Set up a small trip to Phoenix for Sandy’s birthday and the new years holiday and our American Airlines flight was delayed by 20 mins. No big deal it’s only a few mins, not long after the delay turned into “sorry your flight is not leaving till tomorrow”. When I called and explained where I needed to be and when ( Tucson by 11 ) They said the best they could do was 6PM on Saturday. That was not going to work. And this is not the first time American Air has screwed up my flights.
I found out from Tanner if it was not an act of GOD American could have made arrangements on another airline for us to get to our destination by FAA rule. I didn’t know this and had already canceled the original flights to and from. The rep from American never told me this, so I called them back. The “supervisor” said because she didn’t hear the conversation she could not help, she did acknowledge that was the rule but could do nothing.
Just to make a long story short avoid American Airlines due to incompetence in my opinion and let’s drive them into the ground for bad leadership.
This month was a trip to Italy and the Milan area and a 3 and a half hour drive south to visit some other small towns. The first part of the trip was to drive from Milan to a small city called Monticelli. Now, this is not a place most people would stay in Italy. But it had a train station and was not far from places you do want to visit. Being one of the drivers on this tour it was important to me to find something where I didn’t have to drive all the time.
Well you think driving in Italy was hard, it’s no different than any other city you have driven in. Now the signs are in another language but that’s to be expected. The drive took some time after 20 hours of flying so we stopped in some town to eat, the owner and her kids were so glad to see us ( it seemed to me) a party of 5 in a small local pizza place. The food was wonderful.
In Tortona,Italy
The next stop was to be Rapallo, Italy but the driving got to us and after a coffee break, it was time to hit the hotel for some sleep. The town we were staying in was Montecatini Italy, this was a point we could get to other locations from using the train or the cars. Worked out great for me as I was one of the drivers, and when in Italy wine and driving don’t mix ( there is my PSA for this blog).
Montecatini Italy
The town was not a tourist site but was very small and cute, the people were friendly as always. I think the hotel was used for conventions because it was close to where the tour buses parked. After a good nights sleep it was off to Lucca via the train.
Have I told you it rains in Italy and every day it seems I found a puddle first thing in the morning. We get to Lucca later in the day then we wanted and it had been raining most of the day, getting out of the train it was a downpour. We needed a cafe and some coffee to try and wait it out. Now one of the reasons I wanted to go to Lucca was because there is a square that the boys from Top Gear visited. Now, this is a walled city with a lot of footpaths into the city but not many built for cars, as we walked around not knowing what way to go we found all the footpaths flooded. After walking the wrong way for a while we got directions on how to get into the city. We got in and took some photos without finding the plaza I was looking for. Back to the hotel for wine.
The next day was Piza, now from what I heard there was not much to see except for the tower. And this was a car trip so we got an early start( so I could have some wine later in the day) I was correct about it being small.
And then there was wine, starting to see a trend here.I do have to say if you never read any of my post’s before the food is wonderful and I have not found a “bad” place to eat in Italy and there are so many food blogs about the food there I would be wasting time.
Time to move to the next stop La Spezia, this was a apartment we rented on our way back up the coast. It’s a port with a lot very large and expensive boats in the ports, but that god for Google maps I never would have my found my way in and out. One of the reasons for this stop was the coastal city’s. Now we did bring a photo enthused with us, but that’s a long story you don’t want to read.
Manarola, Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy; Shutterstock ID 66791440; Project/Title: Best of Europe; Downloader: Melanie Marin
La Spezia was a cool little city to visit and I would like to go back for a long visit.Lets see what work thinks about the time off.
Now I’m a bad blogger and its taken me 3 weeks to get this posted, if you would like more info about the places we visited feel free to contact me. Now back to the wine.
Eric Berry's Blog 