Fabo.sk

There are a lot of trip reports on Flyertalk.

They range from mundane to luxurious, to… a bit mental.

This one is definitely aiming for the latter category, for reasons that will be apparent soon.
Being in perpetual need of XP points to renew my status with FB, particularly since there is no more partner airline flying into my airport of origin, I remembered fondly the business class fares of old Alitalia, which could be very good, and regularly subject to discount codes. All that made me quite happy to hear late last year, that ITA and FlyingBlue finally made agreements needed and after years of ITA being a Skyteam member, earning became a possibility.

Some digging around the offers quickly found a sweetspot or two, first being BCN - Italian regions in the vicinity of 200 EUR in business class, with a Saturday night requirement. The next was getting to BCN from ATH for well under 400 EUR. And lastly, ATH from AMS for not too shabby either 550 EUR.
A couple days later, ITA confirmed another good Alitalia tradition is still alive, and gave us a discount code for Black Friday, which made it possible to squeeze the three return tickets under 1000 EUR total, with a return of 162XP and as of yet unconfirmed amount of award miles.

A bit of planning combined with an optimistic approach to my own capacity for suffering (and a pessimistic approach to my expected work load at the time) resulted in an idea of doing this crazy combination over a single weekend, with as little loss of working time as possible.

In retrospect, I wish that ITA had given me a bit of a schedule change, so I could throw in at least some time in Athens to actually see Athens, but that will have to wait for later (perhaps next year, when I’m short of XP again, and ITA gives us another code to use).

In any case, I ended up with this monster of an itinerary:

Friday, 18:05 departing Amsterdam bound for Rome, cool 1.5 hours to transfer to Athens. Arriving into Athens 00:45 local time, scheduled.
Seeing as I have a departure at 06:00 the following morning, any hotels around would allow me for maybe 3 hours of sleep, not worth the price asked. Particularly as lounges are supposed to be 24/7, and by this time, I will have a same-day departing BP.

Anyway, 06:00 early morning departure back to Rome, chill transfer of just under 2 hours and I should be jetting off to Barcelona, getting there just before 11. Here, I have 6 hours of time, about enough to go grab a relaxed lunch in the city.

Please let me know if you have any recommendations, my current non-committal plan is to go to a market other than La Boqueria, which is bound to be very busy with tourist trade on a Saturday, and a stroll in Barri Gotic.

The 16:50 to Rome will have me, with a comfortable transfer again, in Milan at around 9. I’m hoping the flight will be on time enough that I might catch a late dinner. Worst case scenario, crash in the hotel, which is also not the end of the world. I have gone for the Moxy, which is supposedly an easy walk from the airport.

Sunday morning I messed up again a bit. 9 o’clock departure, which is fine, but leaves me with a 3h55m transfer in Fiumicino. I selected this flight because unlike the later one, it’s scheduled to be flown by an Airbus A220, which I wanted to try, in contrast to 11 other flights, all planned with one variant of the A320 or another. On reflection, I should have either gone for the earlier flight, hitting me on sleep a bit, but possibly giving me enough time to visit Ostia Antica, or the later flight on an A319 and just sleep in.

After that, is the only direct turnaround in my plan, one I could not fit in without compromising budget and my sleep in Milan. But… It’s the same airplane. So it’s just walk out, turn around, walk back in, look at the crew's confused faces. At least looking at it, ITA flights have a jetway in Barcelona, so no need to try and catch the bus.
On the way back, again a long transfer, 3h15m this time. I will be very familiar with FCO after this trip, I’m afraid.
Same deal in Athens as Friday night - layover is too short to make a hotel worth the expense, so I’ll just slum it somewhere, probably in the lounge. And to close the adventure, a quick connection to Amsterdam, aiming to arrive at 11:00, meaning I can grab lunch on the way out and be at work for the second half of the day…. Provided I am in any shape to be working.


Well, now that you’ve read through the wall of text that gets me to this point, it’s clear I decided to try and write a trip report about my experiences. Since I am a big fan of @JapesUK bringing back a real-time TR format, I’ll try and do the same. At least that way I know that you’ll get the real experience, not mellowed out by the time between the trip itself and whenever I manage to catch up on the sleep, like a month later.

Which brings me to today. Online checkin has become available on the first leg of the journey, and I have secured for myself seats 1A and 1F for Friday evening. Now all that is left is to pack my backpack with travel necessities, a change of clothes or two, and hope I’ll get back without any further incident. The weather forecast promises a nice weekend in the Mediterranean, so at least that looks good.

JapesUK

Subscribed and eagerly awaiting you adventures

eightblack

You're right it only sounds slightly mental But I am going to get some popcorn and pour myself a G&T and follow along with pleasure...

VorelNaCestach

And here is the promised TR! Looking forward to it.

