My spouse Andrea DiLorenzo and I recently returned from an unforgettable three-week trip to visit friends in Vienna, Austria and then three different locales in Italy – Rome, the Abruzzi mountains, and the large city of Bari on the Adriatic coast.
The trip was inspired by Andrea hearing from a Viennese woman who had been a “sister” within the Austrian family she had spent a summer with in 1968 as part of the American Field Service program. After some enthusiastic emails back and forth, we decided to accept Friedericke’s invitation and visit her and her family.
We also used the opportunity of being in Europe to visit two other friends living in
Rome. Linda and Bruno would host us there and also join us for a trip into the Abruzzi mountains to visit Andrea’s ancestral village, and then we would go on ourselves for a week’s stay in Bari.
Just before leaving, I read an article by the European travel writer Rick Steves. We were both fans of his informative travel programs on PBS. In the article, Steves strongly recommended keeping a daily journal while travelling. He observed that daily writing down of travel highlights was a good way to imbed them in memory. I had been keeping a journal for some years and I decided to redouble my efforts while we were in Europe.
Now that we’ve been home for a week, I decided to use my travel journal to assemble the following travelogue. I’m illustrating my story with some of the hundred of photos we took.
For purposes of readability, I’m breaking down my blog pieces into discreet postings: on Vienna, Rome, the Abruzzi mountains, and Bari, Italy. This first posting covers our arrival in Vienna, our initial destination.
October 3, 22026 — Arrival in Vienna
We flew overnight from Dulles airport in Washington. Our Austrian Airlines flight was delayed for over an hour due to stormy weather along the East coast. After almost an entire week of preparation, we were happy to finally get off the ground and on our way. The Austrian Airlines crew were all kind and helpful and I appreciated their playing Johann Strauss waltz recordings to get us in the spirit of Vienna.
We arrived at Vienna airport around 8am Saturday. We hadn’t slept much and were pretty tired on landing, but excited at the same time. After easily passing through Austrian customs, we were heartened to see our hosts waiting for us in the reception area. We knew it was them from the beautiful welcome sign they were carrying.
Friedericke was tearful in greeting Andrea, and her husband Franz smilingly insisted on taking the bulk of our luggage to his parked car.
They drove us a short distance to their beautiful home in an apartment building in the outskirts of town. There they laid out a sumptuous breakfast as Andrea and Friedericke excitedly renewed acquaintances. It felt quite wonderful to be so lovingly received by this attentive couple. They also provided us with a comfortable bed to catch up on our lost sleep. We weren’t able to check into our Airbnb apartment until 3pm, and it was great to have a quiet place to rest until then. When we awakened, Franz was ready to drive us into the old, central part of Vienna where we were staying. He also instructed us on exactly where to meet him on the following morning when we would all be celebrating Friedericke’s 74th birthday.
John Bayerl, 11/4/2026
