Rome arrival Hotel and parking?

A slow day for pictures and blogging,as all travel days are. We were up early in Sitges, even the hedge cats were not up when we went to breakfast at the Melia and took a cab to El Prat, the Barcelona airport. Sitges is a little place outside of time and it was a lovely stay. Travel is always enlightening and we continue to remind ourselves that things do not work they way they do in the U.S.A. It is never just a mini-version of us, speaking a different language. At El Prat, there is a huge board, where you look hard to find your flight, for which you never have pre-assigned seats because they just don't do that. The board (hopefully) will tell you which queue you will get into to check your baggage (only two bags under 50 lbs are free) and assign you a seat. What served us well at DIA didn't here because our queue, would not start until 9:30 am. And it was only 8 am. We took a seat along with lots of tired people, people watched and got some cash (you can never have too many Euros). Finally we noticed a queue forming at window 4. Bill motioned the elderly nun in front of us in the line (hope she will realize someday that an Episcopalian was that polite!). The very pretty girl assigning seats told Bill that his carry-on was far too large to carry on, “Only 5 kilos allowed.” He was forced to check it. However,she did not charge him for it, which by everything we had learned,she was supposed to do. There are kind people everywhere.

The flight was uneventful. Just like at DIA,we waited far too long for baggage and ours were the last bags. We realized, reading our Globus info that they expected us to come into Terminal B with all the other Americans, not C with the Spaniards. However, when we exited the terminal, there was a globus person to walk us over to Terminal B,where we picked up two other Americans and an Australian couple. They were all doing different tours and we had an enjoyable visit on the way to the hotel. Checked in, had a beer in the bar and got on line to finish some business, including asking our travel agent to cancel our trip to Sorrento and Amalfi because it is just too much running. We will only have 2 ½ days in Rome and we think there's plenty here to see. Amalfi and Positano will have to wait for another trip. Instead we'll check into the Cavalierri for two nights and see more of Rome.

We walked to dinner a few blocks away, Sesto Pizza y Cucina,where our waiter lived in London for two years,so spoke English and was very nice. Good dinner (early for here, only 7 pm. And then walked back through the neighborhood to the Hotel Albani. We are passed lovely shops, little groceries and some lovely gated apartments, as well as Smart cars everywhere. The price of gasoline here, by the litre, has forced them to be more resourceful and drive smaller cars,and you can park two in a space for one regular car!

We are next to the Villa Bogehese, a beautiful park,and tomorrow have a reservation at the Villa Borghese, a wonderful art museum in a 17^th centure villa. Hope to send more tomorrow.