Up to the alarm so we could get away early to Rome to pick up Alastair from his 1pm flight from Umea and Riga. It’s always a toss-up between time and tolls, and we were early enough that we didn’t want or need to use the toll roads the whole way, so we took the coastal SS1 road for most of the way. The other option is the main autostrada down the centre of Italy, but there are no decent non-toll alternatives so you are either fully tolled or really slow. Hence the coast.
Stopped once for some eats for us and Alastair, and arrived with 10 minutes to spare at the airport after juggling toll and ordinary roads to get a suitable arrival time. The GPS makes it all pretty simple, though after picking up Alastair it seemed to make some rather odd decisions on leaving Fiumicino airport. Used all the toll roads on the way back as we were getting a little sick of driving. Some of the roads are shockingly bumpy – it is like riding in a jet through bad turbulence, as when you hit a bump at 110 or 130km/h, it is a vicious jolt. The trip home seemed to go very quickly compared with the trip down to Rome. We talked the whole way home, there being so much to catch up on since it is over a year since we had seen Alastair.
Arrived back at 6pm, cooked a meal and all pretty tired so soon to bed. A long day but fantastic to have Alastair with us. He ended his year at Umea on a high. His last project and presentation went extremely well and he has had great feedback from his head tutor. He is the only one so farof his class of 10 to have a confirmed internship to head to after the summer break.
