The Alitalia flight from Amsterdam to Milan does take off with a delay of two hours – in addition to the original delay, one passenger did not show up, and they had to remove the luggage from the plane. Now I definitely would miss my connection in Milan to Genoa.
Then plane was a MD-80. This is actually my favorite airplane – my first flight ever was almost 24 years ago in a DC-9, the predecessor of the MD-80, from Frankfurt to Kopenhagen. The latest version is called Boeing-717, after McDonnnel-Douglas was bought by Boeing in the mid 1990s, but the plane is no longer produced. I like its elegant form, like an arrow, with its high tail wing. And I like its acceleration on the runway – when the engines are on full throttle, it feels as if you get a kick in the back. This is probably because the plane is quite small and light, and the engines are quite powerful. Although these engines are among the more troublesome among all airplanes: sometimes a blade comes loose, and then kills passengers sitting inside.
I remember that there was an accident a few years ago, with an MD-80 (SAS, not Alitalia), at the Milan Linate airport: it had crashed in foggy weather. Hopefully today is no fog…
We take off from Amsterdam, moving across the dense cloud cover. All over Europe seems to hang this large weather system coming from the North. I feel quite tired and doze off for some time. But as we approach the Alps, the clouds open at one location and reveal the white snowy mountains. Now these are real mountains, nothing compared to the ones in the Pennine High Peak area! I try to identify which mountains these are – I often spent summer vacation in the Alps, and I know when I see the Matterhorn or the Mt. Blanc. These peaks down there are quite high peaks here – must be the central part. I switch on my GPS (yes, this works also within a plane. You just need to hold it close to the window so that it can catch the 4 required satellites). After one minute, the GPS indicates the location: central Switzerland. Now I look again, and I recognize the range of the Berner Oberland: Jungfrau, Moench, and Eiger. So I located Grindelwald. Gorgeous weather here! While the whole northern side of the Alps was under a thick cloud blanket, this central part had plenty of sunshine. We flew over the Rhone Valley, and probably then over the Wallis Mountains. I could not recognize any of the mountains here, but from the spatial arrangement and the distance to Grindelwald, we were probably flying over Saas Fee. The Matterhorn would then be on the right side of the plane – and I was sitting on the left. So no chance of seeing this great mountain peak.
Then we quickly approached the Swiss Tessin (Ticino). I recognized the Lago Maggiore where I had been several times many years ago. The mountains became smaller, and the flat plain of the river Po took over. We went into a descent into Milan airport.
No fog there this time – we landed safely. The bus driver who brought the passengers to the terminal, exhibited a quite Southern driving style: it seemed as if he wanted to make a race with that plane parallel to us which was just taking off... the people in the bus were shaken back and forth, some luggage pieces fell down.
In the terminal, my next flight was already no longer on the board of departures listed. In Amsterdam, they had told me I would be able to make the flight, but as I now asked at the desk, they confirmed that it just had left. The next flight would leave shortly after 8pm. I had now 4 hours at the Milan airport, and would arrive late at the hotel. As a compensation, Alitalia gave me a voucher for the airport restaurant. I did not mind the delay, it gave me now some time to write these lines down and upload them. I went into the Alitalia lounge, got myself a nice Italian coffee, and relaxed, waiting for my next flight.
--- This is actually the first time on any of my travels, that I use this blog to this extend, to provide an almost "real-time" report. This is possible, because I travel alone, so my constant typing on the laptop gets on nobody else’s nerve.
