And so today, we finished the European
leg of our year away. We planned our
itinerary to comply with Schengen regulations as we are travelling on Australian
passports. It may have been easy enough
to stay longer but I had enough running around prior to leaving Australia
sorting out other visas that I wasn’t about to make more work for myself! Back to the Schengen Zone, it is basically
Western Europe and as Australian passport holders, we are permitted to stay 90
days in the Schengen Zone out of 180 days with no visas. In UK, as Australians we are permitted to
stay for 6 months without a visa and we were grilled fairly thoroughly, but
nicely, when we entered UK back in May this year. Anyway, suffice to say, we
were on the cusp of our Schengen welcome, with a day to spare, as we left Europe!
A quick trip to our local
supermarket, Conad, for lunch supplies and a clean and tidy of the apartment
and we were out the door, on time, at 10 AM!
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| Farewell Rome and nice cool weather! |
We left our Rome apartment in
fine sunny weather and trundled along to Lepanto Metro where we took one train,
before we changed lines to Line A, to take the second train of the day to
Ostiense where we took the third train, the airport train, to Fuimicino
Aeroporto. This process took about two
hours and all went smoothly. Then came
the bus part of our journey! Shuttle bus to Terminal 5, where we arrived at 12
MD only to find that this particular terminal doesn’t OPEN until 1 PM!!! At this stage, my thoughts turned to the
Tiger Airways terminal at Tullarmarine which is simply described as a
shed! Tiger Airways is OK for trips to
Queensland but I didn’t fancy a super economy trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka to connect
with our Bangkok flight! It was noted
that Air Sri Lanka partnered with a few other airlines including Malaysian
Airlines which has not had a great reputation of late.
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| Only one more moving day after this one! |
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| Notice on subway! |
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| Waiting for airport train |
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| Looking tired before the journey begins! |
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| See what I mean about Terminal 5 - classy, eh?! |
Before long, we joined the throng,
and checked in. We pleased that our gear
came in under the required weight but we were ASTONISHED at tiny little Sri
Lankan women putting on 45 KG bags (or heavier) and arguing the point with the
airline staff. We were permitted 30 kgs
each. I did think that as two of the
women who were trying to take heavy gear would have only weighed about 40 kgs
each, then perhaps luggage plus person would equal a permissible combined
weight! And then we noted how much hand
luggage many of our co-passengers were bringing on board to crowd out the
overhead lockers! We had a day pack each
and many others had three! I am still
puzzled as to how this was permitted but we also saw it on Air Asia flying to
India. Jetstar would just not permit it!
Then we had the second bus ride
of the day, another shuttle bus to another holding spot. At this stage, I was really rather concerned
about choosing the cheapest airfare! AND
yet another bus to take us to the plane!
So far, 3 trains and three buses!
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| On board, UL0582, great seats at the rear of the plane, close to the lovely stewards to ask for endless cups of water! |
With trepidation we climbed up
the rear steps of Air Sri Lanka UL 0582 and were pleasantly surprised! Air Sri Lanka was fabulous! The service was excellent, the food was delicious (although 3 main meals in a row was rather filling!) and the seats were
comfortable and the toilets were clean!
The sunset over the fairy floss
clouds was a lovely display and as it was clear for much of the flight we could
see cities and coasts of Arabic nations as we flew over them.
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| Delicious fairy floss clouds! |
We all watched a selection of
movies and I am pleased to say that I enjoyed all of my choices: Mr Holmes,
Should I stay? and Mission Impossible 5!
Luke was delighted that he finally got to see the Minions Movie.
Although I am never sure where a
night flight blog should end, this may be a good spot!
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