Trying to Get This Show on the Road

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This is crazy, I’m leaving for Europe in only 9 days. I’ve only just started to think about this trip seriously. And I’ll be gone for 1-1/2 months, YIKES!

So we had planned to mostly travel by train, a similar trip to ours 3 years ago. But this time we had planned to rent an RV for the last 2 weeks. Plans that were all well and good but were completely wrong.

There will be 6 of us traveling to Germany, 2 will return to Germany and 4 of us will go onto Salzburg. Then 3 of us will go the remainder of the trip.

The problem? Train tickets would cost nearly $3,000 and an RV for 2 weeks $2,500. Finding all of that info sent us back to the beginning.

Avis sent me a link for a car rental in Europe. I checked out the rentals and found that we can rent for a fraction of the cost. Dale and I went into AAA and got our International Drivers Licenses, good for 6 months.

We will rent a 9 passenger van for 3 days in Brussels so that we can travel with our friends too. Then we will trade the van for a mid size SUV and rent it for 28 days, the max you can rent. It isn’t all perfect to rent a car as we will need to find parking in Salzburg and Vienna, and don’t know yet if we can take it into Prague. But it is a start.

Without an RV we will need to camp in campgrounds, which means bringing some camping gear. Don’t know if we will fit in the car. We will read more of Rick Steves on camping in Europe, and we have a really great friend in Germany who has done lots of camping and will be glad to help.

Really exciting is that we got tickets to the Mozart Requiem at the St. Charles Church in Vienna. After some initial hassles, like buying the wrong tickets, we were able to get tickets to see Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” at the St. Stephens Church. OMG, this is so exciting!!!

This is shaping up to be an adventure.

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