The MoH and I have saved ninety gazillion points on our respective plastic money over the past couple of years in anticipation of another trip to Europe. When my sister first told me a while back that she charged everything to collect points, I thought…Yer kiddin’! And then promptly jumped on the bandwagon.
Now before you get your drawers in any kind of a serious knot about thinking this is not a good idea, please know you actually have to pay the plastic money off as you go or you’re screwed. Count that as your “don’t do this at home” warning type message because I don’t even want to listen to you whine if you figure out you have no will power. Okay, well maybe I’ll listen a bit. But that’s all.
Moving right along…
We totally enjoyed a trip to the UK two summers ago and loved every minute of the seven days and 750 miles we drove from Manchester down to Bakewell for a few hours visit to Chatsworth House, and then to Conwy in Northern Wales, down to Powys-Knighton, Bath, Glouchester, Stow-in-the-Wold and on to London . I’m sure I have the order a bit screwed up toward the end there, but you get the general idea.
We lovingly referred to it as The Toads’ Wild Ride because we didn’t especially love driving on the wrong side of the road in that tiny vehicle that tried really hard to be a van but failed. It was cute, though, stuffed as it was with the three of us not so small people and our tons of luggage. We loved the people we met, the amazingly beautiful green countryside (nary a freaking palm tree in sight…), the castles, and the tiny villages we’d miss if we blinked as we passed through. It makes my heart ache just remembering. It is soooooooo hard not to venture right back and see the parts we didn’t see. Sigh. Like that could actually happen when there is so much else to see in the world.
And since we used plastic for that trip, it actually helped pay for this next one. Points, points, and more points. So where are we off to this next summer courtesy of our points? Italy. Now how completely cool is that? “We” includes one of my older sons who is paying for his own air fare, thank you very much! And…I think my sister’s family is going to meet us there, too, so this could be downright party time for us all. Or pandemonium.
Yes, I know that the dollar sucks right now, but we’ll get TWO free round trip tickets with our points. Yeeeeee-Haaaaaaa! And we’re going to rent an apartment instead of staying in a hotel, so that will be less expensive, too. The apartment will have a kitchen and I’ll cook a few meals. More money saved and how cool to do a bit of shopping at the open air markets, right?
Now here’s where I need your input.
We’re flying into Rome and tentatively planning on five days there to see the city and maybe plan a day trip out somewhere. Then we’ll get on the train and move camp to another city for another five days and do the same thing all over again.
If you were going, which city would be your second choice and why?
Naples is high on the list because our crew loves the historic (what isn’t historic in Italy?) aspect of the places we go and Pompeii is near Naples. Positano is a little farther, and I’d love to go there. Venice is out because it’s too far, and I’d like to believe that when the RTR is away at college, the MoH and I can have one of those romantical trips before we’re too old to do anything but fart and burp on cue. Sad, but true.
So Florence is a possibility, too. It’s got all that amazing art and architecture. And the food will be different there than in Naples. And Tuscany… I’m sure the two boys will roll their eyes at that one, but I could look for a rental in the country and we could do the drive into Florence thing. That would probably go over like a lead balloon.
You can’t tell I’m excited, right? Oh. My. Goodness.
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