“What if we went to Europe for six weeks or so and figured out what it might feel like to live there. “
“You mean stay in one place? Get to know it?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
It was innocent enough. The first thought was Italy. Maybe Bologna. Central enough for day trips. Lots of easy shopping. Good food. Plenty of places to rent.
And then it changed. Italy still isn’t our favorite place after that last trip.
Keep in mind, this whole adventure is set up on a couple of sweet round-trip Business Class tickets on FinnAir, but using American Airlines miles. There are so many miles still to use. So that means in and out over the pond in Helsinki.
I’m not going to lie. I absolutely love the Hilton Helsinki Airport. It is a very comfortable room for a very reasonable price with the most spectacular included breakfast that I have ever seen in all of Europe. I will never begrudge a night at that hotel. Which is nice, because we’re going to have a couple at the beginning and then the end of our trip.
This travel plan is taking more negotiation than usual. The first pass had us two or three nights in a dozen locations FOR SIX WEEKS. We looked at the Arctic Circle to see the Northern Lights, to Montenegro, where a travel friend offered us his villa, to Morocco, to Italy, to Switzerland, to Paris!, to the beer region in Burgandy, France (it’s a thing), to Hungary, to Croatia, and also two cities in Poland. We’ve settled on Portugal, two parts of Spain, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and a day trip to Tallinn in Estonia.
Hopefully the five days in Amsterdam allow for a little peak tulip season and also a really great Vermeer exhibit at the Rijksmuseum. Except that the exhibit sold out in 3 days. Every hour of opening from 10 February to 4 June – gone. (So tell TayTay that her ticket problem probably isn’t just Ticketmaster.) No doubt if we want to pay a premium we can find a way to go. But it kind of highlights a second problem.
It’s miserable out there.
We’ve traveled extensively for 40 years now. I just don’t remember another time when it felt like it was the wrong time to go. But by golly, we are going.
I was delighted to find a ten day stay near the Painted Forest in the Basque Region in Spain. It’s the way I plan to survive this expedition. So instead of several weeks in one place I’m hanging onto a rental in the lower level of a family home where the host has promised to share his local farmers and fisherfolks for a few days. (And the forest itself may or may not be accessible at that time…)
I don’t know. I just don’t know. But our first stop out of Helsinki is Merida, Spain, and I do enjoy Roman ruins, so I suspect I’ll be on that airplane.
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