The Adventure Begins….

Thursday, April 16 – Friday, April 17

So after much planning and with giddy excitement, we set out on our grand adventure.

Our house & dog sitters…

came by for some last minute instructions and left us confident they were up to the task of keeping our dogs lives fulfilling and our house from falling down.

The flight plan:

Flying into Milan, via Newark airport. Got an awesome round trip price (paid for by credit card points, score!) on a direct flight on United/Lufthansa (i admit i was hoping to be on a Lufthansa plane, was a bit disappointed to end up on boring old  United airplane).

Where I vastly erred was in thinking what a great idea it would be to take a flight that left at 6:30 pm and arrived (after a 6 hour time difference) at 8:40 in the morning in Milan, Italy. What could be bad about that? We load on to an airplane, liquor up or medicate (choose your poison), have a pleasant snooze, and wake up refreshed and ready for our European adventure.

What i didn’t take into consideration…

A totally full flight, a cattle car if you will, of heavily baggaged people in a minimal baggage-space type area. Seats that either didn’t recline properly, or didn’t recline at all. And my wretched body clock – the one that likes to stay up until somewhere between 12-1 AM every night – seriously rebelled at the thought of a 7:30 bedtime. Oh, and that vast array of movie options tempting all of us to stay up all night and movie binge – I’ll admit it, I’m a movie junkie. And who can say no to a good Nicholas Sparks movie? Not I…

Arriving in Milan:

We arrived, dazed and exhausted. And spent the next hour standing in line for customs, along with masses of other dazed and sleep deprived sub-segments of humanity. When we finally made it to the customs agent, we sailed through seamlessly – this is when we realized the great travel tool at our disposal – Mackenzie’s super smile! With the help of those pearly whites (and a well-spent Invisalign investment), we spent the remainder of the trip sailing through customs checkpoints, security agents, and (some) transit personnel utilizing this formidable weapon. I mean, really, who could withstand when she turns on the bling??

Finally finding our way to baggage claim, we were surprised – after all this time had passed – to see only 5 lonely suitcases circling the carousel. Just 5. Then the same 5. Looking at the baggage chute we spotted – to our dismay (but not surprise) – Mackenzie’s new, giant suitcase jamming the chute and backing up bags piled up as far as the eye could see. Jeff swiftly engaged his ninja skills, leaping over barricades and scaling the luggage chute when, to our alarm, we spotted a maintenance employee on his way. Not wanting to be yelled at in Italian our first hour on land, we implored him to scramble back to the legal side of the barricade and await official help. Finally, suitcases liberated, and we were  free to begin our grand adventure.

Milan airport assumes…

a lot about people. For one, it assumes you actually know what you are doing and where you are going. This would be a wrong assumption. We had no idea where to go after baggage claim. And there were virtually no signs. Although I have to admit it we saw many signs on our return trip through the airport, so i will allow for to the possibility that we might have missed something while wandering in a bleary-eyed state. Eventually we found our way to the car rental counter – a surprisingly complex task – and picked up our Ford C-Max, and were on our merry way.

The decision to rent a car went something like this:

We would skip over to the car, drive easily & happily to our first stop in Verona, a mere 90 minute car trip, made easy with the aid of  our pre-programmed GPS, thus alleviating the need to figure out the Italian train system first thing upon our arrival. Winning plan.

How things really went…

Kenzie fell asleep within seconds of climbing into the back seat. I fell asleep mere minutes later. Jeff (my husband and our erstwhile driver, heretofore to be referred to as the chauffeur and official sherpa of the trip), also mentioned snoozing through much of the trip to Verona right along with us.

Perhaps it might have been a better idea to tackle the trains right away. I do however have serious doubts that any of us may have woken up in time to actually get off at the Verona train station. So in the end…all’s well that ends well. (And yes, Alexis, you DID warn us… i’ll willingly accept the “I told you so”).

Onward to fair Verona!

Travel tip:

By the way, we had a seamless car & GPS rental experience using my go-to travel agent – Maud Hoyer at Avoya Travel – (maud.hoyer@avoyatravel.com). She set us up renting a car and GPS through a company that was recommended both by Maud and many online reviewers – AutoEurope, and English based company out of Portland, Maine. Together they set us up with a GPS shipped to my home prior to the trip (giving me a chance to pre-program destinations) as well as a Hertz rental car, who had very helpful employees who got us set up. Thanks to all of these guys, car rental experience worked seamlessly, highly recommended!