The trip; the disaster and of course the reminder everything is still beautiful and last post on the trip

 

There is so much I still want to talk about from our trip, but now it is been a few weeks since we got back and the world is moving on, so must I.

Let’s recap; our trip we flew to Lisbon then drove to Rome and back. We went through a northern path through Portugal.  We wanted to at least stop by Porto or see some of the silver coast, yet we left Lisbon late, then realized we forgot something right about the fork in the road to choose to head straight to Spain or go to Porto, so we drove back to the hotel in Lisbon and then it was really late so we went on to Spain. We spend the first night in Salamanca. Since we spent the entirety of the day in Salamanca we didn’t even leave Spain for the next night.

We drove across France and stumbled into Lourdes. And I mean we stumbled into Lourdes. Diving down the highway I saw a sign that said Lourdes one Kilometer and since we were going about 125 kilometers per hour we didn’t have time to realize where we were. The better half did check the internet and lo and behold it was Lourdes so we doubled back and spend the afternoon there. Of course this slowed us down some more. We actually had prepaid hotel in Rome so we needed to get there in a couple of days. We rushed to Montpellier and this was one of the few disappointing moments of the trip. The hotel just didn’t do it for us and we left early.

Only problem was I made a wrong turn and we ended up in very rural France desperately needing to fill up the car. We barely solved that problem timely, yet by now we were well off the beaten path and more specifically a highway to get going.

After about a hour or so we are back on track and at this point we could still make Rome about 7 or 8 if memory serves.

No no no, we hit multiple sections of the highway with road construction including times when the highway was completely stopped. This was from the last few cities of southern France, all through northern Italy. We did not get to Rome until 3 in the morning and we had a prebooked tour at ten thirty. We ran late everywhere in Rome, again really Vatican City. I have told our tales to so many people that I lose track of who knows what.

Okay I think I talked enough about Rome up until when we left. We finally got in the car and were headed out. We really wanted to go to Florence, but it was already late and we wanted to go one more place so we booked a hotel in Assisi. We went to the Basilica of Paul outside the wall. It was a bit of a drive from central Rome and we got there close to 6. We parked the car on the side of the road across from a park and near a couple of restaurants. The Basilica closed at 6:30 so we stayed no more than forty minutes.

We got back to the car and it was broken into. Someone had broken the back window, pulled down the back seat and stole all our luggage and a backpack and yes just about everything we had with us was packed inside. I want bore you with the litany of stuff we lost, but this was a three week trip and we had packed quite a bit. The only saving grace was we didn’t take clothes for three weeks and did laundry a couple of times along the way. The night before we had gone to a laundry service near our hotel so we had a small bag of clean clothes done after we packed up on the floor of the car. They didn’t take that, nor a bag of souvenirs, a box of cookies and a bottle of wine that was under the clothes. So that was it.

We filed a police report, contacted the rental car company and let them know we had reservations in Assisi and they said they would pick up the car once we got to the hotel and get us a replacement the next day. Sounded good to us.

By the time we left Rome it was dark, so we were doubly glad we were only going to Assisi since only about two plus hours away. And finding our hotel out in the middle of to us nowhere was a bit of a challenge, yet we did. Tired, angry, frustrated because we drove on some very country roads that was barely wide enough for one car, much less two.

First the hotel was outside of the actual town which ended up being quite a treat, yet that night coming in at midnight in pitch darkness on roads where we kept missing turns didn’t help  our mood one bit. We got checked in, called the customer service to let them know we arrived and a tow track came about a hour later. We went to bed.

Like the title says, now the beauty. We woke up and just about everywhere we looked, every window we opened, or looked through walking through the hotel the scenario was serene looking and I mean picture perfect serene looking. We were looking across a wide valley overlooking small houses, fields all green, the horizon had large hills that blended into the blue sky. And I mean blended in, since the hills were somewhat different heights, the top of the hills would kind of fade into the sky. It was eight in the morning so the sun was up.

The grounds of the hotel were also very nice, flowers, greenery everywhere. Well everywhere may not describe it well since overall this was a small hotel. I don’t think they had 100 rooms if that. They did have breakfast which was really good. They had a pool area that we just stared at since we no longer had bathing suits. Imagine just walking among outdoor tables here and there set in peaceful little not gardens per se, but grass, flowers, shrubbery that meandered throughout the grounds.

