Itinerary-ish-type-thing

This blogging thing is harder than I anticipated, especially over the holidays and in the midst of still booking hotels and flights to the places we want to see.  Not gonna lie, we only have ½ the trip booked.  Anyway, I started writing this second blog in turmoil about either going into detail about the stops we are planning or posting the bare bones itinerary.  I decided I would spend some time discussing why we were going to the places we were, outlining the stops but soon realized that it was going to take forever and a bunch of research.  So in order to provide a bit more detail given both my lack of time and actual information I thought I’d lay out the basic itinerary with some vague times and some names of places thrown in randomly for interest sake.  This makes sense given that I plan to write about the actual places after we have actually seen them.

On January 9^th we leave Kamloops at 06:00 and arrive the next day in Paris at 09:50.  It is an overnight flight but I’m curious about how much sleep we will be afforded.  We will spend 4 nights in Paris, taking in the Catacombs and the ‘usual’ Paris sights.  I say usual but truly mean that I am thrilled at the opportunity for a few days in this beautiful city.  If I must share, I would love to see the Louvre and the Musée D’Orsay but I hope we keep our itinerary flexible in case something interesting comes along.  From Paris we fly to Prague which I have recently heard described as the most beautiful city in Europe and am absolutely looking forward to taking it in.  We will rent a car at the airport so that we can drive through to Kutna Hora, Brno and then across the Czech border into Austria through to Vienna.  We chose each of these cities for their unique take on bone churches, chapels or ossuaries.  Some establishments display decorated mummified human remains.  So many macabre sights, so little time!

We stay in Vienna for 2 nights and will then head toward Salzburg to walk through a skull themed cemetery.  On the way to Mozart’s birthplace, a beaten path through a mountainous lakeside road leads to Hallstatt where we will feast our eyes on a collection of decorated skulls.  One night in Salzburg and then on to Munich to jump a flight to Milan which will launch our Italian tour.

Milan boasts an amazing chapel but in the interest of time, we will stay in the mecca of fashion only long enough to view the San Bernadino alle Osso as we uncovered a nearby scenic circle of death during a planning session yesterday.  From Milan we aim east, in another rented car, toward Solferino, San Martino, Custoza and then back to Solferino.  After those 4 chapels are viewed in one day, the road will take us south before we stop for the night but couldn’t decide on Parma or Reggio.   No really, I thought it was a cheese but it turns out they are just two cities.  From here, we want to drive down the coast along the Tyrrhenian Sea and if I didn’t have spell check, I wouldn’t have been able to include that body of water’s name in this post.  Pisa may not make it into the GPS but we are going to San Giggidy (that’s our nickname for San Gimignano) to take in the Museum of Medieval Torture and then on to Saturnia for some thermal baths.  After Saturnia we will play in Rome for a couple of days, Naples, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius for a couple more and we really have to figure out how to get down into the Sicilian city of Palermo. Apparently their catacombs are worth the trip.

Deep breath, we are almost there.  At some point, we fly over to Portugal and stay in the least touristy resort town in the Algarves, which we have yet to source out, as the desire by this point is to stay put for a few days while taking in this country’s many beautiful looking churches.  Well, their bone-decorated chapels anyway.  After all this is over we simply fly back to Paris and then back home on February 6^th.  Piece of cake.

Spending the 2 hours writing this out rather than on booking flights and accommodations has really sent my anxiety levels through the roof, but I am going to let it go and enjoy New Year’s Eve with my two favourite boys.  Wishing everyone a fabulous start on 2018!  And stay tuned for more Boning in Europe!