August 25, 2016
Headed Home
And sure enough, the cab was there at 8:30 AM. But immediately there was a discussion, in Italian, between the cab driver and the hotel's front desk. I figured out the gist of it right away. Not possible! I'm not sure why . . . although it wasn't the biggest cab I had ever seen, but with the back seats down, I thought the bikes would fit. Of course, our boxes looked large. Not tall; we had cut them down. But long. They were about 180 cm, 70 inches, long. Pretty long, I guess, and the cab driver probably assumed they wouldn't fit. And then there was the issue of the second passenger. One in the front seat was fine, but where would the second go?
Well, we ordered a second cab! And then made sure the two bikes would fit in the cab already there. It was tight, but it fit. I assumed we would be getting a van-type cab . . . and next time I will make sure the front desk has the dimensions of the box for the cab company! Of course, normally I have a box in the 55" range, so I've never faced this problem before.
So Mark rode with the bikes, and I took the panniers and rode in the second cab. Fortunately, we were not going to Malpensa! Linate is close, and the cab fare was estimated to be 20 euros or less. As it turned out, my cab was 17 and change, so I gave him 20 and told him to keep it. He was very appreciative since it is not typical to tip cab drivers in Italy that much. The other wanted 25 euros without discussion. So I gave him 25 and racked the difference up to the oversized luggage.
We were at the airport with time to spare, it being about 9:00 AM and our flight scheduled to depart at 11:00. No problem. And since we were premium economy, check-in was a breeze (although we still had to pay for the bikes . . . 250 euros for both).
As I recall, the plane left on time. And since it was a "local" to Paris, we flew low enough to get a bird's-eye view of the Alps.
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Our connection in Paris went smoothly, although it required a lot of walking and going through passport control again. Unfortunately, the flight was delayed . . . 1-1/2 hours! But we finally boarded and had warm food this time; the strike was long over!
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After landing and getting through passport control and customs, we dragged our bikes to curbside. They were in pretty good shape, all things considered, although their length might have contributed to them being more flexible during handling. Mark's had a large hole in the side but no damage to the bike! We had debated assembling the bikes and riding them the 5 or 6 miles to Mark's brother's house, where he had left his car. But given the lateness of our arrival, we opted to just assemble them, and then Mark took a cab and returned with the car to pick me up. With the bikes on the rooftop rack, we headed home for a good night's rest. It was only about 8:00 PM, but that was 2:00 AM body clock time.
Time to dream about our next adventure . . . or, as Mark says, The Adventures of Tom!
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