Yet we had to take care of business. We finished breakfast and called customer service. They arranged a ride to a local airport because they had a rental counter there. We checked with the hotel and they were fully booked for the night, yet the manager or owner, never knew which made arrangements and we were able to keep the same room we had the night before. At that moment we were grateful, but we didn’t know how grateful we were to become.

After spending the day arguing with the rental car employees, saying they didn’t have a car since we didn’t have a reservation, nor a car that could cross borders and we kept telling them we were told they would have one. Finally someone figured out corporate customer sent them an email around ten in the morning. They had pretty much ignored it apparently so at five o’clock or so customer service hires another service to come pick us up at the airport and take us back to the hotel. If the person in the morning had not made special arrangements for us, we would have been standing  in a hotel parking lot with our stuff and no where to go since the arranged ride was only to go back to the hotel. We were beyond mad. Now we would have to wait until customer service found us another car. I asked for them to arrange something in Florence since we wanted to go there. Nope somebody at the counter in Rome said they could get us a car. So the next day the rental car company arranged a driver to take us to Rome. Two plus hours back where we had come from two days ago.

Now the aside is sunset at this hotel was just beautiful. We sat on a balcony drinking that botte of wine that survived and didn’t move for well over an hour. It was only when we realized the restaurant was about to close and we were hungry did we move. The sun actually set behind the building from where we were sitting, but we watched the light fade over the valley and the moon rise while the sky was dusk. There was a bit of a haze over the valley that reached the hills so they magically disappeared into the sky. So after five to six hours of pure anger we now had two to three hours if you include sitting there again after dinner of a pure peace. We didn’t talk, we didn’t move, we just became part of the scenery on that balcony until we just couldn’t stay awake and went to bed.

Next morning we get up, received confirmation when the driver would pick us up to take us to Rome, was able to get the room for that night since we weren’t sure what time we would be back to get what was left of our things, and went for breakfast.

Folks it is a small world. At another table in this remote and very beautiful hotel was someone my wife knew. My wife had been posting on facebook our plight and so they knew about our situation. What neither knew until breakfast was that we were at the same hotel.

Again the hotel is very special and apparently this other couple who travel frequently knew of it so they choose it on their way, I cannot remember which direction they were headed, but they were there just for the previous night, had a few of their adult children in tow and after breakfast the family was going into a couple of different directions. Yet to be stranded in heaven on Earth, and run into someone my wife knew, just made added to the entire surrealness.\

They were very kind and offered to help in any way they could. Yet we were headed out so the lady and my wife spoke for a bit about things in general until we left for Rome.

The rental counter at Rome was another disaster. After being told we would have a car at one in the afternoon, it wasn’t there. They insisted they could only give us this one car and we had to wait until it was returned and cleaned up. So close to five we get our “replacement”. It was not equal to what we paid for, it was smaller and it was wrecked. Seriously, there was a big scrape dent running down the side covering both doors up to the back tire, the underside was scraped also. And they expected us to be happy with this car. Problem was we had no choice. We wanted to get going again. We still had to drive back to Assisi. We wanted to go to Church since it was Sunday. Which was another crazy story. I dropped my wife off and went to look for parking. I never found it and spent over a hour driving around the neighborhood getting lost a couple of times, using GPS on my phone which isn’t the same app as my wife’s so struggling to get back to her and we finally left Rome around 6:30 or 7 in the evening.

Tired and angry we get back to the hotel, yet again, pure serenity atmosphere and we settle in for the night. Now one thing that worried me was we were not required to pay until we left. I kept offering and the manager/owner kept saying do not worry about it, you can pay when you leave. Now I am a bit paranoid sometimes and all of a sudden I started to worry how much this was going to cost since they knew we were stranded. Nope paradise is paradise, the overall cost was no more than my original night prepayment and I breathed that momentary sigh of relief at check out and at this point we were two to three days behind where we wanted to be so we had to skip going to Florence and Tuscany and decided to go to Pisa.

First though we went to town and spend a wonderful good five or so hours in Assisi at the Cathedral, walking through the streets afterwards, the better half did some shopping for souvenirs, not for us yet, and we had a quaint lunch somewhere in town. Around 3 or 4 we headed to Pisa. We spend the night near Pisa, went clothes and toiletry shopping the next morning for ourselves, saw the tower and the surrounding area and drove on.

