23 May 2019: Travel Day—Rome>Amsterdam>Minneapolis>Bozeman: Mileage: (0/387)

I'm starting today's post from the Delta Sky Club in Minneapolis. I had everything packed and organized this morning, sufficient time for two expresso on the Krups capsule machine while waiting for my taxi to Fiumicino Airport. I considered biking there, but a 1 hour ride and packing would require an earlier start, leave me sweaty on arrival, and anxious while packing—not worth the trouble.

I sailed through check-in in 25 minutes and had an hour before early boarding. While a bit difficult to locate, the Alitalia Lounge was just a 10-minute walk from my gate. Nothing like having a barista on staff.

I had a smooth transit through Amsterdam, on-time landing in Minneapolis, then Nancy called, even before the flight display was updated, saying the Bozeman flight is delayed. Now my 9:30 pm Bozeman arrival is closer to midnight, if at all. 

Alitalia Barista. Christopher marveled at non-predatory Italian pricing. An expresso pulled on a quality machine usually cost about 1 euro. Variants, cappuccino, Americano, or similar variants just a bit more. Try to match that at an airport Starbucks or similar shop.

In the end, my 8 hour wait in Minneapolis was followed by a midnight arrival in Bozeman. 

Random Observations

• A half-carafe(500 ml or 2/3 of a typical bottle) of quality house wine was 4-6 euros, 8-10 euros for a liter. It's $7-10 for a single glass of wine in the US, due to predatory pricing policies and liquor licensing laws.
• European drivers are almost all courteous to cyclists. They wait to pass, honks are usually just to say we are here, and most drivers understand if we move left to avoid road hazards.
• Italian cuisine is wheat- and cheese-based. Christopher, raised on a rice-based diet, was getting a bit tired of it. 
• Pasta is always al dente. Always.
• Pizza is nearly always excellent, even in the pizzerias that make it in advance, reheat in a quality oven, and price it by weight. Many are vegetarian, delicious, and I seldom missed meat toppings.
• A lot of the Italian roads could use some repair. Patches, on patches, on patches,  . . . 
• Restaurants open at 7 pm, or 8 pm, or 8:30 pm. Cyclists want to eat and get to bed. Nearly all of the early diners, 1st seating in the popular historic cities, will be tourists. Locals seldom appear before 8:30 or 9 pm.
• Children will be playing in the streets at hours unthinkable in the USA. 
• I never felt unsafe anywhere. Period. 
• While I understand the plight of the immigrants, and appreciated their creativity and zeal to make money to live, their repeated intrusions in tourist centers and at the entrances of supermarkets was irritating. 
• Having two phones turned out to be a real bonus. My new iPhone 8 is supposed to be waterproof, so that is a plus when using it for route guidance when it's raining. I kept it on a handlebar mount, tilted so that the water would run off. I tried a sandwich bag for protection, but it soon filled with enough water to make the screen unreadable.
• I kept my old iPhone 6s, unlocked, no sim card, primarily as a camera during the day, and for web radio access at night. I also downloaded several Amazon videos in advance. Much Amazon content is not licensed outside the USA, so download content before you leave the USA. It can also stream web content via wifi, since all but one of our lodgings had free wifi.
• I purchased an auxiliary power bank, as maps.me would drain my iPhone in about 5 hours. About the same size as my iPhone, I borrowed Christopher's phone mount when recharging on the go. My alternative was to string the charging cable from a jersey pocket to the phone. I'll purchase another phone mount for my next trip.
• Having toured in the Balkans, Spain, France, and norther Europe, I was struck by the age of buildings and historic objects in Italy. Town-after-town and church-after-church date back to the 10th-12th century, and relics back to the 1st century. The Etruscans pre-dated the Romans, conquered by the Romans in the 300's, and many of the Roman buildings and statues were linked to the Greeks. The Romans tended to copy Greek sculpture, often copying bronze sculpture in Italian marble.
• Christopher often reflected that the Roman economic and governing system was unsustainable, based on war, conquest, plunder, slavery, and dominance.

Route Finding Guidance

I used maps.me for my recent Italy trip and learned a few things that might be helpful:

• I replaced my 6s with an iPhone 8. I was able to get 4- 5 hours out of a battery charge. I tended to use the “Start” option, which offered alerts on upcoming turns.
• I generally left the display on unless on long stretches of road without turns.
• Regarding rain, the iPhone 8 is supposed to be water proof. I tilted it on the handle bars so that rain would not pool and it seemed OK. 
• When you turn off the screen, you have to log back in by fingerprint or pass code. Neither worked very well when extremely wet. If just damp, then the pass code worked. The fingerprint log-in did  not work with a wet or damp fingerprint.
• Since my auxiliary battery is about the same size as my phone, I ordered another phone mount. That avoids stringing the charging cable from a pocket or pack. 
• Once maps.me directed me to dirt roads on the edge of farm fields. Perhaps I could have seen that it was an unpaved road surface, but I didn’t know how.
• When I occasionally went off-route, by accident or intentionally, it promptly redirected me on an alternative, when available. So perhaps twice it suggested I make a u-turn. The other times I was riding on a good road, but it directed me to a longer, perhaps quieter lane. However, when I stayed on the original good road, it promptly changed my route to that road. This was common in a city where many streets on a grid system will get you to the same destination.
• An excellent add from Christopher: When in the city, if one way streets are designated, maps.me will direct you accordingly if you plot a route in bicycle mode. This can be confusing and energy wasteful especially in hilly towns. You can tell maps.me is routing one way streets when the route is illogical (ie. not direct... go left, then right, down x intersections, right and left again, etc.)
  To avoid this meandering, switch to pedestrian mode. The route plotted will be direct.
  Just be careful when biking in the opposite direction on one way streets. Also, in pedestrian mode, dedicated bike routes could be missed. Also, the walking route might lead you to steps.
• I found the option to turn on/off the voice prompt. I seldom used it, but when I did, it didn’t seem to take much power to operate.
• I found how to route to other points on the original route. For example, if your route is set, origin to destination, then you can zoom the map to a point, say another town, hold your finger on that point, and you get an option to add it to the route. If you decide not to go there, hold your finger on the screen and you get the option to delete that point.
• Maps.me is better at navigating to a business than an address. I usually found that I could find my lodging, even obscure B & Bs, by name. Otherwise, I just had to go to the city/village, then perhaps us Maps or Google Maps to get to an address. Google Maps is better finding an address. You can also download the area Google maps so that data is not required. 
• Finally, I had 1 or 2 lodgings that lacked wifi. I turned on “Data” and used my iPhone as a “Hot Spot” for my computer. When traveling together, only one of us could do so in the evening and everyone could share the same Hot Spot, giving everyone web access for the single $10/day charge. I think I paid for data for perhaps 4 or 5 days out of 15 days away.
• With my iPhone 8 tied up for navigation and on the bar mount, it’s not convenient for photos. Here the 6s came in handy. I kept the 6s in my pocket for photos. It’s unlocked, showing no sim card. 
• I could purchase a sim card for longer trips, but that also comes with a different phone number. If you have one phone and it’s unlocked, a local sim card and data plan is less expensive. However, if you have clients or family that might be calling on your regular number, then an international data plan might be more convenient. Note that the sim card also requires a password, so you may have to log in via two passwords. 
• I did bring along a 1 x 150,000 scale paper map of the region. The paper map offered better perspective, but the smaller roads recommended by maps.me are seldom shown. We found it difficult to find and mark our actual route on the paper map.