Strike!

Antonio was extremely generous by helping us sort out the train problem before we left for the day. We had reservations to return to Rome tonight after seeing the excavations (Pompei Scavi), but due to the strike, nothing is moving. Last night, when we checked in, they told us that they were full for tonight and that we wouldn’t be able to stay here. After all of my planning, that really threw me. Really threw me--I have tried to plan for every contingency, but I missed this one. Luckily, we found out this morning that those travelers who had reservations for tonight weren’t able to get down here, so our room remained available. The bad news, though, is that when Ione called Rome to let Loredana know that we wouldn’t be able to make it tonight, she told her that we would still be responsible for paying for our room up there tonight that we will not use. Kind of crappy. Antonio was really pissed because he is not charging the people who were originally supposed to be in our room for their lost night. I think Loredana’s policy may have something to do with us being Americans, or at least non-Italian tourists. Doesn’t seem like anyone could get away with doing that to a countryman.

Antonio then drove us to the train station to try to get us a refund on our train tickets. We are clearly not the only ones affected by this inconvenience, so the answer was no. He helped us re-book reservations back to Rome in the morning, then dropped us at the entrance to the Scavi at about 10:30 AM.