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Rome & Home

Saturday, April 21 through Monday, 23 April. We were up at 6:15, called a taxi at 7:05, and went down to the street to find him waiting already. In ten minutes we were in the station, early for our 8:10 departure. The train was crowded and we were glad we had reserved seats. We were in Verona at 12:45. We spent the rest of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday visiting our friend Mariarosa and her family in the Verona area. On Monday night we took the 11:00 sleeper back to Rome.

Tuesday, 24 April. We arrived in Rome at 6:20 a.m. and transferred to the 6:50 train to the airport. We got there in plenty of time to check in for our 9:35 flight to Newark. We got to Newark before 1:00 p.m., but had to wait until 6:00 for our connection to Washington. Our daughter-in-law Mina, with our grandchildren Andria and Stephanie, came about 5:00 and visited with us. We got to Dulles Airport at 7:30. Our daughter-in-law Julia met us there and drove us to Culpeper where we'd left our car. It was nearly 11:00 by then and we were exhausted, so we accepted Julia's invitation to spend the night. We drove back to Massanutten the next morning.

General Observations. It was a wonderful trip. We really enjoyed Sicily. Not that it was backward, but it was a lot like the rest of Italy was in earlier days, more relaxed and not quite so crowded. The group we were with was great, as were our Tour Director and driver. The schedule was enough to keep us busy without being exhausting. This "All-Inclusive Sicily" tour was very different from the "All-Inclusive Costa del Sol" we took just a few months earlier. The latter is a much better buy for the money, but then, the Costa del Sol is not Sicily.

Rome was cleaner and in better condition than on any of our earlier visits, having been spruced up for the Jubilee Year 2000. The museums and monuments finally were open reasonable hours, and most had better facilities to handle visitors. But there were so many more visitors!

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