We had an early morning start to the day, as Jenny, Christina, Vicky & Steve, Susan and I took a 5:15 shuttle to the airport. In Turkey everyone has to go through a metal detector to enter the airport as does all luggage and laptops come out of bags. Christina, Susan and I went to the Star Alliance/Turkish Airlines lounge. Susan and I were traveling economy but star alliance gold gets you a long ways outside the USA.
In Antalya, you approach the lounge, check bags and go through security before entering the lounge..very convenient and cool.
Our flight to Istanbul was on time and after clearing Turkish customs which was quick, Susan and I went to find the star alliance lounge there which involved a fair amount of walking since we were sent 100 meters the wrong direction by a lounge employee. However we found it and it was very busy. We ate fantastic lentil soup and a few other items (we only had about 15 minutes), then walked to the gate where we met up with Vicky and Steve to go to Rome.
Our flight was uneventful (even got a hot meal in economy!), but then we had to go through passport control for the EU in Rome. Everyone in our group passed the biometric test (photo and fingerprints)…I did not. First of all I had to take off my glasses to have my photo taken, and could no longer realize there were instructions to move closer or further away! The second time around I was told there were instructions, so squinted to see them, and passed the photo exam…but my fingerprints were an obstacle too far…so I had to wait in a looong line to go through manual passport control. Then we waited in a longer line for a bus to clear customs. Nonetheless…we landed at around 2pm and were at our apartment in Rome at 3:30. We took a white, official airport taxi. It was raining by the time we reached Rome and I had the wrong apartment number (though it was just up the street). We were pretty wet by the time we arrived at the apartment though.
We got a bit organized, found a really nice neighborhood grocery…long and narrow, it had wonderful produce, prepared food (nice chicken), and anything else one would need. We got takeout and veggies and had a nice early dinner. We were two hours ahead of Rome in Turkey and had arisen around 4:30am (2:30 Rome time) so went to bed early. Busy day, glad to be in Rome!
Rome seems really busy and rather dangerous overall compared to where we were in Turkey, in an Ali Bey and Side off season bubble.