We were scheduled to fly out of Rome on Sunday morning! We awoke to no lights, no water, eerie! We went to the airport just in case, and managed to get on our flight only an hour late. I later learned that our flight was the last one to leave before they closed down the airport!!

My problem now is my VAT receipt! We were rushed through customs in Frankfurt because Lufthansa was holding our flight to the US, so I didn't get the receipt stamped. What now???

Bashaw, send a letter explaining what happened to the Vat refund office address on your envelope. We had a similar experience in Italy and also didn't get the customs stamp when were rushed - I was amazed & thankful to get the refund. I sent the form along with a copy of the customs stamp upon returning to the US. Hopefully this will work for you too.

Natalia,

Yikes...liquid detergent spilling all over your suitcase...that's not fun at all. That happened to me once with shampoo, so now, I always double bag any liquids.

I'll look forward to your trip report!

Well, we returned from our trip this past Thursday, and were in Rome during the blackout. We were asleep when it happened (unlike thousands of unfortunate people who came to Rome from all over the country to celebrate all night long), but woke up when the a/c turned off. We thought the power was just off in our street, so we went back to sleep. When we woke up, the power was still out, so we showered in the dark (luckily, still hot water!), and then packed up in the dark, since we had to get our rental car that morning to drive to Tuscany. When my husband went to check out, he learned that power was out all over Italy, the trains were down, etc. We took a cab to the rental car place, which was scary as the traffic lights weren't working. Our car was ready, so we took it and left Rome. It was a very eery feeling to be in a foreign country where we didn't understand the language, so couldn't understand any of the radio broadcasts, etc. We only had about 70E in cash, and credit cards weren't working (luckily, we'd booked our car through AutoEurope, and it was prepaid). I spent the first couple of hours of the drive trying to figure out how to get through the next few days with only 70E. About 10:30, we exited the Autostrada to make our way towards Montalcino (the first stop on our itinerary of our drive through Tuscany), and we noticed that the traffic lights in Chianciana (sp?) were working. We immediately found the first ATM we could, and withdrew the limit on both accounts we had, and I started to breath again. When we got to Montalcino we learned that the electricity had been restored to most of Italy. I can honestly say that those few hours were the scariest travel moment I've ever had, as I realized how reliant we all are on electricity! No electricity means no credit cards, no ATM cards, no phones, etc. And being in a foreign country where you don't speak the language makes it even scarier.

Like someone else said, this certainly makes for a great story after the fact. Someday soon I'll get a trip report put together, on the rest of our trip (which was fabulous!).

Whew, TXStone!

Iwas at the Hotel Cardano ,three miles from the Milan airport when everything went out. About 3am there was lots of noise in the hotel and I tried to put the lights on and nothing would work. Everything was back on when I got up though probably around 7-8 am. My plane was late from Rome because of the black out.{1 hr and 1/2]