I've written about little else recently, so those of you who consult my blog frequently should be aware that I fly out of Seattle for Paris on Friday. I now find myself in that half-pleasant, half-disquieting period when all preparations have been made, my packing list has been drawn up, nothing remains to be done but to pack -- but when it's much too early to begin packing.
So I sit around idly, worrying about how the cats will survive without me (they'll do just fine), and waiting for the remaining hours to pass.
The weather is improving, as predicted, and so I'll do one final bike run either tomorrow or Wednesday.
I've been reading Bill Bryson's 1992 comic account of wandering about Europe, apparently as a youthful 40-year-old, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe. Traveling with a backpack and without advance bookings, as I had twenty years before him, but with a far greater supply of travelers checks to bail him out when necessary than I had ever enjoyed.
But his experiences and mine were close enough to remind me of how much fun it is to travel from place to place on your own, without following an itinerary, even an unguided itinerary, set by a trekking company. (I had done something similar to Bryson's wandering as late as 1999, when I traveled for a couple of weeks in eastern Europe.)
I always relied on tourist offices at railway stations to find myself a cheap hotel. Bryson did so occasionally, as well, but he seems to have spent a lot of time wandering about the city, heavy pack on his back, looking for hotels in parts of town where few hotels existed. He then so exhausts himself, at times, that he ends up paying a lot for a marginally acceptable room in an expensive hotel. I preferred a little more certainty, of the sort that the official travel offices afforded.
Now, of course, we have Expedia and other services on the internet. I can book hotels far in advance, if I want to arrange some sort of itinerary for myself, or even at the last minute on arrival in a city, using my iPhone. Smart phones, the internet, and universal acceptance of credit/debit cards makes things easy.
I'm leading up to the announcement that -- replacing my hoped-for stay on the banks of Lake Como with friends and family for a fourth straight year in August -- I'm arranging a solo wandering about northern Italy on my own. I've more or less arbitrarily -- guided by airline prices -- booked flights going on August 23 and returning on September 9.
Before actually booking the flights, I had already booked a hotel for five nights -- the same hotel I stayed in a year ago -- in Florence. Florence was where I studied for six months as an undergraduate, and it's the city I've returned to time after time. My return visits have always been just long enough to revisit some of my favorite Florentine sites, before moving on. This time, I hope also to use Florence as a base for day trips to various towns in the surrounding Tuscan countryside, ones that I've already visited, perhaps, like Lucca and Siena, but also smaller towns that played a role in the Renaissance history of art and politics.
After I had nailed down my airline and Florence hotel bookings, I began planning where else to visit. To date, I've added Rome (for my arrival and departure), Como (not my old haunt in Rezzonico, but just the city itself), and Venice (which I last visited in 1974). That leaves four nights still to be filled. I'll take my time and choose carefully. My schedule, as it now stands:
I rather like Italy, as you may have gathered. More information as my plans firm up.
Once I return from successfully biking my way down the Loire river valley!
