Greetings, Fire Enthusiasts.
Even if you haven’t known me very long, you have probably noticed that my wife and I like to travel internationally. It happened quite accidentally, I assure you. We really had no idea.
We live in a town called Kingsburg in the California central valley. We are twenty minutes south of Fresno; three hours away from SF and LA. Our town has a population of maybe 13.000. Early in our marriage we did things like spend a few days at Disneyland or the central coast. Once our two boys were old enough - and our careers had taken off, we flew out to Hawaii (Oahu) once and took two cruises to Mexico. In 2015, just as we were empty nesting, a friend from church who we had gotten to know well included us on an email advertising a trip to New England in the fall.
This friend was a retired teacher who had spent years taking people on tours with a company called Go Ahead Tours (GOT). Now, my wife is a teacher also, so summer vacation is the only time that she can take time off to travel. Although we were unable to sign up for that fall tour, he did tease a second trip: Italy in 2016. We looked at each other and were soon tempted. The trip was three days in Sorrento, 3 days in Rome via Pompeii and 3 days in Taormina (Sicily). That gave us about a year to make monthly payments and have the trip paid off by the time we left.
Our friend is the Tour Coordinator. He takes a public tour that anyone in the world can choose, makes a few minor tweaks/changes, emails all of his friends and makes it a private tour. They quickly sign up. Ultimately, what you end up with is about 24 - 28 people with some sort of Kingsburg connection, friends - or soon to be friends. We have a GOT Tour Director who takes care of the local logistics and meets us there. We travel by coach, spend nights in nice hotels and eat at nice restaurants. We have tickets reserved for all of the sites one must see and have the documented itinerary, so we know exactly what we do each day. We also know the free time we’ll have, be it afternoon or evening.
We signed up.
For our second trip, we were at the airport by 4 am, had a plane, but the crew were over their union mandated hours. When we finally did board a plane much later that afternoon, yours truly was pressed into action to lead a small group to Washington D.C. for a seventeen-hour layover; the rest of our group arriving five hours later. We ended up with only two days in Scotland instead of three before moving to Ireland.
A few years ago there was a software glitch that grounded four airlines. Yep! You guessed it. We were caught in it. At the airport by 4 am, but only made it as far as LA, which is ninety minutes by plane from here. We had to spend the night in LA, so we lost a day on that trip also; and then our shared checked bag didn’t come with us. Our trip was half over by the time we were reunited (Cue: Peaches & Herb). Thankfully, that was Iceland and more cold than hot, and we could gets lots of wear out of the clothing we did have. Important tip from your Uncle Jim there: don’t put all of your eggs in that one basket. We each had clothing in a carry on and backpack, thankfully.
Lastly, on this last trip, we made it as far as San Diego before the dreaded bad thing happened. A noise ordinance there does not allow planes to take off after 11:30 pm, so six of us and fourteen pieces of luggage ended up in a rental car at 2 am, making the five-hour drive back to the valley.
Oh, that first Guinness! It took place in a pub in Belfast. John married a dear classmate of mine and has become a dear friend in his own right. I get fresh Guinness every time in Ireland and then hate myself when I try and drink it back home in America because it’s just not the same!
In 2020, the world closed. The virus-that-shall-not-be-named postponed our next trip until 2022. In the small German town of Oberammergau, they have been putting on the world famous Passion Play since 1633 when God spared their town from bubonic plague. As a WW2 guy, I was most interested in visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp and in seeing Berlin. Little did I know that the extension at the end of the tour in Prague was going to blow us away.
In 1987, I was worried about what I was going to do after graduating high school. At much the same time, the young man (photo below), only seven years older than I, was shot and killed trying to escape from East Germany to West Germany and freedom - something I take for granted. Though we have never met in this life, I have never forgotten him.
Here I am at the Brandenburg Gate. Hitler was photographed driving in a car through here. It’s also the place where President Reagan made his “Tear down this wall” speech.
On the Saint Charles Bridge in Prague.
