European odyssey
April 17, 2010
On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel took an armoured limousine from Rome to Bolzano, in northeast Italy, on the next stage of an increasingly complicated return trip from the the United States.
She was already travelling for 36 hours trying to get to from San Francisco to Berlin with an entourage of some 60 officials and reporters following close behind in a bus.
Merkel's plane was diverted to Portugal on Friday, enabling her to spend a night in Lisbon due to the cloud of ash from Iceland that has brought hundreds of flights across Europe to a halt.
She flew as far as Rome on Saturday but could get no further by air.
A surprisingly cool Merkel was quoted after arriving in Rome as saying she would "take things as they come."
Merkel will spend the night in Bolzano and is to continue her journey home on Sunday.
A deputy government spokeswoman said on Saturday that the chancellor would "regrettably" not be able to attend the funeral of President Lech Kacynski and his wife, which is planned for Krakow on Sunday.
glb/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Andreas Illmer