Plan A, all the way

Author Message   John Slater New member Username: Jennyknob Post Number: 5 Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 74.97.205.18 Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 07:36 pm:    Wes, we stayed at the Gardesana, which overlooks the harbor at Torri. We came across it in the 1960s when I was on active duty and fell in love with it. It's under different ownership now and it's something of a splurge, but it's a very special place to us.   Edgar Inocentes Senior Member Username: Traveler88 Post Number: 542 Registered: 01-2005 Posted From: 209.242.132.226 Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 03:11 pm:    John S., beware...space-a is addicting!   Tom DeMicke Senior Member Username: Typhoontom Post Number: 1011 Registered: 03-2005 Posted From: 211.121.74.150 Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 08:14 am:    Outstanding report. Loved the Plan " " you included in each segment. Great thinking! Outstanding!   Wes Loukota Intermediate Member Username: Woodturner Post Number: 63 Registered: 07-2007 Posted From: 75.216.160.85 Posted on Sunday, May 09, 2010 - 08:52 pm:    John, Great report! Which hotel did you stay at in Torri di Benaco? We drove the western shore of Lago di Garda on Thursday, 4/15 and the eastern shore on Sunday, 4/18 with my wife's cousin who lives in Castelnuovo. We stopped in Malcesine,where the gondola to the top of Monte Baldo is, and walked down to the lake. The town is reminiscent to the Cinque Terra. Had great weather,too. There is a hotel on the western shore in Limone sul Garda that we want to stay at, on our next trip in two years, that appears to be hanging over the edge of the lake. Hopefully I can find the name of it because we couldn't quite get it when we drove by.   John Slater New member Username: Jennyknob Post Number: 4 Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 74.97.205.18 Posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 - 05:07 pm:    Bill, we left our car in long-term parking at $8 a day. We were afraid we might have to drive on to Dover that night, and we didn't want the hassle of cab trips to and from the Coast Guard Station. There also is some off-site parking available near the airport for $6.   John R Garrison Senior Member Username: Majorg Post Number: 2579 Registered: 02-2006 Posted From: 208.81.157.86 Posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 - 01:28 pm:    John: Good report! Thanks for taking the time to write it up and to share it with us. Happy travels, John   Bill Mc Carthy Intermediate Member Username: Billmacnypd Post Number: 105 Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 96.231.69.197 Posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 - 01:18 pm:    John: Great report. Where did you park your car at BWI?   Phil Doubleman Senior Member Username: Phil Post Number: 1578 Registered: 08-2005 Posted From: 68.35.26.65 Posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 - 12:30 am:    Good on you, John. Perfect planning and tremendous luck wins out almost every time. Great report.   John Slater New member Username: Jennyknob Post Number: 3 Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 74.97.205.18 Posted on Thursday, May 06, 2010 - 08:08 pm:    I retired from the Naval Reserve in 1984, and my wife and I just completed our first Space-A adventure. I am happy to report that, with the help of all the information and advice we gleaned from these pages and the various Military Living publications, the kindness of strangers, and some plain good luck, our trip was picture-perfect. Just consider: We flew from BWI to Aviano, our first choice, on the Pat-Ex April 11. (Plan B was Dover to Ramstein, then to northern Italy by rental car.) There were no rooms available at the Mountain View Lodge, but a fellow passenger returning to Aviano used her Italian cell phone to find us a room at the nearby Oliva Hotel. Then she and her husband, who met the flight, drove us to the hotel. We spent a fabulous week enjoying northern Italy with a rental car—three nights at Camp Ederle in Vicenza and four nights at a memorable hotel in Torri del Benaco, on the eastern shore of Lake Garda. The volcano in Iceland disrupted air travel in northern Europe for most of that week, leaving us wondering whether our Ryan Air flight from Torino to London Stansted would be cancelled. (Plan B was to scrub the England leg of the trip and take the medevac bus from Vicenza to Ramstein to wait for the skies to clear.) Ryan Air resumed its flight schedule the day we were due to fly, and we had a very special four-day visit with English friends dating back to when I was stationed in London in the 1960s. Our Ryan Air flight from Stansted to Frankfurt Hahn was early enough in the day so we could take the Bohr bus from Hahn to Frankfurt International and catch the free shuttle to the Ramstein AMC terminal, arriving about 1530. (Plan B involved a train from Frankfurt to Landstuhl.) We had ourselves marked “present” for a 1700 flight to McGuire. When the McGuire flight was cancelled, we decided to catch some sleep before trying to get aboard one of two flights to Dover scheduled for oh-dark-thirty. The pleasant woman at the desk of the Ramstein Inn had no rooms available, but I asked her to check with the Cannon Hotel, which did have space for us. (Plan B was a hotel in town.) Before going to bed with a wake-up call of 0100, we telephoned the terminal and learned that both the night flights were off the schedule, but that a flight to Pope AFB had been added, with a showtime of 1030. We slept late and had a marvelous breakfast at the Cannon before shuttling back to the terminal with another couple interested in the same flight. We had ourselves marked “present” for the flight. (Plan A told us to follow the cardinal rule of Space-A travel—take the first flight that’s going in the direction you want to go.) We were called for the flight, checked our bags, and paid $4.50 apiece for box lunches. The plane was a C5, and there were only 18 people on board, so everyone got three seats abreast to stretch out on. The day—April 27—was our 47th wedding anniversary, so we had a celebratory in-flight lunch and dinner, consuming the contents of our box lunches—four slices of white bread, two tubs of peanut butter and four patties of jam, a bag of chips, a granola bar, a sack of M&Ms, a box of raisins, a Dr. Pepper and a bottle of water. (There was no plan B.) When we arrived at Pope, we arranged to share a rental car with our newfound friends, who live in nearby Wake Forest, North Carolina. After waiting an hour for a customs official to come to Pope to process us, we were bussed to the terminal, where we waited another hour for our bags to come off the plane. We dropped our friends at their house and drove sixteen hours (with two overnight stops) to pick up our car at BWI and make our way home to the mountains of western North Carolina, very pleased with ourselves and with our first Space-A adventure. We’re already planning the next one!