Off to Santiago via Rome. Those of you with a good sense of direction will be surprised at this slightly oblique routing but the reason is quite simple. The Italian airline Alitalia has been insolvent for many years and despite the complaints of the EU their government pour money into the company to prevent it going bust. The planes are fine but the bad reputation and disorganised booking systems mean that most business customers avoid them. The consequence of this is that a business return to Santiago is at least a third the cost of BA or Latan and half that of KLM or Air France, so low that even old retirees like us can afford them, it just means you have an extra leg of the journey to get to Rome.
So instead of spending 14 hours sitting upright eating a horrid meal off our laps we had comfy seats, a very nice four course dinner (Alitalia have deservedly won awards for their grub) and then at the press of a button the seat turns into a 6'6” bed and you get nine hours sleep before being woken by the smell of coffee and pastry's which it would be rude to decline.
What's more being a bankrupt airline they can't afford new 737 jets so there is less risk of crashing.
My only worry is I hope Mrs Lucas does not get a taste of the high life, we can't afford this sort of luxury every time we go abroad once Alitalia have finally gone to the wall.
So now we are in downtown Santiago where it is about 30C and very smoggy, you are supposed to be able to see the Andes from the city, they are only 30 miles away but they are lost in the haze. The city centre is a mix of old colonial buildings and modern glass and mirrors hence Gills picture opposite of the main catherdral reflected in the office next door.
The Lucas museum curse hit this morning, two out of three museums we tried to visit were closed but the Museum dedicated to ancient Chilian culture (they actually call it Chile before Chile) was great especially the textiles some of which were 2000 years old but in very good condition supposedly preserved by the very arid conditions in the desert areas of South America.