The short hop between touch down at Fiumicino and arrival at my my future home was a good induction to what lay ahead. My internal chaos got off to a really good start with immigration providing EEC passport holders with  2 lines and non EEC with 4. It looked as if it should have been the other way around,as any seasoned traveller to this beautiful and confounding country will know . I had forgotten that signs in ltaly often don't mean what they say and nor did these....another lesson learnt! Just do what makes more sense,because that's what the locals do.
Baggage unassigned to any of the 11carousels initially meant  tracking down my luggage in the midst of shoals of passengers struggling past one another dragging their luggage, grateful to have made it this far and the EXIT door looking more like the portal to heaven.
Angels can be dressed to look like custom officers too, and by the time l had made it this far  l was prepared to believe that l had used up any resources left and was at journey's end.
Fiumicino is a tired ,battered ,and crowded place that has seen better days, but once  outside in that warm sunshine with lots of smiling family members and friends greeting new arrivals,it felt really good. Neither  bike bag, rucksack, nor pull-along that l had rescued from that pitching storm of luggage forever going round and round seemed to carry any weight because here l was,and about to find the train for Roma Tiburtina, from where the final dash for Montepulciano was to be launched .
It did me no good when l realised that the phrase book that l kept in my head ,had clearly fallen off its perch,and it was back to basics. 
Fiumicino and l had more in common than l cared to admit.