Boston – August 9, 2022

It’s hard to believe but after two years of planning and scheduling, here we sit on the upper deck of our Lufthansa 747, you know, the one with the bulge on top. It’s a mini bucket list item for me. And it’s none too late, either. The 747 is on its way out of the commercial fleet and I’m not getting any younger. 

All three of us are flying business class, even Carter. Sure, we could have stuck Carter back with the common folk. But this way he’ll have a better story to tell his grandkids than “Grandpa and Nana made me sit in an 11- person row with crying babies on either side of me while they drank themselves silly on the upper deck.”

And what’s our excuse? We’ve been protecting our kids’ inheritance for 50 years flying with those babies in back and so we’ve decided it’s time for lie-flat flying in our declining years. 

This morning Judy and I got haircuts (hers $60, mine $30 at the same salon, both starting and leaving at precisely the same time. Go figure.) She got her nails done and I got wax blasted out of my ears. We both got our hearing aids cleaned. Some say we should have had our heads examined for taking on such a hair-brained excursion. 

Reagan brought Carter to Melrose around 1:30. We hugged and said goodbye to Esme and Griffin for the fourth time and headed for the airport around 2 PM, Reagan in her F150 pickup doing Uber duty. 

Checking in at the airport was no problem but we encountered a minor issue at the Lufthansa lounge. Carter hadn’t had lunch. The foo-foo lounge food wasn’t cutting it so Carter and I hoofed it to Terminal C and the Wahlburger joint for a burger and fries. Carter did pack his carryon with M&Ms and a really big pretzel from the lounge for emergency rations in case the business class dinner doesn’t pan out. 

So nothing to do now but eat, lie flat and land in Frankfurt.  connecting flight to Milan. Two train rides later and we’ll be at our hotel in Bologna, ready for Italian sports car factory tours the next day. 

Milan – Bologna – August 11, 2022

I was awoken by the footsteps and chatter of flight attendants serving breakfast. In a sleep-induced stupor I looked at my watch: 11:45 PM. Mental-fog arithmetic made it going on 6 AM in Milan or about an hour before our landing. I felt satisfaction in knowing I’d slept almost four hours after dinner. I also had a feeling of nerves, knowing that several transportation challenges lay before us: Immigration in Frankfurt; Finding the next flight; hoping our baggage made the transfer in Frankfurt; Customs in Milan; buying tickets for the train from the airport to Milan Central rail station; finding the train; transferring from the airport train to the Bologna train; finding the hotel in Bologna.

I decided I’d better get up and face the day if only as a courtesy to Window Guy sitting next to me. He declined the meal menu; closed the window shades and went to the lie-flat position as soon as the seat belt sign was turned off. Smart guy; knows how to beat jet lag: sleep, don’t eat. But maybe not so smart since the poor devil hadn’t been able to leave his seat while I was lying down. So, I made the compassion move and went to the sit-up position. He was waiting at the door when I exited the restroom.

How was I to know that Milan has two commercial airports? There’s the big one an hour north and west of town (think Chicago O’Hare) and another one closer in on the southeast side (Midway). When I asked a guy at a kiosk in Milan where I could catch the train, he gave me a puzzled look and said “No train here. Take the bus!”  Sure enough, we’d landed at Midway, not O’Hare where the train was. 

But guess what. Right next to the bus stop was a taxi stand and for 20 euros we got a nice, if somewhat highspeed Mille Miglia kind of ride to the Milan Centrale station, saving 30 minutes and 30 euros compared to the O’Hare plan. And we got a nice ride through Milan to boot. Lemons to lemonade for sure.

The bags made it and all the other transport challenges went without a hitch. Carter is, as we knew he would be, is a great traveling companion. He had his doubts when the train thing blew up but he adapted nicely and has been super helpful schlepping bags, especially lifting the 40-pound bags overhead here on the Bologna train.

At Milan we were able, after some bumbling around, to change our tickets on the 1:15 PM train for one leaving at 11:31. We’re on board now watching the Italian countryside fly by. We’ll be in Bologna by 1:15 PM so we’ll have the afternoon to explore, maybe take a quick nap and grab dinner. 

The “right across the street” hotel turned out to be two blocks away, but Carter took command of my cell phone and google mapped us to the front door. We chilled for an hour so and then hit the pavement for an exploratory trek – looking for the most important tourist landmark, the local gelato store. The first one was closed – many restaurants seem to be closed for August vacation. We found a spot in the large park just across the street from our hotel. The gelato need satiated we continued our stroll looking for a suitable dinner establishment. Then a bit more in the park and back to the hotel for a nap.

I needed more so I set out by myself for a longer walk, this time ending up at Piazza Maggiore, a large plaza set up to show open air movies to hundreds on a huge scree. A cathedral fronted on the square along with a number of midev17th and 18^th century looking buildings.

It was fun to walk the streets of a town that I knew absolutely nothing about. I’d selected it because it was convenient for the auto tour. So everything I saw today was new and unexpected. It’s a charming town. Every street I was on, commercial thoroughfares and side streets alike were architecturally interesting. Most pedestrian walkways had arched coverings. The streets were uniformly clean, traffic was light and while temperatures were 90ish there was a pleasant breeze and plentiful shade. 

Dinner, capped by a second go on the gelato, hit the spot and now we’re back home ready for bed. Tomorrow our auto factory tour (Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani) starts at 9:15 AM from our hotel. Should be a fun day, one that has been on the radar screen ever since Carter was a little kid (remember the Cars cartoon movies?) and said he wanted to go to Italy to see sports cars. Ten years later, here we are!