Eiffel, Offal and Awful – my adventure in Europe

The Reality and Misconceptions

I’m back! I have been home trying to catch up on sleep (jet lag is real thing!) and get back into a lifestyle that is considerably slower paced than the last 3 weeks. Sorted through the pictures yesterday.

If you read my post –He wants to take me to Europe – https://sassaleeyours.com/he-wants-to-take-me-to-europe/ , you may have remembered that I would be following up on the realities and misconceptions of my trip. This post will be an overview.

I will follow in the next 3 weeks with a dedicated post for the 3 countries visited. France, Greece and Italy. I hope that you will enjoy this “inside look” at these beautiful countries, its customs and people.

I’d like to start with welcoming my new readers from France, Italy, Germany and Vietnam. I am so excited to take this globally and I hope that you will share with family and friends.

To you ALL- I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you are thinking in the comments of a post, share on your social media sites and/or feel free to ‘Like’ my Facebook page or Tweet on Twitter.

Eiffel, Offal and Awful

the misconceptions

I am happy to say that there were few surprises in regard to planning. Perhaps the most glaring occurred before we ever left home.

Packing– 2 suitcases and two carryons? Right! Not only was I over the weight limits, I couldn’t physically get it all into these 2 vessels.So-o you guessed it, another suitcase. This ended up costing me an additional $100 stateside and 140 Euros across the pond. Not to mention the huge inconvenience when it came to lugging these through airports and parking lots.

Did I wear all of those clothes? Yep! We sure did. Believe it or not the only thing that came back unworn was the underwear (well some of it). It may sound disgusting but we didn’t take nearly as many showers as anticipated. Some days we skipped the extra clean up at the end of the day and just went as we were to dinner and started fresh in the a.m. Somehow continuing on our adventure seemed more important.

The food wasn’t what was expected. We had watched Stanley Tucci’s, ‘Searching for Italy’ prior to leaving and was anticipating a lot of strange items to choose from (thus the Offal). The menus restaurant to restaurant in Italy were surprisingly similar.

the realities

Nothing could prepare you for the incredible history, beauty and sheer vastness in some cases of these countries. I purposely did not look at other peoples’ trip videos prior to leaving as I wanted to experience it first hand. I am glad that I did this but I still don’t think it would have mattered. My Rennie couldn’t resist so he was addicted to You tube before we left and yet my seasoned ole Renaissance man was awed as was I.

What an incredible journey this was. I was already strategizing about our next trip before we ever left Italy, our final destination.

Visiting Europe and spending 3 exhausting weeks, 10-12 hour days (on our feet) only whetted the appetite. Lord willing and “if the creek don’t rise” we will be back.

Some ADVICE

If you are planning a trip or it is anywhere on a bucket list I suggest you start yesterday in planning, research. I will go into detail in the next few weeks about what we saw and did. This is planned to be entertaining more than informational.

Do you like what you see and want to know more? Send me a message in Comments.

I will suggest that you start with Rick Steves website http://ricksteves.com . I spent alot of time looking at sites and learned alot. Ultimately deciding to do this on my own. The deterrant for his tours was that they indicated 8-10 miles a day walking. LOL- we did that on our own and more most days. Tauck was another one (but more on the high end) https://www.tauck.com

APPS- I downloaded probably 6 different directional apps for this trip. The caveat was that you were unable to practice with them until you got to Europe. By that time you were in the midst and it was too late. I suggest sticking with Google maps. It worked great (most of the time) and got us to where we needed to be.

City mapper is a good one to read articles about what to do but there is an up sell if you want to navigate to that place.

I did like Get Your Guide. https://www.getyourguide.com/?selectedTab=0a050aa1-8582-1114-8185-8234a49c0003 We used that for one of our tours and it was accurate and user friendly. Their communication was excellent.

Finally, if you don’t get any other APP get What’s App https://www.whatsapp.com. Everyone is using it for communication these days. The messaging is encrypted, it alerts you when there is a new message and the messages are archived for as long as you want them.

eiffel, offal and awful

Eiffel is obvious. It was the second landmark I saw when arriving in Paris. (Arc de Triomphe was the first).

The Offal is food in Italy. It refers to the “leftovers” if you will of the animals that are slain for food. It began as a necessity to survive for the poor until top chefs claimed it, molded and produced it as a delicacy. (I was expecting it but as far as I know I never ate any).

And then there is the Awful. Rennie was quick to point out that there wasn’t anything awful about this trip. In the grand scheme he is absolutely correct. Following up on another post, Playing the Travel Game https://sassaleeyours.com/playing-the-travel-game-its-their-rules-and-their-equipment/

Creating new rules

We talked about those who don’t play by the rules. I consider myself a tolerant person most of the time. Patient when it comes to rudeness. Traveling tests this.

It has gotten to the point that it isn’t enough to have an assigned seat. A seat that in some circumstances you had to pay extra for. Now you must get in line, fight your way through the door so that you can have the spot above your chair for your carryon.

My solution is this: Assign a spot per seat. If you are in 41F then you get X spot above your head. If you are one of those that chose to attach 3 suitcases (not carryons together then your luggage will be checked-at your cost.

there had to be one

The Ugly American. Sadly we encountered a few. Apologies to my Italian friends who were subjected to these cretins on our lovely sojourn to Sorrento and Positano.

Au Revoir, Kalimera and ciao!

I hope that you enjoyed Pooh and all of his “P”hoto ops. If you missed them then check out Facebook and Twitter.

I will be back next week with the first installment along with a few pictures. Look for ‘Getting Lost in Paris’. Until then I am forever..

Sassaleeyours…