As for Barcelona, this is what I did last month:
- I started my walk at El Cap de Barcelona, then walk to Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar.
- Cathedral of Barcelona and Roman Wall were next. You can easily get to metro station Jaume I from the airport. I think it's 5,50€ one way or you can buy 1 day ticket called T-dia


- Saint James's Square/Plaça de Sant Jaume
- Petit Palau
- Placa de Catalunya
- Then I walked to Casa Amatller, Casa Batlló and Casa Milŕ. The museum is not worth it so I skipped it.
- I went to Park Guell, but all tickets were sold out. If you want to go there check if you can find tickets online. If not, skip it.
- You can walk to Sagrada Familia from Casa Mila.

I recommend avoiding La Ramlas. Too many people I know got their phones/wallets stolen there.

Edit: I had some tapas in La Bodeguetta de Garcia. Google traslate and I did not understand a single item on the menu, the staff didn't speak English, but the food was good 😁 Sangria a bit too sweet

Fabo.sk

Thanks for the notes. I have been to Barcelona before, so the goal is not to fit in anything of the main sights, rather really just a relaxing lunch and some Sangria. And a walk in the part of Barcelona I liked the best - the old bit.

I've had enough of Las Ramblas the last time round, that that was still slow tourism at the tail end of Covid. Definitely not going there.

VorelNaCestach

A walk by the beach from W hotel to Parc del Port Olímpic is relaxing. I am sure you can find a lot of good places to eat in that area. I usually just walk randomly and if I like the menu, I go in or sit outside.
Sorry, can't really recommend a place to eat

Fabo.sk

My time management has not been great lately, and ever more so in the last two days. I have unwisely agreed to take part in a pub quiz yesterday evening, which meant a very hurried dinner before leaving, a late return back home, and no packing.
So I had to take care of that in between work today, resulting in a bit of “I got time, I got time, I got time, oh crap, I don’t got time”. All that ended up in just jamming everything into my backpack, realizing I lost my iPhone charging cable (using wireless day to day), running to my car to grab a spare, and all around mess.

The unreliability of Dutch railways worked in my favor for once, and the train I would have ideally taken was canceled anyway, so I took the next one, leading me to realize that NS fixed the weird artifact of 10/20/10/20 minutes between trains, which was an artifact of a failed attempt to introduce 10 minute tact… but only Friday through Saturday?

Anyway… A direct train, at least, and not having to change unlike the earlier (or later, which, according to the train app, might lead to a missed connection). I sprung for 1st class to give me a bit more room to relax on the way. 15 minutes later at the airport than ideal, but still time to grab a snack and a quick lounge safari, as I have avoided KLM Schengen lounge for something like 2-3 years now, but for a TR, I’ll give it a try.


NS Intercity 3759 Dordrecht to Venlo, 1st class compartment, somewhere outside Leiden.

Fabo.sk

I recall having a very good paella in that area. It's a candidate.

VorelNaCestach

Hello from the blue seat in the 2nd class 😁 different train but the same direction

Fabo.sk

What a coincidence, we might end up learning we are neighbours?

Fabo.sk

Arriving at Schiphol, my first task was to secure paper boarding passes in case of some shenanigans with crediting the flights (although the FB number is loaded correctly, and BPs reflect status).
Unfortunately, the self-service checkin machines failed me, and a look at the departure board suggested ITA is in… Check-in zone 1A? Well, screw that, am just glad I don’t have baggage. I asked in the KLM SkyPriority zone, unfortunately, they no longer have access. Hopefully I’ll be able to sort that airside.

That then has me left with going to my usual haunt, Privium landside club lounge. Knowing the food quality in KLM lounges, this one is much preferable.


Two out of the three hot options tonight. Seems I didn't take a picture of cold options, rest assured they were there and good ones too


They even have Easter decorations out already.




I settled for some beef sausage in tomato sauce and two small sandwich pieces. All very good, chased down with a glass of respectable Chardonnay. Now, grab some chocolate eggs and run airside.


Beef sausages in tomato sauce, focaccia with mozzarella, pesto and tomato, baguette with pastrami, Chardonnay


The usual Schiphol experience for me, no lines at security, but my hygiene bag forces a secondary screening, proving last time was a fluke. Oh well.

KLM lounge has been photographed a lot of times, so I didn't bother. The big news there is that the Ultimate fishbowl had been opened yesterday as is in use. I'll also say that the food options looked better than last I was there, although still quite bad and not even the same sport as Privium, let alone the same league. No food then, I only had the one glass of Heineken in draft, to be able to say I had something.

At this point it was just past 5, the boarding pass suggested a very optimistic boarding time of 17:05, but the airplane has just landed and Schiphol app suggested a reasonable start time of 17:25, so I left for gate C16, planning to buy a deo stick at the Rituals stall. Which they took away! Very disappointing.

Disappointments continuing at the gate, where instead of my Alitalia A320, I found a Transavia jet!? Despite landing early, the plane from Rome spent some 20 minutes just waiting for the gate to open. I struggle to think of the fuel burned just because a gate could not be changed.

