T-minus One (Day)

Today we're finishing the packing and cleaning up the house a bit.  Now that I am nearly finished packing it's hitting me how few things I am bringing compared to other, shorter trips.  Oh well, it's not like we're going to the Sahara--I'm sure we can find things we need where we're going.

Speaking of which, here is a map with the three destinations in Portugal:

Lisbon at the bottom third, Tomar in the middle, Braga in the north

The pin with the "1" in it just means it's our first country.  We'll be flying in to Lisbon from Philadelphia, then take a train to Tomar and then another train (or maybe a bus) to Braga.

Kyle (our son) is dropping us off at Harrisburg International Airport (MDT) since leaving the car there that long would be expensive--and worse in Philadelphia.  The American Airlines (AA) flight leaves at 12:55 pm and then there's about an eight-hour layover in Philadelphia before the AA flight to Lisbon.  Luckily, I downloaded some books for the wait.

Another first in this trip of firsts is that we'll be away from home on Christmas.  We did set up a small, 12-inch tree for Kyle for the holidays.

My kind of tree.

OK, I'd better get upstairs so it looks like I'm helping...

Late addition--here's a photo of the luggage we're taking for the trip:

I am more nervous than I look.

A Quick Explanation of Our Slow Journey

It's six days before we fly out on our latest trip.  We're doing something called "slow travel" which means (at least in our case) that we will be spending at least a week in one place before moving to the next.  Really trying to immerse ourselves into the culture.  I've been retired a bit over a year and Fe's last day at her work is Tuesday the 26th, so we decided to try this method of travel to see what it's like.

The plan is to spend roughly 90 days in Europe which is the max a US passport allows without a visa.  We'll spend the first month in Portugal, the second in Spain, and the third in Italy--my writer's mind has already broken the story into chapters.  We're also only taking a carry-on and a personal bag for the whole trip.  Stay tuned for how that goes.

More regular readers of these blogs will probably notice a different style over earlier ones.  Since the trip is much longer than usual--the longest trip we ever took before was three weeks--I will probably post more photos (or even videos) with captions instead of stories each day.  Any newer readers can look at the profile for previous trip blogs to tell the difference.

I'll try to post a bit more details about the first part of the trip if there's time, so sit back and relax while we try this out and hopefully you'll see something you'd like to try for yourself.