Only a couple of weeks away!!!

Man time flies when you are hemorrhaging money! (I hate the stock market, the bond market, and the supermarket these days!) Oh well ... we can pretend we have the money to make the trip!

Actually we are REALLY glad we got the trip paid for (for the most part) when we did because we are committed to go this way and with the way the economy is going we might have otherwise missed out on a trip we likely will never have the chance to take again ... so ... all smiles ... off we will go!!

As we did in our Alaska travel log we will try very hard to make daily entries here and we LOVE to read comments so please do let us know what you think or questions about what we have seen.

If you scroll down in this log you will see some of the highlights of where we expect to go and what our actual itinerary is. As posted we will fly out of San Antonio VERY EARLY on November 7 ... have a lengthy (like 6+ hrs) layover in Newark and then wing it across the pond to Rome landing there around 7:45AM on November 8.

I have arranged thru our hotel in Rome to have a "driver" pick us up at the airport and take us to the hotel ... we COULD have taken the train since the hotel is only a couple of blocks from the main train station in Rome but to tell the truth after my long ago experience with a cab driver in London that didn't understand my "Texan" I'm pretty sure getting on the correct train heading the correct direction and getting off at the right place and then getting directions to the hotel and walking there in Rome ... where not only do they not understand "Texan" but for the most part "English" ... I'm pretty sure that plan would be doomed to failure.

Our hotel is the Orlanda in Rome the link follows

Link to Hotel Info

This is NOT a 5 star hotel ... but it's close to the center of Rome (like the Coliseum) and other tourist type spots we want to see during our 2 day stay before sail away on November 10.

We will be touring the Vatican on our first day (Saturday) there and a couple of other such spots and then on the 9th will toodle around the major "must sees" downtown.

There are six of us traveling together ... we will meet up with our friends Woodie and Linda Meyer and their friends Paul and Jeanne Stone in Rome on the 8th. Those two couples left today (10/24/08) for Germany to visit and tour around that part of Europe before we hook up with them in Rome.

As posted in this web log earlier (scroll down) ... we have several exciting excursions all planned ... it's gonna be a blast!

We will post photo's either directly in the log or more likely in the Med Trip Gallery (there is a link to the gallery on the left side of the web log title page just under the subscription box) ... but ... internet access on the ship is both incredibly slow and excruciatingly expensive ... so it's likely that the majority of our photos will be posted after our return to home ground.

Ok ... enough for now .... thanks for reading and remember we love to read your comments as we boogie along ...

Bade