Lastly, if we know of a film location, we’re gonna go see it. The movie Amadeus was filmed here. The Prague Opera House was a stand in for Vienna.
In 2023, we headed off to Spain. Portugal was the extension on that trip and that came at the beginning. Lisbon was great and, thankfully, someone said something about the oldest operated book store in the world being there or I might have missed it. On our way to Seville, we stopped at Evora and visited the Church of St. Francis, known as the Chapel of the Bones. The writing over the doorway reads: “We bones that our here, await yours.”
We wander a lot whenever we can. In Seville, we saw a small crowd gathered in front of a building guarded by heavily armed soldiers. My wife asked someone what we were waiting for and she told us, “El Rey”. While the rest of our group was taking carriage rides back to the hotel, we got to see the King of Spain walk out of the building and wave at the crowd before driving off. Our Spanish Tour Director was quite surprised to hear the story once we returned. I could share twenty photos of the Sangrada Familia in Barcelona, but you really do have to see it for yourself. They’ve only been working on the construction since 1882.
In 2024, we decided that we had had enough of hot vacations and, thankfully, our trusty Tour Coordinator was thinking much the same. His next trip was Iceland, the land of fire and ice. The high was about 58 degrees on that trip. It mostly drizzled when it rained except perhaps a day or two. Reykjavik was such an easy city to walk around. A New Film just came out, The Brink of War, which details the meeting between President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting took place at Hofdi House which just happened to be around the corner from our hotel. I surprised my wife by taking her there and telling her about it.
In 2025, we had to pivot. Our Tour Coordinator promised his wife that he wouldn’t tour. He does 1-2 a year, in addition to all the traveling they already do. So, instead of a private tour, we simply jumped onto a public one: London. It was a lot of fun and we visited some very cool places, but we did miss our friends - some we have traveled with two to three times. We went clockwise London (photo view from the London Eye), Stonehenge, Salisbury, Bath (had to see the Pulteney Weir which was the stand-in for the River Avon where Javert meets his end in the 2012 film version of Les Miserables), Oxford and then did something we have never done: went back to London on our own. And you could argue we had more fun doing that! We visited the Harry Potter Studio, Westminster Abbey, The National Gallery, and Notting Hill (Love the film/had to see the locations).
“And now for something completely different,” said Monty Python. You will notice a Hard Rock Cafe shirt in these photos. I have visited twenty-one so far. I know, I know. They’re about all the same! Sometimes we eat, sometimes I just grab a pint, often I get the shirt or the shot glass. It’s my wife who collects the magnets.
This year, we went back to the private tour with our friends and visited Ireland once again. I recently published an article on Titanic which did very well. Thank you for that! The tour was Dublin to Belfast. There were new things like having a Guinness at Guinness and kissing that Blarney Stone. There were things we had already done, like Titanic, the Cliffs of Moher and Giant’s Causeway. We just found new ways to enjoy those familiar sites.
Before I go, there’s one more cool thing I have been blessed to do while on tour and that’s meet people I only knew from social networks. So, if you ever hear me tease a new tour and it’s near you, please let me know. It’s great fun meeting in person. While in Spain, my path crossed with Author Lyn Perry. He’s actually originally from near where I live, but had since moved away. We didn’t know each other very well before, but now chat frequently. I happened to notice him posting from Spain and we managed to make it work.
Last year, in Bath, we met up with a dear friend I had FaceTimed once, but otherwise had known for many, many years from the blogging days. Author Teresa Hamilton and I, along with our significant others, had a fabulous dinner and then continued on for drinks. It was such a sweet evening.
Another thing that we get to do is visit United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites. There are so many, I’ll save that for a future article.
We already know what’s on tap for next year, but the official announcement has not yet dropped. Stay tuned.
We’ll talk soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate you taking the time. I'll get back to you here or on one of the other social networks. It's not like we're not on all of them, right? ;) Also, if you're here to give me an award - bless you. However, your friendship and visits are more than enough. Thanks and blessings.