The Journey Begins

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Day one: Friday, 28^th September

Departure and arrival

There will be some weather

I had to get myself to the airport as my SO had had an accident three weeks before and was unable to drive. For a while I wasn’t sure I would be able to go and was feeling rather guilty at leaving him. But he can open bottles and cans of beer, change TV channels and re-heat the dinners I’d cooked for him, as well as use the computer for email and conferencing and use the phone.

So, very little sleep as I had to get a cab at 3.15 to get me to the grotty Milton Keynes Coachway for the National Express coach to Gatwick at 3.50. The chatty cab driver arrived ten minutes early and was interested in where I’ve travelled to. Milton Keynes Coach Station has a 24 hour café with tables that have a gritty feel from spilt sugar, or maybe salt. While I was waiting a large black lady arrived by cab just minutes before her coach was due to arrive. She was dressed for hot weather with just a thin shawl to fend off the unseasonably cold weather. She climbed out of the cab with great difficulty as she was clutching a huge white garment bag. She put it on the bench next to me and announced ‘that’s my wedding dress’. She then unloaded three cheap, colourful nylon bags, the type used for visiting the launderette, and one flimsy- and almost empty – suitcase. As she shivered she told me she was going to Ghana to be married in two weeks time.

We waited for the coach. And waited. And waited. It turned up thirty minutes late but there is no information board or desk at this bus station so while we were waiting we had no way of knowing when, indeed if, it was going to arrive.

I slept on the coach and used the loo just once. Why do they always have wet floors? My sleep with partially disturbed by the driver having a conversation with ‘base’ about one of the luggage locker doors that wouldn’t close properly. The fault had been discovered when he was in Leicester so maybe that was the cause of the delay.

I arrived at the airport and discovered that my flight was likely to be delayed. It might leave at 11, maybe 12, they would tell us at 10 which was when we had been scheduled to fly. I was too tired for this. Passengers were not allowed to go through to airside until the flight is announced so, to keep myself awake, I wandered around the shops looking for a bum bag to replace my nice black leather one with the broken clip. I could only see rather tatty looking ones so didn’t bother. I went to Boots and bought pop-sox, Berocca and a toothbrush then had a bitter-tasting cappuccino and a choc dream doughnut from Krispy Kreme to give me a bit of an energy boost.

As I sat trying not to fall asleep and miss my flight being called I caught the tail end of an announcement ‘… will now leave on time. Please go to …’ I took a chance and got myself up. Yes! It was the Naples flight. I quickly bought a neck pillow to replace the one my SO had so thoughtfully tidied away in the loft.

While in the queue to clear security I had removed my jumper which had decorative metal bits on it so as not to set off the metal detector. But I had forgotten I was wearing a gold chain and so was frisked.

The airside shops offered no better selection of bum bags but I did find, and buy, a nice biggish bag for £40 – the most I’ve ever paid for a handbag. I took it to the counter where I was ignored by the middle-aged male cashier until I asked ‘where do I pay?’.

Despite being one of the first to check-in I had not been asked about seat preference and found that I was in the middle of the back row. The captain of our Airbus 300 said that the confusion over the flight times was because their sister plane was still in Luton undergoing ‘routine maintenance’. I would have thought if it was routine it would not cause disruption. They were going to delay us but decided to delay a different flight instead. No, I can’t make sense of that either. We were also informed that ‘there will be some weather’ during the flight which was expected to take two hours and five minutes. We finally took off at 10.45 and, after two cartons of orange juice and a packet of cheddars, I finally got some sleep.

On arrival at Naples we had to wait while they brought the steps for us to get out of the plane then we were directed to a large shed with unmoving three-armed fans on the ceiling. Yellow, red and orange suns in circles broken up by the occasional biplane or hot air balloon, all of which were painted on plywood.

A dozen or so cases came onto the luggage carousel and then it stopped. Nearly an hour later – during which time I suspect the baggage handlers had been having lunch – the carousel started up again and the rest of the bags, including mine, arrived and I walked out into the warm sunshine. I was directed to my transfer coach and waited for the other travellers to arrive. There were 17 of us and we were told that three of us were for the Italian Spectacular tour. I wondered who the other two were.

Although I flew to Naples, the holiday starts in Rome so there was a quite a journey to the hotel. After travelling along the A1 or ‘auto du soleil’ for about an hour (at 100koh) we stopped for a comfort break at the Hotel Liola at Montecassino. There were little wooden Pinocchio’s for sale and I had a cheese roll, some water and a Minute Maid orange drink for €7.50 (€4.50, €1, €2). I also had to ‘tip’ the cleaner in the loo. Most annoying as I then found there was shit on the floor of the cubicle. I was really, really tired. Too tired for this.

Dark clouds were massing over the hills to the west and birds were swarming over just one field. We passed industrial buildings and what I took to be gas tanks in the shadows of mauve, pale blue and pastel green.

Andrea, our Slovenian Tour Director, and the coach driver were giving each other language lessons as we went along. Andrea was teaching English and the driver was teaching what sounded like Mandarin.

We discovered that ten of us were Archers people, for the Italian Spectacular. The rest, who had booked through Cosmos, would be arriving on Sunday. Meanwhile we would be joining the tail end of the Cosmos tour that was finishing in Rome. The previous Archers trip had finished the previous day. A very silly, and unfriendly, way of conducting a coach tour. I got chatting with Maureen (70) and Jim (65) who were sitting behind me. This was a special holiday for them to celebrate both birthdays and their 25^th wedding anniversary.

We arrived at the Hotel Princess which did not look like a four star hotel to me. The towels were thin and rough. The staff were good though. I am to share my room but my room mate has not arrived yet. I pottered about and sorted out my clothes for the morning then went down to the restaurant. I was hailed by Jim and Maureen who had had their first course. I had a delicious dish of prosciutto and melon followed by a pasta dish with bacon, tomato, chilli and cheese. With half a bottle of red wine this came to €24. Jim told me that a bottle of wine (that they didn’t buy) at the motorway stop was more expensive than the wine here in the hotel. Jim told me that he was working in IT in 1962 (not that it was called that then) as an actuary. Maureen used to live in Malaysia when she was twelve.

Back in my room I still had no room mate. Maybe she was outside? Or arriving on Sunday? I was going to have a shower before bed but was just too tired and slightly tipsy. It was 10am, just eight hours till the wake up call – getting clean can wait till morning. I watched ten minutes of CNN and then slept.