The rest of the trip flew by. We didn’t get to see half as much as we wanted and were always running behind. We saw Monaco at night which was absolutely beautiful staring at the moon headed west over the harbor.

We drove to a hotel near Nice, arrived late, but they took care of us. Woke up had coffee on the balcony overlooking a small park. Had breakfast then left, drove on to I forget where, but strange but true we had chosen a family type resort hotel in a small resort town. It was a crazy evening. We were tired now, which was pretty much how we felt since Rome, but there was a trivia contest going on in the bar/restaurant area to win a bottle of champagne. We played while drinking frozen cocktails. We didn’t win. My wife wanted to shop since we had seen street vendors while driving up, yet by the time we got out, they were closed up. We wandered for a short bit, then headed back to the hotel.

Left the next morning, tried to see the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, yet you needed to reserve tickets like two weeks in advance so we took pictures of the outside, bought some souvenirs and headed out.

We drove to Valencia and along the way we stopped at one of the small beach/marina towns for lunch. Had a simple lunch and some fun conversations with the local wait staff.

At Valencia we managed to get there early enough so we could walk around. We were not in the main tourist areas, but there was enough going on that we had a good time at a local restaurant. There was about thirty people at one table so it was keeping the wait staff super busy, but we were watching what was going to their table and copied catted them somewhat with our orders, especially the drink orders. I guess business was good or they felt bad about how busy they were since they could tell we were tourists and brought us some free drinks which were a local specialty. It was some type of creamy rice liquor drink with cinnamon on top and was very good.

Next day was going to be brutal and we did manage to get out of there somewhat quickly after having a pretty good breakfast buffet. I prepaid just a few of our hotels so we could be like the wind and see where it took us for much of the trip, but now we were headed back so the last few nights of the trip I prebooked us in the south of Portugal before we drove to Lisbon to fly home.

Yet we were in Valencia so we had to drive hard throughout the day to get to our hotel before dark. We did make it by early evening, got situated and was able to walk along a street that was just shops, street artists, restaurants and bars. It was quite an enjoyable evening and we finally got to relax. This was the beach part of the trip. Finally

We got up, had breakfast and spent the day at the beach in two parts. First part was laying out, catching some rays and playing in the water. Eventually as the tide was coming it the waves washed out our blankets and stuff so we headed to one of the walkway along the beach restaurants, had lunch and drinks. Thought we would go back to the hotel pool, but now it was getting late afternoon so we decided to shower and get ready for dinner.

We went back down to the beach area since it was early evening and headed across a pretty good stretch of beach or where it ran into rock formations. And this was fun.

We walked through the rock formation or under it like a small cave and walked into a whole new beach area. Now this area had more rock formations along the beach that water was going through, you can stand in one and look up to see the sky, quite unique. And all this was part of the beach the resort town we were in was attached. We crossed a good stretch of this beach and it started getting late so we finally found some stairs that was a monstrous climb back to the town. We made it and we realized we were now at the far end of the road we had explored the night before and I do mean the far end. We strolled along and eventually settled on another restaurant, had dinner and went back to the hotel. My wife bought some items for the grandkids here also from a street artist. Basically she was buying souvenirs here and there a bit throughout the trip.

We got up the next morning, headed to Lisbon, stayed the night there and flew off in the morning. We did manage to see more of Lisbon that night and go to church so a successful last night. And just one more fun strange thing happened, we accidentally found a tex mex restaurant in Lisbon so we had a great time, reacclimating ourselves to home before we went home.

The flight home went well. Returning the car was a bit of a chore since we wanted to start asking for money back etc, we are still working on that, but we have our ammunition filed and are expecting credit back to our card we used.

The only hiccup coming home was TSA in Boston. I don’t know what we did, but we set them off, and before it was all over, we lost some of the items we bought in Europe to them, not customs mind you TSA getting on our plane to Dallas. Since we lost our luggage, we did buy one to replace it since we had so little, but because we only had one suitcase we carried on some of our bags. Well that didn’t go well with TSA and so a couple of souvenirs and something else ended up in their care so to speak. I have no idea what they did with our stuff.

We made it home late that night and as they say the rest is history.