We flew eastbound on Tuesday, January 15 and westbound on Wednesday, January 23. Our complete itinerary was IAD-ATL-MUC, then MUC-FCO-CTA-FCO-MUC on Alitalia, then MUC-ATL-IAD. My wife was with me; our total airfare was $803 pp from northern Virginia to eastern Sicily ($601 on DL, $202 on AZ). We were able to use my four GUCs for this trip on Delta; we bought "economy classic" (or whatever they call it) on AZ, which included being able to pre-select seats and being able to get a free checked bag per person.

The D1 flights in both directions were on 767-300s with 9 rows of seats in the D1 cabin.

We arrived at ATL about 20 minutes early on 1/15, which gave us about a 3 hour layover. My wife didn't want to do a SkyClub sweep with me, which was fine as I was under the weather. We spent the layover in the Concourse E club, as our flight departed from E. When we got on board, we were greeted and profusely thanked by Nancy the purser, who told us that we were the "heavy metal couple" on the flight (my wife is PM/1MM). As Delta was serving short ribs on the flight, I had two PDB proseccos and proceeded to put the seat into the supine position at wheels up and slept until we overflew London. I had the cereal for breakfast with a Woodford & ginger ale. We landed at MUC almost 30 minutes early, and got through immigration and retrieved our bags, leaving airside at the time that the flight was scheduled to have landed. Other than the food, the big problem for both my wife and me was that the touch screen controls on our TV sets did not work. I was able to get the airshow to work, but that was about it. My wife had access to about 10 movies, but that was about it for her. Everything else about the flight was great; the Delta flight crew was really excellent; my seat was comfortable and I got a good 7 hours of sleep (the flight took 8:35). My wife reported that she was very comfortable on the flight.

Alitalia worked out surprisingly well; I wasn't sure what to expect. We had to walk at least 600 yards from the exit from Delta baggage claim down to the A section of the MUC terminal (same building) to find Alitalia, which runs two flights per day out of MUC to FCO. The onward flight was scheduled to depart at 1200; the Alitalia desks opened at 0930; we were first in line. They offer Sky Priority, and the lady who waited on us was very courteous, spoke excellent English, and efficiently got us checked in and squared away. We were able to get into the Air France lounge, which was on the second level of airside and about 500 yards to the left of the security entrance we used (they were using a back scatter open air machine in lieu of a magnetometer). The AF club was spartan on food but had lots of champagne and Paulaner Hefe-weizen, so it was a very agreeable spot to spend 90 minutes.

We were able to get on first on AZ, as fewer than 10 pax were Sky Priority. They used an A320 and it was probably 3/4 full. We were sitting among the Algerian Judo team which was returning to Algiers after a tournament in Germany. We reached FCO after about 75 minutes in the air. The flight parked in a part of the airfield reminiscent of EWR's old North Terminal during the salad days of People Express. They offloaded us through both front and rear doors and down airstairs, and brought out the Cobus3000 buses to take us to Terminal 1. The Casa Alitalia lounge is in the D concourse, which meant that we traipsed through concourses A, B, C and D for close to 15 minutes, working up a thirst by the time we got to the lounge. Again, the Alitalia staff we encountered were very nice and efficient and made us feel welcome. We had another 3 hour layover, and spent most of it there. The flight to Catania (CTA) left from a bus gate, and we went out to an A321, which ended up about 100% full. The flight took 65 minutes; I didn't see Mount Etna from the flight; we landed just a few miles south of it. Our baggage was not the first off the belt, but it did arrive. We were exhausted and took a taxi to our hotel, which was about a 40 euro mistake; it turned out that the airport bus, which runs every 15 minutes or so, was 4 euros per person and stopped about 100 yards away from our hotel, the Mercure Grand Excelsior.

CTA is actually a pretty interesting regional airport; it had a Casa Alitalia lounge landside. It had plenty of good Italian coffee and adult beverages; the lady who checked us in graciously brought up that we had lounge privileges and showed us how to get to the lounge. Despite CTA having a number of gates with loading bridges, Alitalia and Ryanair (which now flies into FCO), use buses to convey pax to the remote stands, and boards through both front and rear doors. The flights back to MUC were operationally excellent; we didn't have time to go to the FCO lounge, so we sat in the gate area in concourse B and watched people play a grand piano which was stationed in our gate house (I think B4). When we got to MUC, we took the S-Bahn train to the Hauptbahnhof (HBf); our hotel, the Leonardo, was just across the street south of the station. I made up for the bad food on Delta by eating a great schweinebraten dinner at the Augustiner, which was about 500 yards east of the hotel inside the pedestrian zone east of the Karlsplatz.

At checkin, the lady representing Delta told us that we could use fasttrack security for area B located almost immediately to the left of the check-in desk; however, the security people wouldn't let us go through, claiming that we had to walk down the security for area C, as we were going out of gate C25, even though the lounge we were entitled to use, Airport Lounge World, was just to the left of the security exit airside. We walked down to C and had no problem with security, but had to walk back at least 200 yards to the elevator servicing the lounge. Airport Lounge World is the lounge servicing non-Schengen long haul flights, and it was actually quite nice; it had two levels; most of the food and drink was on the lower level, but the more comfortable seating and better views were upstairs.

All flights run by American and Canadian airlines for north America left from C25, which was a large bus gate. Delta started filling the first bus out to the airplane (which was parked at a small remote building with a loading bridge) about 60 minutes before scheduled departure. Everyone was on board by 20 minutes until scheduled departure. The flight took 10 hours 45 minutes. I had the beef tenderloin; this was probably the worst steak I've ever tried to eat in my life. Fortunately, the dessert and port were very good. Carolyn the purser and her crew took really good care of us. Again, my seat worked well and I slept most of the flight.

I used Global Entry and shot through immigration; our bags were among the first 5 on the belt; we had no problems with customs, and the TSA had pre-check open, even though this was during the "partial government shutdown". We were back airside in ATL within 40 minutes of deplaning, which was quite good (it took 90 minutes the last time we flew internationally through ATL). We spent our layover at the F SkyClub and sat out on the deck until it started raining. Going back to Dulles, our scheduled pilots were diverted to CHA; we were lucky that Delta found us another crew, and we were less than an hour late getting back to IAD.

BTW, Taormina, Sicily is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.