The incredible journey continues. Comfy and chipper in Heathrow: unlike fetid US terminals it's clean, spacious and bright. There are plenty of jaunty leatherette armchairs on which to set up a nest for the long stopover, and you can browse in Bally, Boots and WH Smith. Enjoying the familiarity of shops, brands and accents. 70p buys a couple of hours of decent entertainment with The Guardian. We're back in a country where the World Cup is on the front page (unfortunately, so are the Beckhams) and the sport section covers cricket and rugby. At reliable Pret A Manger you can get excellent salmon nigiri and cartons of miso soup - my ultimate comfort meal. And adults drink coffee or water, but not Coke.
Finally, some two days after leaving Ann Arbor, we get to shower and sleep in a real bed. But not until I had soaked up some Roman air. We're staying in Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port and an archaeological site, and as we sit in the balmy dark on our balcony, with a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, I fancy I can sense the history and the ghosts in the midnight air.
The next morning we down glasses of blood orange juice and a sweet pastry before heading back to the airport, with our four suitcases in tow, for our flight to Valetta. The Alitalia desk baulks when it sees our mountain of luggage - we have become the very travellers I sneer at in airports - but as our journey originated in the US, they have to honour our imperial baggage allowance. Alitalia must sense our short-term status as global dominators because they bump us up to business class.
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