Once upon a time, my bestie cousins and I decided we needed a trip together. A vacation of sorts. You see, we haven't spent much uninterrupted time together since we were in high school. Roughly 20 years has gone by. We've seen each other for a few hours, or even a few days, but we always had our lives to continue, children to be cared for, jobs to be performed and husbands to give our time to. But we needed this.
After Julia booked a trip here we talked about booking a cruise but it never worked out. Dates conflicted with previous commitments so we held off. Then we went back to an original idea... Italy. Of all the places Julia had always wanted to visit, but never had during her 6 previous trips to Europe, it seemed fitting to make a trip to visit the Italians. I loved Rome, but since Florence and Pisa were close by, we decided to add those destinations in as well. When Jacque booked a last minute trip here it made the entire thing seem surreal.
Join us as I chronicle our journey to the Tuscan lands.
Our travels started with an early morning wake up call. 4:00 a.m. to be exact. It was pretty stressful, as many of you parents can attest, arranging childcare, especially some that was changed at the last minute. But add to this that my husband was still in Kuwait, it made for some late night packing and resulted in my body not being able to shut down. I stayed up all night. Did you hear that? All night!
It was a bit cold out and this is us waiting for the shuttle. We have to fly out of Frankfurt-Hahn airport, an old U.S. Army Air Force base (which is a little freaky to me seeing the old abandoned buildings), because we usually fly on RyanAir. If any of you have ever flown this airline, you'll know what I'm talking about. The cheap flights are amazing. So amazing that you generally sacrifice sleep, any reserved seating, weird flying hours, and a look past their out-of-town airports-- usually always about an hour away.
Here are my tips for flying out Frankfurt-Hahn (skip this part if you just want to read about our trip) on RyanAir:
RyanAir is notorious for the cheap fares but try to charge you for everything else. You find the fee, but then in order to book they charge you an online booking fee, or pay to check a bag, or if your carryon is overweight they'll tack on a hefty fee. Here are a few of my own tips. I've also included a few other links for people who have written on the same subject.
1. Check-in-You must check-in online. Print out your boarding passes. They will charge you a hefty check in fee if you do it at the airport. Something in the area of 60 Euros. Check-in online for your return trip too. RyanAir lets you check in up to 14 days in advance and you'll probably be traveling somewhere where you won't have a printer.
2. Passport Control-Get there early if you are not a EU citizen. You HAVE to go to the Passport Control to verify your passport.
3. Hotel-Stay at the B&B literally right across the road entrance to the airport if you have a crazy time flight and you are traveling with kids. It's cheap, not super clean or big, but it is literally right in front of the entrance.
4. Parking-If you drive in before your flight, park in long term parking but give yourself enough time to wait for the shuttle. They come every 20 minutes. It's only 3 Euro per day, super cheap, so don't even think about not parking there.
4. Early-Get there early enough to get in line. It's like a cattle call, long lines, and everyone walk-runs to the outside planes to get a seat. My family and I have been split up frequently and one time we were even short one seat.
5. Carryon-Try to make your carryon a backpack. With RyanAir they have strict regulations with regards to your carryon. They charge you 20 Euro to check any bag in so most people pack everything into a carryon. One thing I've learned though is they never measure or weigh backpacks. I guess they figure if you can put it on you back it's not too heavy. But they're serious about their carry-on measurements. They will measure you as you're waiting to get on the plane.
6. Shuttle-Check with RyanAir. They usually have a shuttle that travels to your main city destination (since their airports are far away) for not very much money.
6. Shuttle-Check with RyanAir. They usually have a shuttle that travels to your main city destination (since their airports are far away) for not very much money.
We decided to "backpack it" through Italy. I've never done this before, and never thought I would, but doing it with my cousins and no kids, it seemed fun. And easy. At first. Those things got so heavy as time went by. But I'm so glad we weren't pulling rolling suitcases all over the cobblestone streets of Italy. Here we are waiting in the cold for the shuttle, getting a kick out of us trying to "backpack it" like young kids do.
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| Looks normal, right? |
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| Ummm, not so much. I'm the hunchback! No room in that bag! |
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| How did this girl have the least packed backpack? |
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| Trying to get a good seat. :) |
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| First destination! Pisa, Italy |
