Deanna and I are off on what we hope will be a trip of a lifetime. Italy and France for six weeks. This is a trip that we’ve been planning and saving up for for five years. It’s hard to believe that it’s here. We started talking about the trip about a year ago and decided to do an organized tour in Italy and then spend the balance of the trip on our own in France. I’ve enjoyed the Rick Steve’s TV show for a few years now and we decided to take the Best of Italy tour that his company offers. I didn’t want a huge bus tour so his smaller tours that stay in local family style hotels really appealed to us. There is also a lot of time we have on our own to do our own thing, so that had a lot of appeal as well. I’m sure we’re going to meet some great folks on the tour but it’s also going to be a great opportunity for Deanna and I to spend some time on our own making our own memories.
The planning part for Italy was pretty easy given that we’re doing the bus tour thing. France on the other hand was a lot of work. I spent dozens of hours over the past year reading and researching places to go and things to do. With a country like France, we’re only going to see a small portion of it even with three weeks. When our tour is over in Rome, we’re flying to Nice and will be spending four days in Villefrachnce-sur-mer. From there we’re heading to Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, Beaune, Reims and finally wrapping our trip up in Paris.
It’s going to be a wonderful trip. Filled with great food, great wine hopefully some new friends and memories.
I’ll be posting things to the blog as I can.