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COVID-19 Diaries: Arriving Home to a Totally Changed Rome

Sabina Castelfranco

   ROME - We made it home to Italy, just north of Rome, last Friday and
   that's when our two-week quarantine began.

   As soon as we arrived, we had to declare to the local health
   authorities that we understood the rules -- we were to stay indoors and
   not leave the house, not even for food. All I can say is thank goodness
   home deliveries are working!

   It took my 18-year-old twin sons and me an entire day to get home from
   England. We are only too aware that we were very lucky; three days
   earlier the EU had announced that travel into the Schengen area was
   halted for 30 days, with the only exception for returning long-time
   residents.

   From London Heathrow airport, we flew to Dusseldorf, Germany, to catch
   a completely booked connecting flight to Rome. Many on our initial
   flight were university students headed for Milan who discovered their
   connecting flight had been cancelled. No one told them what they should
   do. In fact, Dusseldorf airport was deserted and our flight to Rome was
   one of only a handful that had not been cancelled.

   My sons study in the south of England and I had gone there to attend a
   parents-teacher evening on Feb. 27. At that time, Italy had locked down
   11 towns in the north due to the COVID-19 outbreak. I could not have
   known that soon that would be the fate of the whole of Italy.

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