Planning and flightsThe flights to and from Europe on this trip were actually purchased in J (revenue!) for $1459/person round-trip. The flights landed and left from Madrid, with a stop in each direction. We flew Alitalia (stopping in Rome) to Madrid, and KLM (stopping in Amsterdam) back home.
The cities we visited:
Madrid (1 day)
Barcelona (1 day)
Seville (½ day)
Gibraltar (2 days)
Paris (4 days)
London (4 days)
Our inter-Europe travel was booked as follows:
MAD-BCN on IB cash for $71.90/person (booked on Orbitz as to avoid the CC fee if booked directly with IB)
BCN-SVQ on Ryanair (FR) for $62/person, including one 15kg checked bag (booked direct and paid a small CC fee)
SVQ-Gibraltar-AGP rented a manual car from Hertz for €61.70 for 3 days, one way rental
AGP-ORY on Vueling (VY) for $100.32/person (Optima fare), including a 23kg checked bag, and assigned seats (booked on IB to earn 1000 avios as a promotion)
Paris (Gare du Nord)-London (St. Pancreas Int’l) on Eurostar for €43/person (booked direct)
LCY-MAD on BA for $143.80/person (cheapest revenue available, booked directly on BA)
All inter-Europe travel was nearly all offset with Barclays Arrival+ points so total cost for inter-Europe travel was $19.31/person.
Sunday, June 28, 2015 flying to RomeOur Alitalia flight to Rome was leaving LAX at 4:15pm, so we arrived at the airport at 2:30. Like last summer, we were only travelling with carry on bags, but unlike last summer we were not reprimanded for bringing more than the official business class allowance.
We stopped for a few minutes in the KAL lounge in the TBIT just to refill our water bottles and take some tea for the trip. For the record, there is no pre-packaged kosher food in this lounge, though it does offer a nice indoor balcony overlooking the terminal.
View of TBIT from KAL balconyWe headed to the gate, only to find ourselves in a huge mess of people all trying to get on the plane at the same time; welcome to Italy.
Our ride to FCOWe were booked in seats 1A and 2C on a 777, so as to each have a window and aisle access. Since we’d be sleeping a majority of the flight I didn’t see a reasons to book the honeymoon seats, which seemed a bit more cramped as they literally touch.

Seat 1A Our kosher meal was quite decent, being catered by Emuna catering from the valley. After dinner I promptly changed into pajamas I brought from home and went to sleep. I found it odd that the eye mask in the Salvatore Ferragamo amenity kit was white, so it didn’t do a very good job blocking out the light. Besides for being really hot in the cabin (which is normal for non-American airlines) the beds were quite comfortable. There was quite a lot of room in the foot well, and I slept for about 7 hours, although I kept waking up due to the heat. When I woke up there was still a few hours remaining, so I davened, had breakfast, and after 11 hours landed in Rome.

Kosher dinner Monday, June 29, 2015 Rome and getting to MadridOur stop in Rome was scheduled for 5:45 minutes. We did this intentionally so we could go back to BaGhetto Milky for lunch. After a super long taxi to our stand, another long bus ride to the terminal, and an enormous immigration queue (no business lane), we opted to just take Uber for a flat rate of €50 to the city. I got a car quickly, and within 40 minutes we were at BaGhetto.
The one thing that I kind of anticipated was that we were not too hungry for lunch, despite it being 3pm. We ordered a caprese salad (we’d loved it last summer) and a mixed bruschetta plate for a light lunch. We also ordered pesto-salmon gnocchi and a mushroom calzone to go for lunch and dinner in Madrid the next day. We ended up also taking most of the bruschetta and salad to go as well as we really weren’t too hungry. We passed on dessert both from the restaurant and the gelato place. We then went looking for our Parmesan cheese (well, not quite Parmesan, but close), but the grocery store that sold it last year seems to have closed down.
Bruschetta at BaGhetto Milky We weren’t much in the mood of touring at this point, so we decided to just head back to the airport via public transport, which involved a bus and a train. It was pretty easy, just a couple blocks to the bus from BaGhetto, but our bags were heavy, so it was a bit of a schlep. It took about 1 hour before we arrived back at the airport and, having already gotten our boarding passes in LA the day before) went through security to our gate.
The flight from FCO-MAD was actually operated by an AirEuropa (UX) A330-200, which was a pleasant surprise for a short 2 hours, inter-European trip. The business seats themselves were just fine for a 2-hour flight, or even for a longer flight if you didn’t intend to sleep. They’re angled flat seats, but really old and worn out. There is no kosher food option on European UX flights, but we didn’t care as we had our BaGhetto leftovers from lunch, which was more than enough. We landed in MAD at 9:30pm and took a taxi for a flat €30 to our hotel.

UX J on A330-200 We decided to stay at the
AC Santo Mauro (an Autograph Collection hotel) using 35k Marriott points. This hotel ended up being our second favorite hotel (after the PHP)! We were upgraded to a suite, which consisted of 2 full bathrooms, 2 living rooms (one downstairs and one upstairs) and a bedroom. It was huge, spacious, and freezing cold when we arrived. We arrived in Spain during a heat wave, so it was 95ºF+ every day and 75ºF every night. Coming into a cold hotel room was really nice!
AC Santo Mauro Lobby
AC Santo Mauro, outside courtyard
AC Santo Mauro, Suite 30
AC Santo Mauro, entrance downstairs
AC Santo Mauro, downstairs living room
AC Santo Mauro, downstairs looking at entrance
AC Santo Mauro, upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were identical
AC Santo Mauro, upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were identical
AC Santo Mauro, upstairs living room taken from stairwell
AC Santo Mauro, upstairs hallway to bedroom
AC Santo Mauro, bedroommore to come soon...