A twenty year adventure and more

So here we are, it’s official, a whirlwind tour of Europe is in the books, and it’s happening only two weeks away. Two weeks! Well that’s not quite enough time to get organized!

While plans were made quite last miniute, we did get flights booked about a month in advance. As it turns out, we could have waited as flights that we booked one month out seem to have been about the same as flights that we could book now, but we could have gotten more preferred flight times had we booked now. Regardless, it would have been a risk to leave it longer as prices generally escalate closer to departure, and while we could have been flexible as to where we landed (Heathrow – London, Charles de Gaulle – Paris and Porto – Portugal were the easiest and cheapest options) we were hoping to connect with friends in London either on the way in, or the way out (yet to be seen if this happens). It should also be noted that we are travelling in the shoulder season, so our short timeframe and last miniute decisions are more attainable than had this trip been planned in the peak Summer season.

We were also fortunate to get a discount “friends and family” code from a friend, that saved us 20% on flights. A whopping $4! “Wait… how cheap were your flights?!” you ask. Sketchy Air Canada… Our flights were only about $25 for the four of us, and the discount was on the flights, not the taxes and fees. Needless to say, our flights were actually about 150x that amount, but this is the airline’s loophole. Regardless, $4 is $4, and her help made us commit to buying the tickets that may otherwise have remained a pipe dream, so we are very grateful for the push (Racquelle, I’m looking at you :).

Over the course of the past few weeks planning has happened at a fast clip. While we really want to be flexible in where we travel, the reality of travelling with kids is that you do need to have a general destination plan, and accommodation and transportation in some of the more touristy areas that we are likely going is VERY expensive, and often books up fast. As such, we devised an itinerary complete with fully refundable stays in hotels, vacation rentals and one all-inclusive on the SouthWest tip of Spain (is it telling that this is what I’m looking forward to the most?). The only destination we actually have to be at is in Rome for a flight to Seville mid-trip.

Aside from the plane(s) (to London, and then later to Seville), we plan to travel exclusively by foot, bike, bus and train, though we will be renting a car to get us from Seville to Cadiz and back. This has also required some planning – like a lot. Routes and times and dates and “doable” distances have all come together to form an itinerary of non-stop movement that looks somewhat like this:

Day 1: London
Day 2: To Paris Gare Nord, on foot to Gare Montparnasse on to Versailles
Day 3: Versailles to Paris for a day of sightseeing and then return to Versailles – with a little luck connecting with some long lost and dearest friends
Day 4: Versailles to Paris (again, on foot from Montparnasse to Gare Nord), and on to Strasbourg (France)
Day 6: Strasbourg
Day 7: Strasbourg to Chur, Switzerland
Day 8 (this one is a doozy): Chur to Tirano, Italy on the Bernia Express, Tirano to Milan and Milan to Venice – this will be about a 12 hour travel day with at least two exchanges, but to see the landscape from the Bernia seems worthwhile
Day 9: Venice
Day 10: Venice – Bomarzo, Italy (population 500, my lovely niece made this choice for us and I believe it will be a highlight of the trip) where we will visit the Sacro Bosco
Day 11: Bomarzo – Rome
Day 12&13: Rome (two days in one place!? Luxury!)
Day 14: Rome – Sevilla, Spain (via air) to Cadiz (via rental car)
Day 15 – 17: Cadiz all inclusive, with maybe some outtrips for kitesurfing and to Tarifa
Day 18: Cadiz – Sevilla – Barcelona (by train)
Day 19: Barcelona
Day 20: Barecelona – Lyon
Day 21: Lyon
Day 22: Lyon – London or Lille?
Day 23: London if we can connect with our friends but either way by …
Day 24: London – Home

To date we have accommodation booked in each place with the exception of the last two nights, the flight from Rome to Seville is booked with Wizz Air (a low cost carrier IF you have no bags, we did have to pay extra for our carry-ons as they are too big for Wizz Air’s “carryon size”), the car from Seville to Cadiz (booked with GoldCar), and the train passes bought (though tickets are not booked as they cannot be changed once you book them – and this brings up another hurdle to jump on another day).

The car rental addressed yet another small, yet surmountable issue. We required an International Driver’s Permit for the car rental in Spain. Thankfully, it was easy enough to procure at our semi-local CAA office (a 45 min drive down the highway). After a quick chat with Elly, the lovely lady at the desk, we had our photos taken (passport style), our $30 per person fee paid, and we walked out with clean new IDPs, and a few free maps to boot. While CAA has failed us dramatically in the past, it was a winning outcome today.

Thank goodness we both learned a stick shift as Gen Xers, because Automatic vehicles in Europe are very hard to come by, and often quite expensive to rent. Funnily enough, it’s been about 20 years since we’ve driven Manual, and we are both really looking forward to it! In fact, I paid 35Eu (about $50CAD at current exchange rates) extra as a second driver just so I could drive it once or twice while we are there. So, with IDPs in hand, we returned to home to … see what happens next.