Originally posted on July 19, 2012 by Canicus

Transition from Lyon to Rome

All Europe is populated by C Programmers. Thus the first floor is Floor 0. This works out fairly rationally because it means that if there is a basement, it will be Floor -1; if there is a subbasement it will be -2. But all this means that the second floor (the one above the ground floor) is Floor 1; and the third floor is floor 2.

Now, in case you are confused, consider the hotel where I stayed in Lyon. The first (ground) Floor is 0. (There was a basement where taxis lurked, but you could not access it by elevator — supposedly that would be -1.) Now the hotel lobby was not on the ground floor — Floor 0; you had to take an elevator to the second floor, Floor 1, to get to the lobby.

But the hotel elevators were on this second floor, but those elevators designated the second floor as Floor 0. My hotel room was located on Floor 3 — that being the fifth floor of the building. To get to ground level I had to take the hotel elevator to Floor 0, transfer to another elevator and, because as far as that elevator was concerned I was on the second floor (1), I had to take it to the first floor (0).

Nothing much to report. I packed in the morning — pretty much for the last time. It was a short walk to Gare Part-Dieu to catch the Rhônexpress to Aéroport Lyon Saint-Exupéry. It is an hour 30 minute flight to Aeroporto Internazionale Leonardo da Vinci di Fiumicino (Rome’s major airport).

I’m spending the night in the Hilton Rome Airport. Too expensive and, obviously, the most “American” hotel this trip. But I figured that taking the Leonardo Express from Fiumicino to Rome, spending one night in a cheap hotel, being sure to wake early enough to take the Leonardo Express back to the airport to catch an 11 AM flight to the U.S. would end up being a bigger mess and not a lot cheaper.

I figure I have to check out of the hotel by 8 AM (instead of 7 AM had I stayed in Rome) in order to find where in which terminal I need to be by 9 to get the boarding pass, check my bag, go through security and find my gate.

Canicus Modius