Rome with Noah, Troy and Momma: Flying to Rome

Learning to Speak Italian

Our European vacation to Italy did not just start with flying to Rome. There was much more to the beginning than just that. After we decided that we were going to Rome for our trip, we started researching airfare, hotels, tours, Rome attractions, historical sites, language, currency, weather, history and whatever else we could find.
I watched a ton of videos on YouTube trying to learn a few Italian phrases. I jotted down in a notebook (see photo above) a few of the ones that I thought would be most useful like good morning, good evening, good night, you're welcome and excuse me. I did use these a lot and felt pretty good when other people actually recognized what I was saying despite my thick Southern accent. I used YouTube a lot also for learning about Rome and Italy's history and attractions. Between YouTube videos and travel blogs, I spent hours and hours online learning about Rome.

Flights and hotels were another huge part of the planning process. Airfare prices change on a constant basis. It is hard to tell when to actually buy the tickets but we knew that we wanted to fly out of Montgomery (MGM) on Christmas Day and fly out of Rome (FCO) back to the United States on January 1st (We have since decided never to fly back on the 1st. Going forward, we will fly back on the 2nd or 3rd as New Year's Eve takes a lot out of you to stay up to midnight). After we decided on which flights we needed, I watched airfare prices constantly. They would go up and down like a roller coaster. Prices eventually got to a point that did not hurt so bad, and I bought, non-refundable. We were all in.

Watch your flights constantly and compare prices all the time between the different carriers. Several sites help you do this.

Another big question is what to do about money. Italy, at least for right now, uses the Euro. Currency prices fluctuate just as quickly as airfare prices. We did not worry about buying a lot of Euros at our local bank and taking that overseas with us. I made sure I had a credit card that did not charge me for currency transactions (some cards will charge you for every purchase as a currency transaction charge) and we converted some US dollars into Euros at the airport in Rome. There are cheaper options for converting dollars to euros, but we did not convert that much so it was not all that big of a deal for us. Again, most of our purchases while in Italy ended up going to my credit card so no currency transaction fees - plus, I got points for all of my purchases.

Lobby of Hotel Opera Roma

For a hotel, we booked a suite at the Hotel Opera Roma. Our rooms were pretty neat. It looked like they had once been the front desk and service rooms for a spa. Our sleeping areas were on the first floor of the hotel and the bathroom and another room were down one flight of stairs in the basement of the hotel. We liked it although Momma did not like having to go up and down stairs. Hotel Opera Roma is next to the opera house - I should have brought my tux. Also, it was not too far from all of the main attractions like the Colosseum. When you book your hotel, don't worry about being right next to the major attractions though. The entire city has beautiful squares (piazzas) and cobblestone streets and art and history just outside of every door and easy transportation to the other sites.

Noah's Christmas tree on Perdido Key

Christmas Eve, I left my condo on Perdido Key and drove to my mother's house in Georgiana, Alabama. It is only two hours away; and each year, we do all of our Christmas together that night - eat, drink, exchange gifts, play board games and wait for Santa. Christmas morning, Momma makes her rounds to all the grandkids' houses to see what everybody got for Christmas; and then we all headed to the airport in Montgomery that afternoon (Momma, Troy, April (sister) and me). Montgomery is just forty-five minutes north of us and is easy to get in and out of being a small regional airport.

Troy, Momma, April, Noah
Montgomery, AL Airport (MGM)

Here is our itinerary for our flights from Montgomery (MGM) to Atlanta (ATL) to the Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (FCO - listed in 2018 as Italy's busiest airport and the sixth busiest in Europe by Bing.com). We left Montgomery Christmas afternoon (3:28pm Central). That flight was very short - only 53 minutes to Atlanta where we had an hour layover. The second flight took us from Atlanta to Rome (FCO). That flight left Atlanta at 6:29pm, flew overnight across the Atlantic Ocean and landed at FCO the next morning at 9:45am CET. CET stands for Central European Time. That is six hours ahead of the time we started flying in Alabama which is on the U.S. Central Time Zone (3am Central). The time change did not bother us too much that first morning as we had at least dozed a little bit on the Atlantic flight and were too excited to see Rome to worry about getting more sleep.

MGM > ATL > FCO

Landing in Rome was very notable. The airport is well outside the center of Rome. Fiumicino is a town or community as part of Rome as the airport is very near the coast. Landing in the morning with the sun out with very few clouds, we could watch as our plane came in across the Sea of Sardinia and the Tyrrhenian Sea. One of the first differences I noticed were the pine trees. The pine trees in Italy are much different than the pine trees in Alabama. Italy has Italian stone pines (among other types like Aleppo pines and maritime pines). To me, they looked like very tall, sculpted bonsai trees. Very distinct, and they line the hilltops that surround the airport and its runways.

Getting through customs was easy enough and we crammed into a tiny taxi for our trip into Rome to our hotel. The taxi ride is about an hour and it is an enjoyable trip. We watched as the coastal town of Fiumicino transitioned more and more into the bustling city of Rome. We crossed and traveled along the Tevere River for a good bit. There were many ancient Roman sights and parks en route. Finally, though, we arrived at our hotel and were ready for our first day in Rome.