First Day in Rome

So,what do two American touists do on their firdt afternoon in Roma? Well, after the post arrival nap after a very long night on a plane, they go shopping... for underwear. Why? Because their checked luggage is STILL at JFK in New York. Why? Because the flight from Columbus to JFK was delayed due to traffic problems at JFK... we did not get off the plane until less than 30 minutes from the scheduled departure of our flight on Alitalia. We ran to Terminal 1 from terminal 2 and the alitalia folks at check in saw uscoming, escorted us through security and got us on the plane. we were the last people on the plane before they shut the doors. Well, we were worried that our luggage would not be on the plane and we were right. Several other folks, including another couple from columbus were in the ame boat. Fortunately for us, the Cunard representative was waiting for us in the terminal, helped us through the customer service process, and then took us to the hotel... but we also got an impromptu driving tour of  central Rome since it took a while to get to the hotel because of roads closed off (demonstrations)..

Well, things did not start out so well in Columbus before we got to the boarding gate. we got there in plenty of time. our luggage was tagged and put on the belt and sent somewhere, and our boarding pass from JFK to rome was printed out several times, but they could not print our borading passes for CMH to JFK. Why? because Delta had no record of out tickets and the flight was full. So, Bruce called our travle agent, Molly whoc alled mark at Cunard who called me and reda the ticket numbers over the phone and I gave them to the agent (the 3rd one we had talked to) and our passes were printed and the plane was no longer full until we boarded and sat in the very back row of this 5o passenger aircraft... Row 13!

So, anyway, after we checked at the Hotel Savoy in and freshened up, it was nap time... then shopping time... including the Gap, of all places... no underwear there for women. Any way we found a place where we got the unmentionables and continued walking the streets of the main shopping district with its teeming tourist hordes and then smack into another demonstration. We headed back to the Hotel Savoy via the Villa Borghese Park, found a little cafe in the neighborhood for dinner and sat outside enjoyng a beautiful evening... then found a great place for gelato on the Via Veneto, a wonderful street with all sorts of high end stores and expensive restaurants.

Following are the first photos of this journey, adventure, saga...