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Checked the flight and it’s already delayed by an hour. Waiting for the airport shuttle to get here.

You may ask, “Are they nuts?, Doing laundry in the sink?” Maybe, but the clothes we are bringing are all “quick dry”. We have a bottle of CampSuds, which should rinse easy. We’ve test washed things, and aside from my socks, everything dried overnight. And I think if I squeezed my socks better they might have dried faster. Ah, the magic of non-natural fibers. The clothes are nylon and polyester and other things, but they are soft and you’d never guess they weren’t natural.

One of the backpacks and the Nokia Tablet, next to a keyboard for scale.

When I say we are backpacking, that’s exactly what we are doing. One backpack per person. No suitcases and no giant backpacks either. We are using the small backpacks that count as airplane carry-ons. We’ll do laundry on the road, at laundromats or in the hotel sink. So you will see us in the same clothes in all the pictures. It’s 2 or 3 pairs of pants, 3 or 4 shirts, enough socks and underwear for a week, one pair of shoes, one jacket. That’s it. If we forget something or need something we’ll buy it there. It’s not like we are going to the middle of the desert.

If it doesn’t fit in the backpack, or weighs too much, it stays home. No laptop, too heavy. I’m going to be using my Nokia Tablet (which is the size of an iPhone). I wrote a small app for it that will allow me to post these blog messages to hovorka.org. So forgive any typos, as the device has a very small keyboard.

There is so much to see and do, it was hard to set limits. I know we will be missing a lot, mostly because we are never staying more than 4 days in any city, but this is a highlights only European Grand Tour. 6 countries, 21 days, roughly 3200 miles (5150 km), not including the flight from Seattle.

We will start in London, hitting some of the museums and renting a car for a day to drive to Stonehenge and Windsor Castle (and for the excitement of driving on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car). Then we travel by train to Brussels Belgium for lunch, and on to the Rhine River in Germany to view some old castles. From there, we go to Europa Park for some roller coaster thrills. After spending a night in Basel Switzerland, we fly to Naples Italy so we can see Pompeii, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. We fly back to Switzerland, this time to Geneva, and catch a shuttle bus to Chamonix France to hopefully see Mont Blanc, if the weather cooperates. Then we take a series of trains to get to Arles France to see old Roman ruins. Finally, it’s off to Paris for about a day and a half before flying home. Whew! We will be busy.