This is probably going to be the last post here until we depart on our trip to Europe. Most of my millions of loyal readers already know this, but Annette, Will, and I are off to Florence and then to a town in Germany called Mittenwald tomorrow night. Sophie will be staying home with a very able house/dog sitter.
I won’t recount the whole detailed itenerary here, but basically, it goes like this:
- Fly out of Detroit Saturday night, August 6; arrive at the place we’re staying in Florence around noon on Sunday, August 7. In other words, it’ll be a long night, I’m guessing….
- In Florence, we’re staying in this place that is sort of an apartment kind of deal– kind of like a Residence Inn, I think/hope.
- We’ve already got reserved tickets to see the Uffitzi and the Accademia Gallery (the home of “the Dave”). Everyone has said that you are way better off booking your tickets for these things in advance, so we did.
- Other than that, I hope we get to take a day-trip to Siena, maybe Pisa, and just wander around Florence. I think a lot of that depends on how Annette’s leg is doing (she’s doing better, but I don’t think we’re going to be spending hours and hours hiking around), the weather (it looks now like it might be rainy for a lot of our stay), and the “general craziness” of Florence. I’ve been reading stuff on the web lately about how noisy the town is, and about looking out for the pick-pockets. I really am not sure if we are traveling there during the “high season” or not; I guess we’ll see.
- A week from Saturday, we’ll take a train from Florence to Innsbruck and then to Mittenwald, where we will meet up with Annette’s parents. They have been going to this southern German tourist/resort town for years now, and while we probably won’t be engaging much in their idea of a good time there (hiking), I think it will be a good base for us to see some of the sites in the are– Neuschwanstein, maybe some other castles like these listed on the Bavarian Palace Department, (BTW, one of the clear differences between Bavaria and, say, Michigan, is the existence of a “Palace Department”), Garmisch, and on the way home, Munich.
- And “home” will happen on August 21, the day I (sorta, kinda) begin teaching at EMU.
I might or might not be able to post here about our trip. I’m planning on taking my camera of course, along with my iPod with audio recording equipment, but I’m not bringing my computer. Though I have to say that I was tempted. It’s not like we’re going to be “backpacking” around with everything we own, and I think the Internet access over there is actually going to be half-way decent. But I think we’ll have to be content with one or two stops at some Internet cafes. In Florence, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find one; since Mittenwald is a quite small town, we might not have as much luck. Again, we’ll see.
So, possibly until I get back, Ciao! Arevaderche, Aloha, Auf Widersehen (and click the link to listen to this weird song…).