April Not in Paris

The reference to the old song at the top is an ironic reference to the fact we had to change our travel plans to avoid France on our post-cruise wanderings around Europe with Tom and Ellyn.

We noticed down in the fine print that France was requiring an mRNA vaccine for the booster shot, and ours is not. Au revoir, France. Just within the past day or two France may have just relaxed that requirement, as rules in various parts of the world continue to evolve.

Once we've filled out the proper form, Portugal is not a difficult country to enter. We're planning to spend time in both Lisbon and Porto before flying to Milan, Italy April 4. We need to fill out forms to enter Italy as well, but no additional tests, at least as of now.

We're hoping to spend time in Milan, Venice, and Verona, before traveling by train April 9 to Munich, Germany (yes, another form to complete) and then onward to Frankfurt and the lovely nearby town of Mainz, where we plan to spend our last few nights of the trip. We'll all have to produce negative Covid Antigen tests before returning to the US. Tom and Ellyn are bringing along four of proctored-online variety, which we hope will work.

We'll all take the train to Frankfurt Airport April 12, where we'll say our goodbyes to Tom and Ellyn. They fly home on United Airlines, a non-stop to Denver connecting to Durango.

At around the same time, we fly to Rome and overnight there. On April 13 we fly on British Airways from Rome to London Heathrow. There we have a leisurely five-hour connection to our nonstop LHR-SEA flight, scheduled to land in Seattle at 5:15PM.

We'll overnight in Seattle (it's been a long day!) before flying home to Bellingham Thursday morning. 

When Brian first read the wonderful English translation of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days at the age of 12, he was struck by the claim made by the hero, Phileas Fogg, the ever-so-British gentleman, that "The unforeseen does not exist." Of course, the entire novel consists of a series of unforeseen events that Fogg manages to overcome.

We'll hope to be as successful in this time of challenging travels.