Weather disruption

Final exploration of Rome

I enjoyed my short stay in Rome.  Temperatures were good day and night as long as I stayed out of the sun.  But I felt that Rome was more expensive than Paris this time.  I felt the sting with the strong Euro against the Kiwi dollar.

After my short stay, I move on to Suceava in Romania today.  With a flight at 1825 I have some time to explore more of this historical city but was limited by my hotel’s 1100 check-out.

There wasn’t quite enough time after check-out to do much so I started early by heading out at 0800.

• I started at Campo de’Fiori which is an active market square, which is supposed to be quiet on a Sunday morning. But with Bangladeshis now running the stalls, it was actually operating, to my surprise.
• Not too far away was Piazza Navona. I revisited to catch it in a better light, sans the evening crowd.
• I continued to Villa Borghese, which wasn’t that impressive after everything that I’ve seen in Rome.
• From there, I continued to the Spanish Steps, and again it was a worthwhile visit to see in without the crowds.

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Back at the hotel at 1000, I prepared for the 1100 check-out and thereafter, killed some time in the lobby before taking the 1215 bus to Fiumicino Airport.  Time went quickly deleting and editing photos!

Big weather delay

Approaching the airport after 1300, I was lots of aircraft parked that belonged to the defunct flag carrier, Alitalia.

Even though my Wizz flight departed from Terminal 3, I was able to proceed airside from Terminal 1 (which was less crowded) as both have a common airside.  That’s the beauty of travelling without check-in luggage.

Getting airside was super swift with new scanners (that don’t require laptops and liquids to be presented separately) and zero queues.

The rain outside was now torrential.  I had started spitting on the bus ride and I was glad I hadn’t been caught in it while waiting at the bus stand.

Even though I had three lounges to choose from, none of them would take me for another hour or two.

In the lounge, I did plenty of catching up with admin and online work, tucking into the simple but very adequate hot and cold food options.

My flight was now delayed by an hour due to a hold-up coming from its previous destination, meaning that I stayed a bit longer in the lounge.

In the typical budget airline process, we lined up at the gate around 1845 for a departure around 1925.  By now, the weather was so bad that we couldn’t see the other wing of the airport from out the window.

On Flightradar24, I could see the plane had been circling endlessly already and that some (and later many) flights had been diverted after holding in the air.

I felt quite troubled by this as Suceava is not well served by many routes and if the flight was cancelled, there wouldn’t be many or any alternatives that would get me there within a day or two.  The Wizz flight at the next gate to nearby Iasi had already been cancelled as the plane had been diverted to Naples.

I tried to minimise the suspense by not checking my phone too frequently to see the whereabouts of the aircraft but was tremendously relieved when it landed.

By the time we boarded around 2115, I had been standing at the gate for about 2h30.  Our departure would be around 3h late but I was grateful that we were even flying!  In the scheme of what can go wrong with travel and flying, this was nothing.

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Offload delay

Once everyone had settled on board, we waited for a bit.  When I was the cabin crew having a confab upfront, I didn’t have a good feeling.  An announcement was made explaining that a passenger was unwell and had to be taken off.  The police boarded and apparently there were ambulance staff as well, even though I didn’t notice them.

With any offload, checked luggage has to be removed from the hold but I hadn’t realised that here, it is a requirement that remaining passengers on board identify their hand luggage in the overhead lockers.  This to ensure that the offloaded passenger hasn’t left any item of risk onboard.

Finally on the way

We finally departed 3h35 behind schedule, but again, I was grateful for the flight not to be cancelled.  Some passengers were not appreciative of how close we were to not going at all and were somewhat unruly.  I’m surprised at how well the crew handled it without simply offloading them and causing further delays.

Inflight a choice of a sweet or salty snack was offered with a glass of water.  I chose a small piece of chocolate.