Clearwater Beach to Florence, Italy

Clearwater Beach to Miami to Lisbon, Portugal to Florence, Italy.   February 1 & 2, 2020 

David, our Uber driver, picked Larry and me up at the condo at 9:00am Saturday morning to take us to Tampa International Airport for our flight to Miami on American Airlines. After the plane took off Larry had a great conversation with a German dude who had just arrived into the US and was on his way to the Miami Super Bowl with no ticket. He commented “ I don’t even know all the ball game rules, I just want to experience the excitement of an American football game.”  He also talked with a guy from Denver on the way to the Bowl Game who lost his wallet and he  too did not have a ticket to the game. Both were hoping to scalp a ticket, that we were told could go for as much as $4000.00. OH MY STARS!

We arrived in Miami around 12:30pm. After passing through  another TSA check, we boarded TAP, Portugal Airlines at 5:30pm (ran 45 minutes late) for our 8 hour flight to Lisbon, Portugal. In Lisbon we passed through immigration and a third TSA inspection at 2:00 am USA time...interestingly, at each inspection the TSA questioned something different in our unchecked bags. The inspectors cut us to the front of the long line of weary travelers to catch our next flight, but then took their sweet time inspecting our shampoo that was in the regulation container.  We made a mad dash to the opposite end of the airport to make our 3:30am flight. We breathlessly climbed the stairs to theTAP commuter plane knowing they were waiting for us to board. We settled into our seats just in time to hear the pilot announce the take off to be postponed due to the heavy fog. We thought....”Great...we get some extra minutes to nap!”

The plane took off an hour later than planned. We landed in Florence and gathered our bags to find no immigration inspection. Great! We scurried off to find a bus to the car rental...about two miles from the airport.

After signing all the papers and going through all the warnings of driving in Italy, we plugged in our old European GPS and found our way to Tellero. Larry must have been pumped up, because he got us there while I snoozed in a deep comma. Tellero was astoundingly beautiful. 

                                        Pastel colored villas surrounding the bay of aqua marine water...magnificent.

A narrow curvy road lead us to our villa where we maneuvered the private locked gate to enter into our complex.



We carried our bags up four flights of stairs to our home away from home, arriving 25 hours from our departure time in Clearwater Beach.  Adding six hours of time change it was Sunday 4:00 pm Italian  time and 10:00am American time.

It didn’t take us long to find the bed and settle in for a little nap. One thing about traveling overseas, the time change can be a bit grueling for the first couple of days, until the body adjusts to the new time.