At the end the gates were open at 17:45, 20 minutes before departure, and I spent some 8 further minutes waiting in the jet bridge in front of one of those insufferable people who think chewing a chewing gum with their mouth open is juuuust fine. Good thing this is the first flight of the trip, as the need for XP preventing me from committing an assault, even if I am confident any sane judge would rule it self-defense, I do not want to be offboarded just yet.
And she is in business too, just a row behind in the aisle, while I am in 1A, she in 2C.
Hope my noise canceling earbuds will save me.

And as passengers still stream in at 5 minutes past departure time, I leave you, to be picked up in Rome in about 2 hours.

VorelNaCestach

I don't think so. By the time I reached Schiphol you were already on your way to Rome then a mandatory stop at AH to buy some Dutch cheese and Stroopwafels 😁

Fabo.sk

Yes, but then I would have started earlier :-)

The mandatory stop in AH is a thing, I had to instruct my sister where to look for it like a week ago :-D
Not for me tonight though, I'm not seeing anyone while away.

Fabo.sk

Soon after my last post, as I was catching up on Japes’ flight to Baku, doors were closed and PDB service was done. Orange juice or water, I opted for the latter.


Pre-departure drink of water. On the left, JapesUK is just getting his starter of a dessert.


Total delay was around 15 minutes on pushback, but extended further by assignment of Polderbaan for the departure runway. Well, what can you do.
About 10 minutes after departure, crew were released, shortly after that a smell of warm bread started coming from the galley, and shortly after the servie commenced.

On flight from Amsterdam, a light dinner was served, good, but decidedly carb heavy for modern standards. Still the three antipasti sandwiches were nice, one with Bresaola, I think, one with egg, and one with aubergine. The main was a chicken caesar salad. I had them with white wine, unfortunately that soon ran out and was replaced by a minibottle of Prosecco. Good enough.


A nice Euro J light dinner


And a prosecco which replaced the regular white.


To finish off, I took a coffee to have with the cake.


And a coffee with something I initially thought was tiramisu, but definitely wasn't


I could have asked for a nightcap after, but I thought we are surely about to start descend soon, or perhaps already did and I failed to notice.
Not quite so, our route was somewhat circuitous and took us way out east past Verona, and almost to the Adriatic coast of Rimini…

Nevertheless, the descend was eventually started, we received one last sweet to go, and are looking at only very slightly late arrival to Rome. Next stop: Departure board. But immediately after that, Hangar lounge.

By the way, load was good. 3,5 rows of business, 1 seat free for 13/14. Back of the bus seemed busy too.

I'll touch on the lounge tomorrow after more time spent here, for now - off to Athens. A49, shouldn't be too far of a walk.

Fabo.sk

After 10 minutes of confused dilly-dallying around, I managed to find the lounge. Could have been signposted better… But that’s for tomorrow and anyway, you have last seen me leaving the lounge to walk to my next gate.

Unlike in Amsterdam, at the gate was indeed my blue stallion for the next two flights. Another overly optimistic boarding time, this time “only” 50 minutes in advance of departure was never gonna happen, in reality we started pouring in about 25 minutes before departure, and that was enough to call boarding completed a bit before 21:50, pushing back no more than 5 minutes late.

The neo I boarded was unfortunately not the specially configured long-range version, which as I understand is currently plying the Cairo route, but a bog standard A320.

While I have to call out the big bins, mood lighting, and good legroom;


Seat 1F, EI-INA, A20N, ITA Airways. Delivered new to ITA Dec '22, not legacy Alitalia frame

And the “no eletronic devices” sign, which makes ever more sense in modern world than a “no smoking”,


Overall it’s a step down from the classic A320 on the previous leg. There is no table on the middle seat, and therefore also no widening of seating space, and the traytables in row 1 are weirdly shaped and do not go far enough to allow for comfortable work on a laptop or a tablet. These words are therefore written askew, using the table of seat 1E instead. My back will be mad at me tomorrow, for sure.

Service is as good as on the inbound from Amsterdam though, and soon I have a tray in front of me, this time with a hot main, which I pair with an eminently drinkable red.


AZ722 dinner. Salad with salmon, arugula and apple, focaccia, pasta with olives, dates(?) and a bit of ground beef I think, chocolate cake

I would have liked to peruse a brandy or at least a whiskey with the cake, no such luck. My choices are limoncello or grappa, so instead I have another glass of the red.
However I do sample the grappa soon after, and it’s quite good, seems ever so slightly aged. I believe I will have a number of them over the next two days. As we approach Athens, 4 segments each for Saturday and Sunday do not seem too daunting, but we will see how my energy holds after, no doubt, very little sleep to be had in the coming hours.

Loads not as good as the last leg, 3 rows of business and nobody has a seatmate but me, that makes 7/12. Now, where is that lounge….