Firenze Trip – Getting There

Unless you are a native of this country or have been there, you would not know that Firenze (Fee × rent×say) is what Italians call the capital of the Tuscany region but what English speakers call Florence.  And if you have been there, you will not have forgotten this name as you see it everywhere.  Yes, my wife and I flew to Florence in November of 2024 to celebrate early our 45^th wedding anniversary (recall we were married three days before Christmas in 1979).  This was our first trip to Europe since before the pandemic.

We had been talking about going to Europe for quite some time and discussed the possibility again in the fall of 2023 before settling on going to Montreal Canada.  My brother and his family had been to Italy in the spring, and he had developed quite a full itinerary.  Thanks to all the research he did, we felt like we should also make a trip to Italy.

After my wife did some of her own research, we booked an air/hotel vacation package through the airline we typically fly.  She wanted to stay long enough so we would feel like we had been away and have plenty of time to adjust to the seven-hour time change.  She suggested some dates in the middle of November for a total of nine nights (one night on the plane).  This would be the longest we both had been away from home by ourselves probably since before we had kids.

But just getting there turned out to be quite an ordeal.

We flew from Memphis to Atlanta on Veterans Day (Monday) without any trouble.  We had about a 2-hour layover before our 4:00 PM flight to Paris for our next connection.  After we boarded, the plane left close to on time and after a nice dinner and some wine, my wife and I both had our usual challenges of trying to sleep basically sitting up.  I think I may have gotten about an hour of actual sleep on our 8-hour flight.

We landed in Paris on time at about 6 AM.  I knew we had a tight one hour and 10-minute layover and so was nervous as we taxied for some time.  When we finally pulled up to our gate, we were ready to jump up and grab our carryon luggage as soon as the seat belt sign turned off.  But before it did, the pilot announced that the French police had asked everyone to remain in their seats.  As the clock ticked, a person started driving the jet way up to the plane.  It must have been their first time as it was like an inexperienced teenager driver trying to parallel park for the very first time—back and forth, in and out, over and over and over again.

Once the door was finally opened, a woman in a red police uniform came onboard and went to the back of the plane.  After what seemed like forever, she came forward escorting a young girl with her backpack.  We never learned why although interestingly, a week after we got back home, I read in the newspaper about a flight from New York to Paris where upon landing, a stowaway passenger was removed from the plane by the French police in just the same manner I described.

Since our seats were just three rows back from the door, we were some of the first ones off the plane.  As we hurried up the escalator, I saw a woman in an Air France uniform holding a tablet with our flight number, destination, and departure time.  I stopped and said we were on that flight.  She replied wait here; we will all go together as there are a total of 13 passengers making that same tight connection.

We waited and waited as many other passengers walked past us but no one else stopped.  When the entire flight crew came up the escalator, the representative was puzzled.  Then lagging behind the flight crew was one young girl who saw the sign and stopped.  We waited a few more precious minutes, before the four of us began to hustle off.  We went through long hall after long hall before jumping on a train that ran between terminals.  Since we had come from the US, we had to go through security again.  Thankfully there was no line.

However, having grown accustomed to Pre-TSA policies in the US, I failed to remove my Kindle e-readers.  My backpack was pulled aside, and she asked if I had a tablet computer.  I took out my Kindles and then she swabbed them for trace explosives.  Satisfied with negative test results, she then swabbed my backpack.  After another negative result, she ran my backpack through the scanner again and it was okay.  But my blunder had wasted more precious time for all of us.

We next had to go through passport control where there was a line.  Thankfully with her credentials she was able to take us to the front of the line.  We had been hustling as fast as we could but once we got through there, she asked if we could run as they would not hold the plane for us.  This was a surprise as I had assumed that was why she was escorting us.  We took off running with carryon luggage and backpacks and the Air France representative running in her heels.

When we finally got to the right terminal, she told us what gate we needed, and I took off sprinting intending to get them to hold the plane for all of us.

We made it!

When we finally got on the plane, we saw it was packed.  When we got to our row, there was a young woman sitting in my window seat who did not speak English.  I was so flustered, I just motioned that she could stay, I would sit in the middle seat for this short flight.  Thankfully, there was still overhead bin space for us to store our carryon luggage.  Once the door was closed and we buckled up, the pilot came on and announced first in French and then in English, that we were on a 30-minute air traffic ground hold.  I thought wow how frustrating after all that rushing but as it turned out, had that not happened, the plane would have already left as we were late getting to the gate.

Our only complaint about this flight was the much tighter spacing between rows than we were accustomed to on US airplanes.  We landed in Florence, which I realized it was a pretty small airport.  There were no jetways at the gates.  Stairs were rolled up to the front and back exits of the plane and we went out the back.

Once we were inside the terminal, I looked for a desk to exchange dollars for Euros as I had always done in Amsterdam.  There was none.  We then went to the baggage claim where we were pleasantly greeted by a driver my wife had arranged holding a white board with her name on it.  As we made our way to our hotel, I realized there was no major highway that took us on our journey.  We went through small, sometimes, one-way streets.

We finally arrived at our hotel about 10:30 AM.  We were most thankful that we could check into our room early.  Once we walked in, we were most pleased with the room and the view we had out our large window.

     To be continued…