Have you ever heard of Murphy’s law? Its states: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
And of course that happened to us this morning.
When I arrived from Rome to the hotel in Albano Laziale, with our van still with the broken window, I had our four adventurers, Anna, Erik, Pedro and Tom check out and load their luggage in the van that was in the safe parking lot of the hotel. The idea was to cross the road to have breakfast at the local bar. After loading the van with all the luggage, I walked around it and saw that we had a flat tire.
Many words were mumbled, and many Saints were mentioned in many languages also Italian “Volano Madonne” or in the English translation of the Roman football player Francesco Totti -Fly Madonnas.
Steps:
1. Forget about everything and have breakfast cappuccinos and croissants or cornetti at the local bar.
2. Unpack the van completely and locate the tools to jack it up.
3. Change the tyre.
4. Discuss with Anna, Erik and Pedro which route they should take, bring them to the monument of the Orazi e Curiazi and set them on their way.
5. Drive to Rome and have the flat tyre repaired.
6. Go to a bookshop and buy a new version of APPIA of Paolo Rumiz (because my book with all my notes was stolen)
7. Go to the police station because the rental company informed me that there was something wrong in the declaration we made at the police station.
8. Book a new hotel for the guys that were walking.
9. Try to find another hotel because after I made the booking a stressed lady called me to inform me that the rooms I boked were not available, she forgot to take them from the internet.
10. Book the new hotel 10 km from the Appia, could not find something else.
11. Cancel the new hotel because Anna called me and informed me that they could stay at the house of a friend.
12. Receive a phone call from the rental company that a new window will not be available soon, but if you can wait until tomorrow, we will have a replacement car.
13. Go home in Rome have dinner and catch some zzzzzz’s
Photos from the flat tyre – and the walk the magnificent 3 did – Their adventure was great, a nice meeting with a lady who spontaneously offered lunch in the form of cake and another lady highly interested in our walk. Last photos Pedro the Etruscan in his nightgown kindly supplied by Lucina’s friend. Tom Hazenberg who should have walked with us the first three days informed me that staying around while he could not help with problem solving was not an option, we agreed and waved hem off in a taxi towards the airport for a flight back to the Netherlands.
