Day4 : It was a normal morning after an eventful night ! At breakfast in the hotel terrace, the maids were worried with Pranav’s situation. A couple of them spoke English – one was from Philippines talking about her son of the same age she had left behind for her to work in Rome. Pranav just like a hero sat between them explaining how it all happened in his ‘English’.
We walked to Republican square through some residential looking areas. We walked through some random streets, enjoying the Sun. Pranav was happy sitting on our shoulders and walking at times. After a 90 min walk, almost till Trevi fountain, we took a metro back to be back in hotel by 11:45.
Checked out around 12 and thought the same Brussels ‘jump’ principle will work in Roman metros, which allows you to travel one hour unlimited in metros, trams or buses for a jump. The Roman jump allows it only from metro to bus, not taking two metros once you have broken the journey and come out. So we ended up taking another ticket to otherwise walk-able Termini.
We took the airport bus to Ciampino at 12:30 and reached the small airport by 1:30. It was hot inside the bus, we were sweating! The trip till it crossed the city looked like India, with crowded roads, and a lot of people and the heat too!
We had lunch in the airport restaurant; there were couple of good pasta vegetarian choice. Then waited in the lobby after the security check. The queue for boarding started building up by 2:15 itself.
We also joined one of the ‘branches’ of what looked like a single queue! We waited in the ‘crowd-cum-queue’ till 3:30, no information of the flight getting delayed! The twist came when the flight was ready to board – they opened another boarding check desk, and half the crowd from back ran to the new desk! It was typical Indian situation that you will get a lucky entry!
Again, getting in as early as possible is important here as there is no seat number allotted. We were not prepared for that twist, but still managed to get three continuous seats.
The flight took off by 3:40, only a few minutes late. After all chaos, still I appreciate Ryanair for the things getting done quickly, still perfectly safe! We landed in Brussels Charleroi around 5:45. It was -4, and in the middle of heavy snow. It was another wrong decision to try a bus to Charleroi South railway station, and then get the train. The trains were late; we had to wait in the waiting rooms in the station for more than an hour. The train then took more time than usual to reach Brussels Central by 7:50. Our bus 63, then, to our home didn’t stop (he didn’t notice the stop-request button pressed or may be intentional?) in our stop. We ended up walking more than 400 metres back, in snow to end our journey!
