The Little Piggies Roasted at the Monastery for Us

We finally reached the island at about 7 pm, after more than 24 hours of travel and waiting. The group is a nice collection of journalists and tour operators, a large contingent of about 40 or so, all here for the Italy Symposium, where Sardinian tourism potential will be the topic.

We had a few hiccups when we go to the hotel, I immediately plugged in my power strip and the room turned all dark. We got up and moved to another room and boom, it happened again. Maybe I should not use that surge protector after all. But we managed to put on our nice clothes and were taken to a former monastery where an elegant banquet awaited us. A man was cooking little pigs on a rotisserie fire and there were abundant paper cones filled with calamari and fried vegetables.

At dinner we talked about the fate of Alitalia with a man from Eurofly who knew a lot about the inside of the airline business. It was fascinating to hear the point of view about the union largesse, the extravagant spending, and how important this carrier is to tourism in Italy. He said that since most passengers using Alitalia stay in Italy, the carrier is very important to the overall tourism economy, more than with other country's flag carriers.

With Air France, most don't stay in France, but use the airline to go to other countries.