Written by Kim
As I sit in the SAS lounge in Newark awaiting our flight, Facebook reminds me that 9 years ago on exactly this day we were in Barcelona which was Alex’s first trip to Europe. This is a great time of year to travel in Europe. This trip started from our bucket list of trips. We always said we wanted to go one more time to Oktoberfest before we’re “too old”. I think we were too old 9 years ago when we went and the kids were calling us mom & dad in the Hofbrau tent. Anyhow – we can’t just go to Oktoberfest but certainly can build a trip around that as a stop.
We enjoy taking a “sampling” tour through various cities in Europe spending a few days to get to know a city and then taking a train or flight to get to our next location. We book the entire itinerary on our own typically mixing some hotels and some AirBnBs. This trip is primarily trains with only flights over and back to the US (with a little stopover). Tonight we will fly to Warsaw to start. I have a good friend, Adam, from J&J who has been asking me for years to come visit him so here we come. We will stay a few days in a new house he recently built. I’m really looking forward to seeing Adam and meeting his wife, Dominika. After a few days in Warsaw we will take the train to Prague, Vienna, Munich, Heidelberg, Antwerp, Paris and then fly to Lisbon on our way home.
I must admit I’ve become a bit of a snob (and have turned Alex into one) – we only fly business class to Europe since that’s the way I always did it on business. When we are paying it gets a little pricey but we booked our tickets through a business class consolidator for discounted fares. We used a consolidator for the first time coming home from Sydney a few years ago. The more flexibility you have the better pricing you can get. We had some constraints with the family wedding and our desire to reach Munich mid week but still saved over $1,000 on our tickets. We’re flying to Warsaw on LOT (the Polish airline) direct and returning on TAP Portugal which offered a discount with at least a one night layover in Portugal hence the added stop in Lisbon.
This trip we’re trying a few new things. Since we are doing so many trains where we will need to manage our luggage we packed very light. We will be gone nearly a month including our trip to Tennessee prior so it took some thinking to figure out what to bring. I have a medium sized checked bag and a backpack. Alex has a roll aboard that he checked and a backpack. The key for me was limited shoes. I have my black slip on sneakers on, my good NB walking sneakers, a pair of sandals and I stuck in another pair of white sneakers at the last minute today. I have some issues with my feet so wanted a spare that I might ditch along the way if I don’t need them. We have Apple air tags in our luggage and backpacks (good news our luggage is still here in EWR). I bought sheets of laundry detergent since we are staying strategically in a few airBnBs so I can do laundry. We are also using Trip It to keep all our train schedules, tour tickets, hotel reservations organized. We’ve used Trip It before but this time it’s packed with details. We’ve booked a number of tours through Viator or directly with some venues so there’s a lot to keep track of. We dusted off the PacSafe backpack and my Travelon anti-theft purse which are old timers for Europe travel.
I’ll probably post every few days or each city on our trip. We’re happy you’re joining us on our adventure. Until then…….
