with Anita just after 2pm.  Will is driving and the traffic is light.  We arrive at PHX at 3:40 and drop Anita and her luggage at Terminal 4.  She is taking an 8:30pm flight on British Airways, changing at London (Heathrow) and arriving in Rome in the late afternoon on Monday.  She will spend the night at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport Hotel in Rome.  On Tuesday she will meet us in the arrivals terminal at 9:40am, when we are scheduled to arrive on our Delta overnight flight from Atlanta.

Will and I are spending Sunday night at the Hilton Garden Inn at Phoenix Skyway Airport.  We chose this hotel because they let you park your car for as long as you are traveling; the first 7 nights are free; additional nights are $5. each.

We are scheduled to leave early on Monday morning on an 8:25 Delta flight to Atlanta, where we have a four hour layover before our Delta non-stop flight to Rome, leaving at 6pm on Monday and arriving in Rome at 9:40 on Tuesday morning.
 

We have arranged a private car and driver to take us from Rome to the port in Civitevecchia, about an hour northwest.  I have used this transportation method on previous cruises from this port.

 

We have a mediocre dinner, not worth describing, at the hotel and settle in for an early bedtime.  Before sleep we enjoy reading all the wonderful emails we have received since the big day on Friday—truly heartwarming!

Monday, 6 November
Phoenix to Rome
 

We awake just a few minutes before the alarms are set to go off at 4:15.  We take the 5:30 free shuttle for the 5-minute ride to the airport.  The gentleman pushing my wheelchair is from Ethiopia and is quite chatty, telling us about his plan to have nine children (to serve as his personal bodyguards).  He comes from a family of 20 surviving brothers and sisters and over 100 aunts and uncles (his grandfather was very prolific).  Since he is in control of my transportation we decide not to lecture him about birth control and over population.

We have time for breakfast at a Mexican restaurant before boarding our very full flight.  I am always happy to pay the extra fee for economy comfort, even the little bit of legroom and free snack is worth the money.  The flight was quite comfortable except for the temperature, which was twenty degrees south of the North Pole!  We finally had to ask a flight attendant to have the captain turn the AC system off.

We have a four-hour layover in Atlanta, so we can enjoy a leisurely late lunch at Pei Wei in the International Terminal, and spend some time browsing in duty free.  Our flight is scheduled for 6pm, and right now at 4:03pm, it is posted as on time.

Indeed, we make an on-time departure.  The flight is full, but we have a two-seat section (aisle and window) in economy comfort, where we are blessed with a few extra inches of padding and legroom.  But not much can make the 10-hour flight very pleasant.  We watch movies, read, and I manage to sleep for a couple of hours.

Eventually morning does come.

Tuesday, 7 November
Rome to Civitavecchia

The sun is rising just as our plane crosses over the shoreline of France, close to the frontier of Brittany.  Perhaps we will see more land as we fly diagonally over middle and southern France toward the Riviera and the Mediterranean, but we are still too high to see anything but a layer of clouds below us.

We are scheduled to land at 9:40am, but we will probably be a few minutes early.

In the next blog entry I will take us from Rome to the cruise port in Civitavecchia.

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