Fiumicino

Last week, we made the decision to extend our stay here in Italy for another few months.  Our original return flight was booked months ago for January 18; since that time, Covid and its side effects - including the airline rescheduling and rerouting our flight such that we would have had a long and very undesirable layover in Hell at Heathrow, among other things - caused us to rethink our plans.  I spent about an hour and a half on the phone one day last week rescheduling our flight (it took an hour just to get through to a human being).  This sounds exasperating, but honestly, I couldn't be annoyed by the wait; those poor airline folks are super understaffed at the moment thanks to everyone being out sick, plus with so many flights being canceled and needing to be rebooked, I'm sure they're overwhelmed). Our apartment is paid through April (the rental had to be for a minimum of six months to meet residency requirements), so no problem there.  The car, however, was a bit of an issue.

Our car was a short-term leased Renault Captur; when we picked it up in October, I was assured the lease could be extended if necessary.  What they didn't tell me (and shame on me for not asking for more details) was that they would only extend for another 80 days - at €55 per day (almost $63) - making the per-day cost of the extension much higher than under the original lease.  No thanks.  So I did a little online comparison shopping (which wasn't easy, because we're limited to automatic cars as Paolo can't drive a manual) and eventually found a better deal with a Hertz rental.  I reached out to the folks at Renault and asked them if they cared to match Hertz's price; they declined.  Whatever.

The Renault needed to be returned in Fiumicino (this is the town where Rome's international airport is located); the Hertz car needs to be picked up at the counter in the airport.  Since with traffic, etc. it was about a 4.5 hour drive from our comune to the leasing office, we decided to book a hotel room overnight and pick up the new car the next day, rather than do all the driving in one day.  Fortunately, there is a Hilton that is literally right across the road from the airport terminal where the car rental offices are located - there is even a covered walkway from the hotel property that takes you right into the airport.

View from our room; the walkway to the airport is below our window, outside the frame of this shot

Although we did run through a bit of fog at one point (high up in the mountains), it was overall a fairly nice day for a drive, weather-wise.  I tried to take some pictures of different areas we drove though, but that's not always easy to do from a moving vehicle.  But here are a few snaps of the countryside I managed to capture:

In one town we drove through (somewhere in Isernia, the other province in Molise), Paolo had to navigate us through a pretty tricky intersection.  The tricky thing about it was that there was only one set of traffic lights, for the (to us) cross traffic.  I don't mean that the other traffic lights one would expect to see at a four point intersection were out - I mean they did not exist!  WTF?  Getting across that intersection was kind of like playing chicken.  Fortunately, we won, I guess.  

I will never understand driving in Italy.

We also sat in traffic for a bit at one point; it turned out that two tractor trailers somehow tangled at a roundabout, completely blocking the normal flow of vehicles - meaning that the carabinieri had to direct everyone around the accident scene.  Traffic traveling in the direction we were headed was forced to go the wrong way through the roundabout to get by.

Our GPS eventually brought us to the A1 Autostrada (she's a bitch like that sometimes).  The autostrade are toll roads for the most part.  This was our first time driving on the A1.  Unfortunately, Paolo entered via a "Telepass" lane, so didn't get a printed entrance ticket (Telepass is the Italian version of EZ Pass).  Without the ticket, we had an issue exiting the A1 - by "issue" I mean we were issued an €83,90 fine which needs to be paid online within 15 days.  Sigh.

Despite some very heavy traffic in certain areas, congestion around Rome in particular (think rush hour I-95 around Philly, my personal nightmare), and some confusion on the part of our GPS going around the roundabouts near the airport (damn her), we eventually made it to the Renault leasing office in Fiumicino (the town, not the airport) about 1/2 hour before our scheduled drop-off time.  There was no one at the desk when we walked in to the office, so we sat down to wait until someone showed up.  The guy arrived within about 10 minutes or so; he'd had another drop-off scheduled right before ours.  He took care of that client, then dealt with us.

Admittedly, I was a little worried about what they might say (or charge us) relating to the scratches on the car from our little misadventure in Larino; in the end, I don't think the guy even looked at the car.  He had me sign a form to return the car to them, and there was a section on the paperwork where they are supposed to indicate any damage...and that was left blank.  Whew!  On the other hand, the way Italians drive and park, I'm guessing vehicles are rarely returned wholly intact.  Once the paperwork was complete, we hopped in a van (along with his other client) and he dropped us at our respective hotels. 

So here we are ensconced in our comfy room at the Hilton; tomorrow we will cross over to the airport via the walkway, pick up our new car, and head home.  Hopefully the new GPS will know to avoid the A1, and also be better at navigating roundabouts.  I'll end this with a couple of pictures from dinner, and one of Leonardo da Vinci, for whom the airport is named (the actual full name of the airport is Aeroporto Internazionale di Roma–Fiumicino "Leonardo da Vinci"):

Paolo is looking grumpy because I wouldn't let him have the rolls with seeds that he is not supposed to eat

Paolo looking happier because he got pasta with octopus, which is one of his favorites

Leo.  I can't figure out whether his hands are actually bigger than his head, or if it's an optical illusion.