Two weeks from today! Two weeks from
today!!
That's right; two weeks from today
Loraine and I leave on our latest jaunt, and as I mentioned a couple
of weeks ago I wrote a preview blog for our trip site. Since I
don't want any of you to be left out, here it is, in its entirely,
with pictures and everything.
Two weeks from today! Two weeks from
today!!!
(jim@wmqt.com),
wishing his partner in travel a happy Date-i-versary, too!
*****
We're hoping that the second time's the
charm.
Welcome to this year's “Jim &
Loraine” ™ adventure, a getaway which our resident trip planner
has dubbed “Euro Wing Ding 2017”. If much of the itinerary seems
familiar, that's because it is. It's basically a re-do of our cool &
rainy 2014 trip, which we for good reason now call “The World's
Smallest Hotel Room Tour”, mixed with a little of the 2015 “Jim &
Loraine's Luggage Didn't Arrive” trip with our parents. That's
right—we're tempting fate and hoping things actually go right this
time.
Any good feelings you'd like to send
our way would be greatly appreciated.
We're flying into someplace new this
year, Dusseldorf, Germany. From there we hop in a rental car and
spend a few nights in Bastogne, Belgium, where we hope to do a couple
of things—spend a day with our friend Carl, and visit the outlet
stores of two of our favorite chocolate brands in the whole wide
world, Jacques and Galler.
After all, to build a collection like
this you have to start early--
From Bastogne, we'll spend the next
several days following pretty much the same route as we did in 2014,
with what we hope are two big differences, one under our control and
one not. Last time we did this trip we thought we might stay in Ibis
Budget hotels and see if we saved any money. Well, we did actually
save a few cents, but seeing as how most of our rooms were little
bigger than some people's closets--
This time around we decided to get
real, adult-sized hotel rooms. That's the one change that's under
our control. The other change? Well, in 2014 we got caught under a
stationary weather system for the first week of our trip, which meant
a lot of clouds, cool temperatures, and a couple of days of rain.
While we know there's nothing we can do about the weather, we're
keeping our fingers crossed. It's been the warmest summer in history
in Europe, and we're hoping it stays like that. Of course, it was
also like that in 2014, and look what happened. So just let me say
this--if turns cloudy and cold when we get there...
Well, the people of Europe will know
who to blame.
Like 2014, we're spending nights in
Nancy and Colmar, France, at the latter of which we'll (hopefully)
get to spend a little time with our friends Oliver and Marie-Rose.
Before those cities, though, we'll be spending a night at a hotel
overlooking vineyards and the Moselle River in the Luxembourg town of
Remich. The view should be something like this--
Hopefully with lots of sun, though.
After France, we'll spend the rest of
the trip in Germany, first for a few nights in the university town of
Freiburg, with it's glorious sandstone cathedral--
And the nearby Black Forest. After
that, we finish with a night in Heidelberg--
Where our parents were able to spend a
day in 2015 sightseeing while Loraine and I spent the day buying
clothes and toiletries because ours had been left behind in
Philadelphia. From there we head back to Dusseldorf, and after that
we play connect-the-dots on our way to London and Chicago and
Marquette.
Another thing that we're hoping is
different from 2014 is the road construction. We ran into all kinds
of it the last time we tried this route, and it caused us to have to
drop several things we wanted to do (including, sadly, visiting a
chocolate shop). This time around we're hoping not to see many signs
like this--
And instead have smooth and open roads
in front of us. We have help this time, too, as we're traveling with
a European GPS system for the first time. Seeing as how we'll be in
some major cities this tour, and it'll be my first time driving on
German roads, we figured it was probably the prudent thing to do.
Thanks to a birthday gift from my parents, we get to be prudent.
So we have that going for us.
We're leaving August 30th;
you have until then to get your virtual passport up to date and ready
to go. I'll be posting things here each day of the trip, and if
you've read them before you know that it's not necessarily the kind
of stuff you see on normal trip blogs. But that's okay. If you've
read these long enough, you know we're not normal travelers.
So until then...
(ps—if you're wondering where Loraine
came up with the name “Euro Wing Ding 2017”, it's her tip of the
hat to Tony DiNozzo, Sr, on "NCIS”, who once described a trip of his
just like that. We're hoping some of Robert Wagner's charm rubs off
on us!)
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