The storm before the calm....

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Minus day 1............

The beginning of what is to be our trip of a lifetime begins tomorrow as we board the 4:30 flight to San Francisco. We have left no stone unturned as we have scrutinized every detail for this trip. Tickets for popular tourist attractions have been purchased and carefully tucked into our travel folder. Cars rented, train tickets waiting and boat tours ready for us to join. You can stick a fork in it.............it's done and just waiting for the day to be upon us.

We Travel to Europe for an unprecedented 2 month adventure beginning in London England and ending, of course in the South of France. This trip will have 3 major junctures beginning with the 10 day London/Paris part we are thrilled to share with our family. We are so excited to show our nieces London and our special haunts in Paris.

Leg 2 takes Tom and I to areas we have not yet explored. We train from Paris to Amsterdam and visit their lovely city for three days then happily board another Viking longboat for a trip down the Rhine. Having never been to Germany we can't wait to see what this new part of the world has to share with us. After 8 days we will sadly leave the boat in Basel Switzerland where we will board a plane headed for Nice.

Leg 3 brings us to the South of France, specifically the cozy little harbor town of Villefranche Sur Mer. It is here we will hunker down for the next 5 weeks! (4 of the weeks will be spent with our dear friends Catherine and Terry. Yes 5 whole weeks. We plan to play tennis in Nice, Antibe, Villefranche, Menton and any other Tennis club that we can find. From here we can also train or drive to Italy, should the mood strike or just sit in the backyard of our Villa and look out into the lazy harbor.

Yes everyone stay tuned as I attempt to write a blow by blow of our fabulous adventure as it unfolds in this blog.

But first.............as promised the storm before the calm. Pictured here is the storm. Closets emptied (only one or two items returned to the closet as they didn't make the cut) Oh how do I decide what to bring, what to not bring. Packing for warm weather? hot weather, cold weather? Maybe I'll just empty everything into the suitcase until it hits 50 lbs and Tom has made every conceivable plan to keep things moving smoothly in our absence which was a huge and lengthy process.

We are ready, join us as we travel through the cities, towns, and ports of Europe so we can add green, red, and blue dots seen on the map in the background of this picture representing the places we've visited............let the adventures begin!

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Comments

[Mark Dill]

Woohoo!
Enjoy! We miss you two! We are booked next March for a Viking Ocean cruise from Amsterdam to Copenhagen with time in Stockholm at the end. Looking forward to details on this trip of yours. You do the leg work and we will reap the rewards. ? Sade travels!

[Tom and Roberta Trips]

We are off again.
Hi guys we miss you too! This trip is taking us all over the place. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Viking trip down the Rhine, and our favorite niece we will actually be gone for two whole months. I’ll have to check into that Amsterdam Copenhagen trip that you two were going to be on.