Mike and Nicoles Honeymoon to Europe

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Only 23 days to go! Heavily into the planning and pre-reading and just all round thinking about our trip and what we need to do to prepare for it.

The broad itinerary is Singapore (1 day), Italy (7 days), Switzerland (2 days), France (8 days). We will pick up a car in Rome (we have been confirmed for a Mercedes A180 auto) and drop it off when we reach Paris. C.a.n.n.o.t. W.a.i.t!!!

Finding this site has been good, I find reading blogs of people not dissimilar to me better than reading guidebooks and professional authors. You get a more honest and realistic appraisal of he places we are visiting.

Today I found a blog by a couple who were staying at the same chateau that we will be at in Amboise, France. They raved about a nearby restaurant so I took their advice and sent an email to the restaurant (I translated it into french before I sent it) making a booking for one of the nights we are there. I already got confirmation that the table is booked! Things like that make the trip more real and tangible.

The next things I have to do are work out which tablet (PC) to buy to take. I want something we can use for internet access but can also be used to store, upload pictures as well as emailing, facebooking and maybe Skypeing back to our families.

I got a GPS unit last week and have downloaded Europe maps onto it so that will be our main tool for getting around and hopefully cut down on the numbers of times we get lost. It has a 'pedestrian' mode which means we can take it with us when we are wandering the cities etc if we want to.

Hoping to meet up with our travel agent next week to finalise our itinerary, discuss any last minute concerns and make the final payment (oh well, THAT had to happen eventually!)

Will probably make one more entry BEFORE we leave. Hopefully will make a daily record while im away, I would like something to look back at once our trip is over.

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