Mar 5-25, 2013 Last updated: 4/7/13 8:00pm PT
We decided it was time for another trip to Europe. Our niece Carrie is doing a semester abroad in London, and we thought that was the perfect excuse to go. The plan was to spend a few days with Carrie in London, then go to Rome, Florence, Pisa, Lucca and Venice, then spend a few more days in London before heading home. Carrie had her spring break the week after we arrived, so all of us were in Italy during the second week, just not in the same cities. Carrie was in Venice and Florence while we were in Rome.
We left for London on Monday March 4th. It’s a 9+ hour flight and doesn’t leave Seattle until 6pm, and with the 8 hour time difference, we didn’t arrive until Tuesday March 5th around 11:30am. Since we were going in March (off-season) we were able to afford the bigger seats on the plane. Back in ’09, we were cramped for space in the back of the plane. I thought it was worth a little more money to be a little more comfortable (it’s still a long trip in a tiny metal cylinder). On the way home, we got bumped up a class, so we had the seats that fold down into beds!
Again, we packed light. We each had our backpacks filled with the bare minimum. The only thing different was that I brought more socks, and we had another layer on under our rain coats. The average high temperatures in all the cities was supposed to be in the low to mid 50’s. It didn’t quite work out that way on the second time through London (freezing and snowy), and Italy was cooler than average. It rained some of the time, but it was only a problem back in London when it was in the 30’s and windy.
We worried a little less about the cats this time because I set up a couple of ‘cat-cams’ (with night vision) to spy on them over the Internet.
We tried to go at a slower pace this time. Last time we were constantly changing hotels and cities (we were in 4 countries in one day back in ’09). This time, other than London, we decided to stay inside Italy. Florence is only 1 hour away from Rome, and Venice is 2 hours from Florence by high speed train. We planned no activities on arrival days, just finding the hotel and walking around the city (and finding the nearest gelato shop!). All plans were ‘soft’. We ended up doing some plan juggling in Rome due to the changing of the Pope. And we both got sick, so we didn’t push too hard a few days.
It was great spending quality time with Carrie. She’s having a great time in London and taking trips to various European destinations. Oh yeah, she’s going to class too, as far as we know.