Travel Time

After all the planning and daydreaming, it’s almost time for my trip to London.  Passport – check.  Train reservations to Bath – check.  Currency exchange – probably next week.  I just found out that I can use my phone there for a small daily fee and that’s good news.  I’m hoping that there aren’t too many movies I want to watch on the plane so I can attempt to sleep (or at least rest) on the overnight flight.  Sometimes when I get up to walk around on the plane during a transatlantic flight I feel like I’m the only one that is still awake.  Still, it doesn’t stop me from watching another movie.  Once I had the idea of listening to relaxing music to try to doze but that didn’t work either.  Not that it matters – I’m not going to attempt to sleep until it’s evening where I’m going.  I don’t want to miss anything!

I’m looking forward to seeing my favorite places and looking for future favorites too.  It’s a short train ride to Bath from London and I plan to do a lot of walking.  I’m sure I’ll see lots of flowers and gardens (I’ll take pictures to share).  Planning and daydreaming are part of the preparation for travel, and they are just as exciting as the trip itself!

A Train Ride along the Cinque Terre

When I was in Italy in May one of my favorite experiences was taking a train from La Spezia to see the villages of the Cinque Terre.  The first stop was the village of Riomaggiore.  It had been raining when I boarded the train in La Spezia but as the train pulled into the station at Riomaggiore the storm had ended and the clouds were transitioning to blue sky.  It was late morning and an ideal time for a walk, although it was challenging because the sidewalks were so steep.

While walking I couldn’t decide whether to look at the buildings, some with laundry hanging from terraces, or do a little souvenir shopping.  Another thought was to look for a gelato shop and keep walking.  Since they were such interesting possibilities I decided to do all of them!

Although this chair looked inviting for a little rest, I had a train schedule to follow to get to the other villages so eventually I had to walk back to the station to catch a train to Manarola, another village in the Cinque Terre.  I’ll tell you about that soon.

Italy