Driving to Palermo airport
May. 5th, 2014 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteTo ensure that we didn't oversleep and have to rush like mad to reach the airport in time for our flight, we both set alarms for 5 AM on our iPhones. Our test drive suggested it would take about an hour to get to the airport, and that was assuming no surprises. Given that we’ve had a few surprises during this vacation, we wanted to leave plenty of time. It was still pitch black when we tottered out to the car and dumped our bags into the trunk. Our final descent into Scopello was uneventful, as we'd learned the locations of all the worst potholes, trenches, and obstacles along the road during previous trips, and apart from one or two missed turns when the GPS hiccuped or when I reacted too slowly to advice on which of several options to choose, we had no trouble reaching the airport. The sun cooperated nicely: it remained safely behind the Palermo mountains until it was high enough that it wasn’t shining directly into my eyes as I drove, and instead contributed a lovely sunrise for our final hours in Sicily.
We left our car at the Hertz office with a certain degree of trepidation, and rather than waiting for the next shuttle bus to the airport building, we hoisted our backpacks and walked the hundred or so metres between the rental office and the airport building. [Update from several days later: No outraged phone calls or e-mails to complain about damage done to the car, but I won't be convinced we escaped with our skin intact until we get the final credit card bill.]
We'd left too early for breakfast at the B&B, but made it through ticketing and Security (a rather perfunctory inspection compared with many we've endured in North America) with enough time for breakfast. The Palermo airport offered a restaurant with only mildly outrageous prices. Rather than the usual dolci, of which I for one had had enough, we opted for pasta shells (orecchi) with pesto. Though the menu warned they were frozen, they cooked up nicely, and were surprisingly good. Two really good caffè lattès (latti?) washed them down and woke us up somewhat.
We had an uneventful flight to Rome, and no problem finding our flight to Amsterdam. Once in Amsterdam, we had a couple hours to kill, so we decided to double-check our boarding passes, which bore the cryptic note "need flt coupon" that suggested a potential problem best avoided. We never did figure out what the actual problem was, but the friendly and efficient KLM staff printed us new boarding passes and all was well.
We wandered through a few airport shops in search of last-minute gifts for friends and family, sampled two very nice Glenfiddich special single-malts from the company’s "cask collection" (the Vintage and Reserve), and stopped there. Depending on the duty-free shop, you can often get samples even when they're not being aggressively advertised, but you do have to ask; several trips ago, one duty-free shop in Heathrow was offering a dozen or so brands of alcohol that were available for sampling (vodkas, whiskeys, and liqueurs), and we took full advantage of their offers. As a result, we left the shop far less steadily than we'd entered.
In Amsterdam, we also sampled a couple Dutch treats: stroopwaffels (thin, biscuit-like waffles with a caramel-like syrup holding them together) and poffertjes (pancakes about 3 cm across). Both were very tasty.
Although we were inside the Security zone after leaving our flight from Rome, we still had to pass through passport control on our way to the gate for our flight to Montreal. This seems to have been necessary because we were leaving the EU zone; inside that zone, no such checks are necessary. The jovial fellow behind the counter asked us whether we wanted our passports back; even though he was smiling with both lips and eyes, the Germanic accent made it feel a bit creepy. Annoyingly, the airport had set up a second security screening inside our gate. So we had to go through yet another round of unpacking all our liquids and our iPads. Security theater at its worst, since it wasn’t possible to reach the gate without passing at least one security check, making the value of the new check questionable. The terrorists win when they make you self-impose misery on what used to be a pleasant experience.
I wrote this summary of our last day in the plane, on the way home, and finished with a couple hours left before we descended into Montreal. Final thoughts on the vacation tomorrow, time permitting.
We left our car at the Hertz office with a certain degree of trepidation, and rather than waiting for the next shuttle bus to the airport building, we hoisted our backpacks and walked the hundred or so metres between the rental office and the airport building. [Update from several days later: No outraged phone calls or e-mails to complain about damage done to the car, but I won't be convinced we escaped with our skin intact until we get the final credit card bill.]
We'd left too early for breakfast at the B&B, but made it through ticketing and Security (a rather perfunctory inspection compared with many we've endured in North America) with enough time for breakfast. The Palermo airport offered a restaurant with only mildly outrageous prices. Rather than the usual dolci, of which I for one had had enough, we opted for pasta shells (orecchi) with pesto. Though the menu warned they were frozen, they cooked up nicely, and were surprisingly good. Two really good caffè lattès (latti?) washed them down and woke us up somewhat.
We had an uneventful flight to Rome, and no problem finding our flight to Amsterdam. Once in Amsterdam, we had a couple hours to kill, so we decided to double-check our boarding passes, which bore the cryptic note "need flt coupon" that suggested a potential problem best avoided. We never did figure out what the actual problem was, but the friendly and efficient KLM staff printed us new boarding passes and all was well.
We wandered through a few airport shops in search of last-minute gifts for friends and family, sampled two very nice Glenfiddich special single-malts from the company’s "cask collection" (the Vintage and Reserve), and stopped there. Depending on the duty-free shop, you can often get samples even when they're not being aggressively advertised, but you do have to ask; several trips ago, one duty-free shop in Heathrow was offering a dozen or so brands of alcohol that were available for sampling (vodkas, whiskeys, and liqueurs), and we took full advantage of their offers. As a result, we left the shop far less steadily than we'd entered.
In Amsterdam, we also sampled a couple Dutch treats: stroopwaffels (thin, biscuit-like waffles with a caramel-like syrup holding them together) and poffertjes (pancakes about 3 cm across). Both were very tasty.
Although we were inside the Security zone after leaving our flight from Rome, we still had to pass through passport control on our way to the gate for our flight to Montreal. This seems to have been necessary because we were leaving the EU zone; inside that zone, no such checks are necessary. The jovial fellow behind the counter asked us whether we wanted our passports back; even though he was smiling with both lips and eyes, the Germanic accent made it feel a bit creepy. Annoyingly, the airport had set up a second security screening inside our gate. So we had to go through yet another round of unpacking all our liquids and our iPads. Security theater at its worst, since it wasn’t possible to reach the gate without passing at least one security check, making the value of the new check questionable. The terrorists win when they make you self-impose misery on what used to be a pleasant experience.
I wrote this summary of our last day in the plane, on the way home, and finished with a couple hours left before we descended into Montreal. Final thoughts on the vacation tomorrow, time permitting.