On Friday, June 7th, we flew home. Our adventuring was done. We went to the airport and returned the rental car, having driven it 3150 km (almost 2000 miles) in Italy. When you take into account the 150 miles that we drove in Czechia, it's well over 2000 miles that we drove on this trip!
In Italy, we drove from Venice > Udine > Trieste > Grado > Padua > Bevilaqua > Bologna > Ravenna > Pescara > Bari > Santa Maria di Leuca > Gallipoli > Taranto > Rocella Jonica > Scilla > Scalea > Salerno > Pompeii > Gragnano > Sorrento > Paestum > Sorrento > Pomigliano d'Arco > Pozzuoli > Naples.
So far, 5 1/2 months later, I have only one robot traffic ticket, for speeding in a nowheresville burg on the Ionian Coast. I expect more before a year is up, it typically comes to around $300 for assorted tickets within 10-12 months, especially ZTL violations. You have to pay or you can never again rent a car in Italy, a fate that I cannot even consider!
We arrived too early, but we got lucky and scored a table with room for our bags and a decent breakfast at a Tradizione Italia caffe, a chain but pretty good. We shared a Re di Napoli panini, an Insalata Caprese , two plain croissants, a Sfogliatella Napoletano, and one Cappuccino. Why just one coffee? Lorna and Melissa wanted to sleep on the flight. Me, I don't care; I work in high-tech and all of my caffeine sensors are long since out of commission!
Besides, I love the flight from Italy, getting the bird's eye view of those thousands of kilometers seen from the ground.
Lorna and I flew Aer Lingus, from 11:40 to 14:14 in Dublin. I really enjoy watching the Italian Coast unroll below me as I soar along, remembering what was on the other coast as we move northward. Eventually you leave Italy behind (until your next vacation) and you soar over the Alps and into a lot of boring flatitude as far as the English Channel and again to Dublin. Sorry, DUB.
Dublin is an extraordinarily charming city! But DUB is not. From DUB we departed at 16:45 and flew a perfectly routine flight to BOS, arriving at 18:50. After disembarking, we collected our things at the baggage carousel, took the 20:30 Plymouth-Brockton bus to exit 5, arriving at 21:40 for a ride home with our neighbor Mike.
It was clearly too late to think about supper, but the next night we celebrated with lobsters and steamers...gee, it's great to be home again!