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Hey what's up, I'm back again from Rome and it was great. Now, without further introduction, my trip report.
On Tuesday Sep. 23 I started out on a school study trip with my class. Because of financial reasons, we didn't fly to Rome directly. We took the Deutsche Bahn to Cologne Main Station and then the bus to CGN. From the first moment CGN appeared to be a passenger-friendly airport. All the signage was easy to understand, there were lots of parking spaces, and the only construction site was the train station. Our flight was scheduled as Hapag-Lloyd Express flight X3 3722 to Rome-Ciampino (CIA) from the new terminal 2. The terminal still looked like it was built only days ago. It wasn't crowded at all and we all checked in very quickly. Since it still was 3 hours until departure, we decided to have a snack at Burger King in Terminal 1. It was definetely a contrast to T2. The ceiling and the floor looked shabby, and there was not much space in front of the counters of LH/Germanwings. On the positive site, there was a bg window between the two satellites, that gave a good view of part of the apron. Unfortunately the 2 gates closest to the window (B6 and C1) where closed to construction. There weren't really many aircraft as we were between the pushes at CGN, so also no photo oppurtunities, since if there was an aicraft, there was always something in front of it. Once it was time to get to the gate we went through security (very quick
) and down to our bus gate. Boarding was quick but the bus waited for late people. Once all were there the bus drove the like 50 meters (!) to the plane (like we couldn't have walked that distance), a Boeing 737-700. Then it was "run for your seats as everyone wanted the best". I got myself seat 5A, but also 5B and 5C, as the flight was only about 2/3s full. The plane looked very clean and new, both inside and outside. Seat pitch was 31'' and the seats were leather seats. We pushed back very quickly and taxied all the way to rwy32R for a quick acceleration and short take-off run. The flight to Rome was uneventful and we arrived after 1h 40min flight on rwy 15 at Ciampino in bad light conditions (no photos possible) and taxied to a gate alongside a silver Dassault Falcon and an EAL 732. A bus then took us to the arrivals hall. The ride gave viewing oppurtunities of a Ryanair 738 and the two Italy AF A319CJs. The arrivals hall looked like your typical LCC tgerminal, old and shabby. The luggage took some time to arrive and once we got it we took the bus to our "hotel". What followed were 8 days of visitng all of Rome's world famous landmarks: Colosseum, Capitol, Vatican City, Via Appia Antica, the Forums, a dozen churches etc. To write all this down I'd probably need 10 hours. Of course it wasn't really funny when the Big Italian Blackout happened, as you may have heard of. But other then that, everything went fine until we were scheduled to go back to Germany. Oh, and I forgot, Tuesday, when we visited Ostia Antica, an ancient port city, and we were resting in a cafe, a suddenly noticed a big aircraft on approach to FCO. I thought it was just an AN-124 and it was too far away to take a good pic with my digital camera, so I left it in my back pack. But once I took a second look, I realized it was the AN-225 Mrija 
. Shocked at the realization, I hastingly tried to grab my cam, but once I had it, the plane had disapeared behind trees 
. Today I can still bite my ass that I didn't take a pic 
.
Ok, on with the trip.
We left our hotel at 7 in the morning on Oct. 2nd and took the bus through the Roman rush hour to the airport. The departure hall was rundown like the arrivals hall. Check-in and security were very quick. The waiting area was overfilled, but only the Schengen part of it. The Schengen part had three bus gates, out of which two were functional, and handles all HLX flights to CGN and HAJ, Ryanair's FRA-Hahn flights, Air Berlin's TXL flights and Sterling to Copenhagen. The Non-Schengen area had 4 gates (all working for Easyjet, Ryanair and the occasional EAL flights to Ireland and the UK. Boarding our flight was delayed slightly as our gate was supposed to be used for the FR flight to Hahn, but was switched to the CGN flight, as the Ryanair 738 only arrived once our boarding had already finished with a 45-minute delay (the FR flight, not ours). We taxied to rwy 33L (the old 15L/33R looked closed), where we stood until our scheduled departure. This alolwed for some apron pix
. Once the HLX flight to HAJ took off from 15R (!), we accelarated quickly on 33L and left the city of Rome beyond us. I was seated in seats 4A and B (flight was around 80% full), but I should've sitten on the other side as the right side offered views of the Roman monuments and Fiumicino airport. We flew alonside the coast of Italy, over the Alps with some turbulence and a great view of Mont Blanc, over France and LUX and into the CGN area. During parts of the decent, the pitch of the nose must have been something like -25 degrees, as the aircraft went down very steeply, probably the steepest decent I have ever experienced 
. We arrived at a cloudy CGN on schedule and this time got a jetway. Luggage came out quickly, and the avation part of the trip was over. Now it was only trins to Hamburg with connections in Dusseldorf and Hannover (talk about getting cheap fares :P ). Of course all three trains were delayed, as usual 
, but we still managed to arrive at Hamburg Main Station at 7:20 p.m. Then it was only a short drive with my father home and into my own bed .
