Rome Italy - Preparation, Travel Day and Paris

A few months prior, Ryan and Jenni had mentioned they were celebrating their 20 year anniversary and wanted to take a trip and asked if we wanted to go. We said sure. Thinking it was going to be a weekend in San Francisco or something. Haha! A couple weeks later, they mentioned that they found a killer deal for Rome. We laughed. Then they told us the deal and we said "Whoa, we’ll think about it." Then they said, “Well, there’s a catch. It’s a black Friday sale and we need to know within a couple hours.” Haha! We went home and decided we couldn’t pass it up. We had it booked that same night. The deal was $900.00 per person for flights and hotel for a week. After all said and done tours, tickets, food, souvenirs, transportation etc. We spent $2000.00 each. I think $4000 is pretty darn good for a week in Rome for two. We are so glad we jumped at the opportunity. 

While planning, we came across this map. It was instrumental in helping us plan. We had 6 days and 6 colored areas. So we just did an area a day. 

Weeks before, we brushed up on our Italian. Everyone spoke English so it wasn't ever an issue but we had heard that knowing how to greet and say please and thank you were very much appreciated...so we did!

Bought some cute new waterproof walking shoes, since it would be raining off and on while we were there. They were great. I wore them every day for 13 hours and 25,000-35,000 steps a day. 

Packing and repacking for days!

EUROS!!

Our flight itinerary!

The Sunday before we left, we gathered the family for dinner, devotional and priesthood blessings. It was so cool. Everyone got a blessing, including Adam who was blessed by Levi and Levi blessed by Adam...Porter even got one. It was awesome.

Monday, January 16, 2023 – Travel Day

We woke up at 4:30am and Ryan and Jenni came and picked us up at 5:00am to hit the road. Our flight wasn’t until 1:50pm out of Salt Lake but the forecast was snowy, so we wanted plenty of time to get there. Luckily the roads weren’t too bad. We got there in plenty of time with a couple stops on the way to use the restrooms and stop and eat. We parked at the economy airport parking and shuttled over to our terminal. We had a few hours to kick back and relax before our flight. We boarded our flight at 1:50 for a 10-hour flight to Paris. With the time difference we arrived in Paris at 7:00am Tuesday morning. We knew we’d want to get on Rome time as quickly as possible which meant sleeping on the plane and then heading out sightseeing as soon as we landed in Rome at 1:45 pm Tuesday afternoon. It was crazy to take my phone out of airplane mode and have it instantly go from 11:00pm Monday night to 7:00am Tuesday morning. We laughed when they served us dinner and then breakfast within a few hours of each other. We thought shouldn’t you sleep between the time we eat dinner and breakfast. We had been warned about the Paris airport...we now know why. It's like a maze that you walk through and every turn there is more security, more scanners, more metal detectors. etc. I think we showed our passports 4 times just getting from one terminal to the other....and we were a connecting flight. Haha. Glad I got to experience it, but I may try to avoid the Paris airport in future travels. 

Salt Lake airport parking

Shuttle selfie

Paris: On Time

Our terminal. It was surreal looking at the sign and knowing we were headed to Paris. 

Let's Go!

Happy and Ready to get to Rome!

This was so cool. It was on both long flights. We could track the plane and see where we were, where we came from and how much further we had to go. 

Dinner!

Airplane Mode in Utah Time

Paris Time

Paris Airport. 

Huge shopping center in the airport

Subway train to take us to our terminal

More security to walk through. We walked through stopped, the doors closed and a picture was taken of us and then the doors opened and we could proceed. 

Found our terminal. 

It was so foggy. We couldn't see anything outside the airport windows. 

But we did find a pastry shop...

When in Paris!!!

Their bathrooms were awesome though. Haha!

So tired after our 10 hour flight and with 2 more to go to Rome! We had a four-hour layover in Paris. No one slept much on the plane ride over but we were able to get a few ZZs in the airport. 

Cool elevator by our terminal

It finally started to clear up as we were getting ready to board. 

We boarded the plane from Paris to Rome at 11:45am. We all zonked the entire two-hour plane ride, which we were so thankful for.

Adam touching the plane...tradition!

Italy...he we come!!