European Dreaming

It all started with a big dream in a little girl’s mind that she would one day be able to visit the country she was born in. After romanticizing

all of my childhood about my parents living, playing and working around Paris I had always hoped that I would be able to see some of the things they spoke of.

I was an Army brat with a dad stationed in Orleans France in the early 60’s. Mom and dad got married in France and I and my brother came along later. We came back to the states and a dream was born.

This dream had festered for nearly 50 yr’s and had always been put on the back burner until a future time that we could afford it w/o breaking the bank.

After a major medical issue with my husband Mark last year it has made me rethink how short life is and not put everything off. Let’s live life.

I had been saving several years for a big romantic vacation for our 25’th wedding anniversary (in 2016). After a very heartfelt discussion Mark and I agreed to not wait and why not use the money for a major vacation to celebrate or 50’th birthdays coming sooner then we want. Mark graciously accepted my dream vacation and is now very excited too.

So we are planning a 24 day trip to Europe to fall about half way in between our 50’ths. Spring time in Paris what could be more delightful.

24 days you say…..how fortunate. Yes we are. If spending so much money to fly to Europe I want to take advantage of it. What do we plan to do you ask ……..well follow along and find out.

The first major obstacle was trying to decide on what parts of Europe to visit. We knew we wanted to hit Orleans and Paris, but where else beyond that.

Mark and I had dreamed of taking a Rhine river cruise through Germany (home to ancestors on both sides of our family). We often joked around about touring a city while docked up and while out and about drinking too much bier in the Bier gardens. We would laugh and say that we should have a note in our pocket to give a local to direct us back to our boat. So of course Germany and its bier and schnitzels were calling us.

Then we remembered watching Tour De France and thinking about how neat it would be to rent a RV and travel through the Alps. So yet another idea will come to fruition.

Humm then where else……after all we will have 18 days in that RV. Of course if we’re in the Alps why not swing down into Italy and hit the Mediterranean coast.

Oh the sunny beautiful Mediterranean what would a visit be w/o hitting up the French Riviera. Then there is Provence and Burgundy with all of their wonderful wines. So an itinerary is born. Or so we think. The above is the present agreed upon itinerary, after it has been revised several times and I’m sure several more revisions will occur.

This vacation will not be planned to the minute as I do most vacations. One of the advantages to a RV is being able to change our minds at any given time so I am sure there will be last minute changes.

Well with the decision made to take this trip the next challenge was to get the time off from work. With a 14 month advance warning my bosses thought it best to approve the time off to save one of their employees from going postal. That was a wise decision on their part. Little do they know I may never come back from Europe. JK

With my time off approved the next step was putting a deposit down on our apartment in Paris,as we will stay there for 6 days after our RV trip. After spending 100’s of hours researching apartments and looking at tons of pictures of them we finally narrowed our choice down. Our main objective was to have a view of Tour Eiffel or The Eiffel Tower as us Americans call it. After our first few choices were already booked I was starting to get disappointed. Are you kidding me we’re 14 months out and their already booked? But a little bit more searching and we found our ideal apt. at an even better rate….so it was meant to be.

http://eiffeltowervacationrentals.com/apartments/apt1001

Here is a pic of our view.

 

Many folks are surprised that we are choosing to rent a RV as neither of us has ever driven one, let alone to drive one for the first time in a foreign country. I will admit that the thought is a little intimidating but we are two semi intelligent individuals (debatable to some) and can learn. At least they drive on the same side of the road as we do and learning a few new traffic signs wasn’t going to be an issue. We have both driven large boxed moving trucks so how different could a motor home be?

After reading several books and blogs on the subject from others who have done it and researching tons of motor home websites for European rentals we had enough confidence to continue on.

I contacted David Shore one of the authors to a book called Europe by Van and Motor home. He can get us a discount on our rental. I told him that we were interested in renting a motor home out of Amsterdam with a drop off in Paris. One way rentals are very pricey but we were saving a lot by renting out of the Netherlands vs. Paris so it equaled out. We found out that the rental agency in Amsterdam was already booked up for the size RV we wanted. All they had left were little VW vans w/o a bathroom. I know many of you out there that know us are laughing at that. For those of you not in the know I inherited my dads tiny bladder and big appetite, which means I use the restroom a lot and that I am not going to be comfortable in that tiny van for 3 weeks. Again I was disappointed that 14 mo's. out they were booked and I was beginning to wonder if we’d be able to RV through Europe.

With a little bit more research we decide to change the pickup city to Paris and will save some $ by having round trip flight tickets out of the same city. At the expense of not getting to the Netherlands. I was so looking forward to seeing all of the tulips fields in full bloom. At this point the rental agencies in Paris weren’t booking yet and I had some real nail biters waiting to find out if we were going to be able to rent the RV. Alas the day comes that we can book our RV and of course I worried about nothing. A plus was that David was able to save us 8% of what we would have booked directly from the rental agency (McRent). So deposit is placed for the RV as well.

Next step booking airfare. Sighs…as right now Mark wants to fly 1’st class and I know we can’t afford that. So have been doing my homework to find the right flight and airline. I think I’ve got it nailed down to an Open Skies nonstop flight out of Newark to Paris they have Premium plus seating that won’t break the bank but offers a little bit more room. We will see what happens.

Stay tuned for a posting of our loose itinerary.