That's my trip report, hope you like it and I'll try to upload pics as fast as I can.
On Tuesday Sep. 23 I started out on a school study trip with my class. Because of financial reasons, we didn't fly to Rome directly. We took the Deutsche Bahn to Cologne Main Station and then the bus to CGN. From the first moment CGN appeared to be a passenger-friendly airport. All the signage was easy to understand, there were lots of parking spaces, and the only construction site was the train station. Our flight was scheduled as Hapag-Lloyd Express flight X3 3722 to Rome-Ciampino (CIA) from the new terminal 2. The terminal still looked like it was built only days ago. It wasn't crowded at all and we all checked in very quickly. Since it still was 3 hours until departure, we decided to have a snack at Burger King in Terminal 1. It was definetely a contrast to T2. The ceiling and the floor looked shabby, and there was not much space in front of the counters of LH/Germanwings. On the positive site, there was a bg window between the two satellites, that gave a good view of part of the apron. Unfortunately the 2 gates closest to the window (B6 and C1) where closed to construction. There weren't really many aircraft as we were between the pushes at CGN, so also no photo oppurtunities, since if there was an aicraft, there was always something in front of it. Once it was time to get to the gate we went through security (very quick
) and down to our bus gate. Boarding was quick but the bus waited for late people. Once all were there the bus drove the like 50 meters (!) to the plane (like we couldn't have walked that distance), a Boeing 737-700. Then it was "run for your seats as everyone wanted the best". I got myself seat 5A, but also 5B and 5C, as the flight was only about 2/3s full. The plane looked very clean and new, both inside and outside. Seat pitch was 31'' and the seats were leather seats. We pushed back very quickly and taxied all the way to rwy32R for a quick acceleration and short take-off run. The flight to Rome was uneventful and we arrived after 1h 40min flight on rwy 15 at Ciampino in bad light conditions (no photos possible) and taxied to a gate alongside a silver Dassault Falcon and an EAL 732. A bus then took us to the arrivals hall. The ride gave viewing oppurtunities of a Ryanair 738 and the two Italy AF A319CJs. The arrivals hall looked like your typical LCC tgerminal, old and shabby. The luggage took some time to arrive and once we got it we took the bus to our "hotel". What followed were 8 days of visitng all of Rome's world famous landmarks: Colosseum, Capitol, Vatican City, Via Appia Antica, the Forums, a dozen churches etc. To write all this down I'd probably need 10 hours. Of course it wasn't really funny when the Big Italian Blackout happened, as you may have heard of. But other then that, everything went fine until we were scheduled to go back to Germany. Oh, and I forgot, Tuesday, when we visited Ostia Antica, an ancient port city, and we were resting in a cafe, a suddenly noticed a big aircraft on approach to FCO. I thought it was just an AN-124 and it was too far away to take a good pic with my digital camera, so I left it in my back pack. But once I took a second look, I realized it was the AN-225 Mrija . Shocked at the realization, I hastingly tried to grab my cam, but once I had it, the plane had disapeared behind trees . Today I can still bite my ass that I didn't take a pic .Ok, on with the trip.
We left our hotel at 7 in the morning on Oct. 2nd and took the bus through the Roman rush hour to the airport. The departure hall was rundown like the arrivals hall. Check-in and security were very quick. The waiting area was overfilled, but only the Schengen part of it. The Schengen part had three bus gates, out of which two were functional, and handles all HLX flights to CGN and HAJ, Ryanair's FRA-Hahn flights, Air Berlin's TXL flights and Sterling to Copenhagen. The Non-Schengen area had 4 gates (all working for Easyjet, Ryanair and the occasional EAL flights to Ireland and the UK. Boarding our flight was delayed slightly as our gate was supposed to be used for the FR flight to Hahn, but was switched to the CGN flight, as the Ryanair 738 only arrived once our boarding had already finished with a 45-minute delay (the FR flight, not ours). We taxied to rwy 33L (the old 15L/33R looked closed), where we stood until our scheduled departure. This alolwed for some apron pix
. Once the HLX flight to HAJ took off from 15R (!), we accelarated quickly on 33L and left the city of Rome beyond us. I was seated in seats 4A and B (flight was around 80% full), but I should've sitten on the other side as the right side offered views of the Roman monuments and Fiumicino airport. We flew alonside the coast of Italy, over the Alps with some turbulence and a great view of Mont Blanc, over France and LUX and into the CGN area. During parts of the decent, the pitch of the nose must have been something like -25 degrees, as the aircraft went down very steeply, probably the steepest decent I have ever experienced . We arrived at a cloudy CGN on schedule and this time got a jetway. Luggage came out quickly, and the avation part of the trip was over. Now it was only trins to Hamburg with connections in Dusseldorf and Hannover (talk about getting cheap fares :P ). Of course all three trains were delayed, as usual , but we still managed to arrive at Hamburg Main Station at 7:20 p.m. Then it was only a short drive with my father home and into my own bed .That's my trip report, hope you like it and I'll try to upload pics as fast as I can.
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