Day 1—Sunday
We arrived in Rome's Leonardo da Vinci/Fiumicino airport at roughly 8:00 CET Sunday morning. We had left Tulsa the day before just before 11:00am CST. With a time difference of seven hours, that rounds out to fourteen hours of travel, all of it in coach. Upon landing in Fiumicino we had been in the air almost ten hours. I tried to sleep on the plane in an effort to reset my body clock, but I just managed a few snoozes for probably a total of two hours. But once we landed I was wide awake.
We got through customs and immigration at the airport with surprisingly little hassle. The airport is actually eighteen miles south of Rome. The easiest way into the city is to take the "Leonardo Express", a train that leaves every half hour during the day and is a non-stop to the Stazione Termini in Rome—it takes about thirty minutes. The view from the train is of the typical "near the tracks" kind of landscape, albeit with an Italian flair. Virtually every balcony visible had flowers or laundry (or both) on it. The train was clean and not at all crowded on our ride.
The arrival into Rome was heralded by ruins: the old city wall, an aquaduct, and an ancient building came into view just before we pulled into the Stazione Termini. After we got off the train we walked to our hotel, which was just four or five blocks from the station. Unfortunately we traveled about twice that distance because I took a wrong turn out of the station. Even rolling baggage can wear you out when you're pulling it over cobble stones.