Archive for 2006
Dec 12th, 2006
Fixing The Itinerary
I feel like at this point I’ve got the basic skeleton o f the trip locked down apart from one point. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it to include Lyon in the trip or if that time could be better spent in Provence or the Riviera.
Right now I’m leaning toward yes, it should be included, even if it is a brief stop (which it most likely will be). Originally I planned on us spending two nights in Lyon, but now I’m thinking one night will have to be enough. We can take the morning train from Paris spend the rest of the day and the night, and the take an afternoon train out the next day to Avignon.
This plan is still slightly in flux but here’s how I’ve got it breaking down so far:
7 days in Paris, 1 day in Lyon, 5 days in Provence, and 5 days in the Riviera.
And EasyJet offers very inexpensive flights from Nice to Paris, which means we don’t have to waist precious vacation time circling back to Paris at the end of the trip.
The itinerary has been updated.
P.S. I should make it clear that my hesitation in stopping in Lyon is not because I don’t think it will be a worthwhile stop, because I’m sure it will be, but because our time is limited and we would be going directly from big city (Paris) to big city (Lyon). If anybody has an opinion on this they’d like to share please feel free to leave a comment or email me directly.
Posted in France, Travel Planning | No Comments
Dec 7th, 2006
Let the planning commence
So last night I received not one, not two, but three, three new books on France. One, Let’s Go France 2007, from the fine folks at Amazon and two from my connection at Rick Steves. Those would be the Paris 2007 and the Provence 2007.
Now I can dive into the meat of the planning process, which I have actually all ready started.
For instance I discovered that we can fly from Nice to Paris for around $23 on EasyJet. Which means no long train trip eating up most of a day towards the end of our trip. We can actually fly to de Gaulle the morning of our return and make it there in plenty of time to catch our outbound flight.
This will make planning a bit easier as we no longer have to worry about making our route more circular.
Très Bien!
Posted in Travel Planning | No Comments
Nov 27th, 2006
The Pain Of Booking Awards Travel
Last night I spent about an hour and half on the phone with Alaska Airlines booking tickets for our trip to France next year. And although the customer service woman was very friendly and helpful, it was still far more complicated than I was expecting. Eventually, plans had to change in order for us to get tickets at all.
Originally I wanted us to fly in to Amsterdam and then out of Nice. Not possible. And so after going through every possible iteration of date change and arrival/departure city change we finally settled on flying into and out of Paris (not ideal, but we’ll live with it), pushing departure back a week and taking on an additional day at the end.
The net result of all the changes is that we have decided to skip Amsterdam this time and concentrate exclusively on France. This is not entirely a bad thing, I think. After our last hectic trip (to five countries in 18 days) it will be nice to take things at a (slightly) more relaxed pace. Well, at least as relaxed as any vacation I’m planning can be.
I will update the rest of the site to reflect these changes in our plans. Now that we have our departure firmly settled, I’m really looking forward to diving in to the meat of the planning, including booking an apartment for our week in Paris.
Posted in France, Travel Planning | No Comments
Nov 13th, 2006
On Mexico
To date my experience with Mexico has been confined to a trip to Cancun with my family when I was young, and a few border crossings to places like Juarez and Nogales. This is unfortunate because Mexico has long been a place that I would like to explore, but for some reason it’s never at the top of the list when it comes time to plan a trip. What I really needed was an excuse, and now I have one.
Our friends J and W recently decided that in celebration of 10 years together they would tie the knot in Mexico. In Tulu, on the Yucatan Peninsula to be exact. I’m very excited about this even if it is more than a year away (January ’08).
And while a year is a long time, it’s never too early to start planning, I say. And so to that end I have set up a Mexico resource page that I will be updating and expanding as plans progress.
Also, I ordered Moon Handbooks Yucatan guide.
We will most likely only have 10 days, so we won’t be able to see everything and I’ve got a lot of reading to do to see how our limited time can be best spent. If anybody has any suggestions or recommendations please pass them along.
Posted in Mexico, Travel Planning | No Comments
Nov 10th, 2006
Brand New Feature
At long last I have been allowed to upgrade to Blogger Beta. And while there are somethings that will take me a long time to figure out (the new templating for one) there is one immediate benefit: tags (or “labels” as Blogger insists on calling them).
If you are unfamiliar with tagging here’s the deal: directly under each post is a list of “labels” describing the content of the post. When you click on one of these labels you will be taken to a page featuring all the posts with that label.
So for instance, if you were to click on the label paris you get all the posts about Paris. Pretty easy and, I hope, very useful.
Posted in Maintenance | No Comments
