It’s been almost two years now, so it’s about time we headed back over to Europe! This time it will be for longer, and with no work component (hoorah). So, the planning begins: where to go, what to see.  We have the airfares booked already, and will be making the trip about 4 1/2 weeks long. We enjoyed the sampling we did last time so much that we’re thinking to do a similar trail again. I know, I hear some of you wondering why we don’t choose a completely different track. To be honest, while we would one day like to visit the more mainstream areas of Europe, we really enjoyed the time we had last time, visiting some of more central European countries. This time we will also have a bit more time on our hands, so will be able to actually visit more. And, because I won’t be having to attend to work while over there, I’ll be able to catch up on a lot of what I missed last time.

Very excited, can’t wait to get back over there. Hmm – things that I’m particularly looking forward to: european pastry shops, the Budapest metro system (is that 4th line ever going to be finished?), getting to see Prague castle and not arriving 10 minutes before closing time (sigh), good strong coffee, the challenge of making myself understood, and best of all – getting to catch up with some family!

We found after our last trip that we came home and researched some things that we had seen, but which the translations of had just passed us by a bit. We ended up finding a lot more than we thought, and are really determined to get back and see and appreciate these things properly. Of course there’s so much to see and do that we won’t be able to fit it all in, but hey we can try The plan will be to use our longer stops as a base, rather than having to pack up everything and move to somewhere different every couple of days. I have found in the past that having to pick up and move every couple of days gets very wearing very fast. And, it wastes a lot of time – having to pack up, get to a train station, get to the new place, find the accommodation, dump luggage off, then go out and hit the town. Being able to base ourselves in places and then do day trips allows us to avoid that, and also gives us the opportunity to really get to know somewhere a bit, before we have to move on.

My next series of posts leading up to our trip will mostly be about things we saw last time, and things that we’re interested to either re-visit, or visit for the first time based on research we’re doing. Any suggestions / comments welcome