Back!
The Twip is over! (That's the name S and I gave the trip when we were planning it.)
10 days Italy and 7 days Germany... and no travel nightmares!
The worst part was flying Alitalia: never again! In a nutshell, we were not seated together either going to Italy, or returning to the States - we had to trade places with other passengers on the way there, and after S started crying (she's afraid of flying), an Alitalia agent did manage to seat us next to each other. (On the phone, the day before, we had reserved seats next to each other, and confirmed them, but when we checked in, we were seated apart, again.)
An American girl travelling with her parents became frustrated after: 1) staying an extra day in Milan after being bumped from their flight; 2) being given a vegetarian meal she didn't want because someone else was originally sitting in her seat before a switch (you MUST get the meal assigned to the seat on Alitalia, apparently); and 3) being scolded by the steward for stacking her used meal tray with those of her parents (this is against the rules!!!). That put her over the edge and she loudly asked the steward to leave her alone and not talk to her anymore, saying she wouldn't lower her voice until he kept moving down the aisle. Well, this seemed to offend the Italian pride of the steward, so he escorted her up to the captain, who threatened to arrest her for her complaining.
After we landed, and were being towed to our gate, some people stood up, and others turned on their cell phones. One steward detained the American guy sitting next to us for turning on his cell phone, and threatened to call the police and have him arrested... He kept asking for the guy's boarding pass, probably knowing that consulting the plane's manifest would be useless, with the number of seat switches...
Anyway, Alitalia is by far the worst airline I've ever flown on, no competition.
2nd worst part: the Italian train system:
- Not one single functioning elevator or escalator in any train station.
- Mandatory seat reservations (even for 2nd class) that cost 15 Euros per person per trip! AND they doubled-booked our seats! Same seats, same car, same train, same day! (The reservations are in addition to the tickets - we were using the Eurorail pass.) Daylight robbery, it felt like.
- Tremendously unhelpful staff by both the Italian rail and air systems - no one takes responsibility for anything. Well, the rail was a tiny bit better.

Other than that, it was a great trip! Rome-Pompeii-Sorrento-Capri for an afternoon-Florence-Tuscan countryside and a vinyard-San Gimignano (very cool medieval town)-Sienna-Venice(much cooler than I expected!)-the Alps(S's favorite part)-Salzburg(we did the Sound of Music tour!)-Nuremberg-Lichtenfels-Bamberg-Rothenburg-Munich!

Details and pictures to follow!
C

P.S. Congrats H on the UPenn news; congrats JP on the move; greetings to Dad from everyone, especially the Mueller family at Preussischer Hof, and Matzinger!
- posted by Christoph Roggenkamp @ 6/29/2006 03:11:00 PM