I was pleased that the checkout time at Hotel Internazionale was 12 pm. This meant we could have a relaxed start to a day that would be mainly one of transit. We went down to breakfast a little later than yesterday and had no trouble getting a table . While we ate we eavesdropped on the conversation between two tables behind us, a British couple and an American couple were swapping notes about their travels. It became clear that the Americans were NOT fans of Donal Trump.
After breakfast we decided to go out for a little walk to pass the time.This time we walked up towards the station and we came across the crumbling ruins of some ancient looking brick walls. It turns out they were all that remained of the old city walls and a fort. The Castello di Galleria was built and destroyed five times between 1330 and 1511. The section of walls were built in the 13 th and 14 th centuries and , except for this small section, were only finally destroyed in the 1920s.
Then we walked into the Giardino Della Montagnola, the oldest public park in Bologna. At the entrance was a large monument called Il Popolano, which pays tribute to the local citizens who drove the occupying Austrian imperial troops from the city in August, 1848.
There was also a rather grand pool and fountain in the park , flanked by statues of mermaids and lions.
We headed back to the hotel and packed up ready to checkout at midday, we’d decided to go straight to the airport . We were going to have to hang around and wait a bit anyway so we figured we might as well do it at the airport. They called us a taxi and we were on our way. From there we went through a succession of tedious hiccups or peculiarities.
First, we were dropped at departures, which is upstairs on level 2.Then we discovered we had to go downstairs to the arrivals level to check in, before later having to go back upstairs for security! What an odd arrangement. We couldn’t check in straight away as they only open the desks 150 minutes before departure, so we waited. Eventually they let us queue up and despite being second in our queue… again we waited. The lady in front was taking a dog with her and had TWO overweight bags… so there was extra rigmarole to get the dog organised and then for her to pay for the excess weight .
After we finally dropped our bags we went up the escalator and joined a queue that snaked away into the distance for what seemed like miles!. I left Neil in the line and went up ahead to make sure we really were queuing for security… unfortunately we were. It wasn’t going anywhere for a while and then finally started shifting. We were glad we had plenty of time, there were some very stressed people trying to jump ahead because their flights were boarding… and there was no staff making any attempt to prioritise those people. Finally after snaking around we got to the head of the line and put our bags through the scanners. At this stage it had taken and hour from checking in.
Next we followed the crowd through another set of gates for border control, doing our face scans and fingerprints. That went smoothly BUT then we couldn’t find our gate. We wanted gate 13… but we could only find gates 17 to 22. We asked a helpful duty free attendant and learned we had inadvertently gone through into the non Schengen gates! We had to go back to the border control police and have ourselves readmitted to the Schengen zone so we could get to gate 13.
We were pretty shattered by this stage and were both in need of a drink! Luckily there was a cafe at the gate where we had a tasty sandwich and a refreshing beverage.
But the hiccups weren’t quite done…we checked the Aegean app and learned the gate had changed. No drama as we didn’t have far to go.We couldn’t find a seat and still had a 30 minute wait until boarding so I left Neil and went to take a look at the shops. As I walked back afewminutes later I was surprised to see the gate was open for boarding and a long queue had already formed… and Neil was nowhere to be seen! He had gone looking for me! Fortunately he came back and we started the move into the access bridge area…. And then we stopped and waited! And waited… We could see our plane through a window and they were still taking the luggage offfrom the previous flight!
After another (hot!) wait in the air bridge we finally walked out onto the tarmac and into the plane. From there things finally went smoothly at last. The flight was 2 hours and we arrived about 15 minutes late, but our transfer driver was prompt and communicated clearly where to meet him and we finally got to the hotel at around 8.30. Onenicebonus is that we can see the Acropolis from our room, a slightly obstructed view but there is no mistaking it! We are in Athens at last!
