Rome - Day 13 Friday 9/13

After breakfast at our hotel, it was time to say goodbye and thank you to Jane and Jay. We had an extraordinary experience with them, and had amazing and enriching experiences in Croatia.

Shortly after we made the decision to visit Croatia, we realized that a quick hop across the Adriatic Sea would land us in Italy...SO, we decided to extend our trip and return to what very well may be our very favorite travel site. We decided to focus our time in Tuscany, specifically Florence.

We headed to the airport in Dubrovnik to catch a 12:35 PM flight from Dubrovnik to Rome. The first flight took us to Zagreb, Croatia's capitol, where we changed planes to Rome, via Split (which, by the way, we flew over on the way to Zagreb...go figure). In Split, while we technically remained on the same plane, we needed to disembark and go through passport control, since we were leaving the country. The "highlight" of this endeavor was standing on the tarmac, in the heat, close to the deafening engines, until everyone had deplaned and we were herded into the terminal.

Arriving in Rome airport at 5 PM, we quickly cleared immigration and headed to baggage claim to collect our luggage. We may need to subtitle this trip the saga of stray luggage This time, it was Tommy's bag that went rogue. Unbelievable. The next flights from Croatia will arrive tomorrow afternoon, when we will be in Florence, so let's add that to the complications....

We are four tired and concerned travelers! Fortunately, we had booked rooms at the Airport Hilton. We had planned this knowing that making the last train to Florence today would have been tight...and who can count on travel going smoothly? Little did we know what a fabulous decision this would be, as we could not leave the airport without filing the paperwork for the missing luggage. We booked both the rooms on our Hilton account, and were all upgraded to the executive floor...which meant that we could have drinks and snacks in the lounge...no need to "go out" to a restaurant!

I have to admit that the bed and bathroom are a luxurious upgrade relative to Croatia (no complaints about any of our accommodations, but beds were low and mattresses firm), and we are hoping for sweet dreams tonight and luggage for Tom SOON.

No photos today, but you can see photos from our past visits to Rome in the Photo Gallery , under Rome