Reflections

A month later....

This may have been our best trip ever, although that is saying a lot.  This was a well-planned trip where we had few days of feeling rushed.  We went at a great pace and the trip was full of variety including our choice of venues (cities, towns, villages, hamlets, countryside) and our choice of lodgings (friends, hotels, B & Bs, self-catering apartments).  We think we stayed in 8 hotels, 8 self-catering places and 7 B & Bs.  The cities: London, Paris, Florence, Venice, Budapest, Reykjavik.
Mark figures that we slept in 25 different beds!
We drove 3 different cars, but liked the Peugeot the best; we figured we drove upwards of 8,000 kilometers in total.
We included a lot of history and culture, art and museums.  We included a lot of nature, although we saw fewer birds than we had anticipated, especially in Croatia, but we saw more than we expected in Iceland. We strolled a lot!
We made an effort to meet the people in the countries and found the B & Bs the most effective in that as we met so many nice people both as guests and hosts.
The trip was relatively inexpensive and we worried less about money on this trip than previous ones.  This was partly because we pre-paid quite a lot of it, including the airfare, deposits on the self-catering places and the car in France.  We ate at "home" fairly often and did not overspend on restaurants. 
Next time we will figure out how to use our smart phones and we will figure out how to take our own GPS system and not pay the extra fee to have one in the cars we rent.
Neither of us gained weight on the trip, even though we did not deprive ourselves of local food specialties. We ate a lot of baguettes and brie!  We think it was due to how much we walked and the lack of snacking. We did not sit around, watch tv and eat!
Our packing was excellent.  I think we both wore everything that we packed and, even though we did not have many clothes, we both probably could have cut down a bit more.  The 3-in-1 jackets from LL Bean were just right.  I am really glad that I packed my thin long underwear! 
The guides on our computers were great and saved a lot of space from the days when we lugged them around.  Rick Steves was, by far, the best that we used.  We also found Trip Advisor pretty good, especially for restaurants.  And, we found local websites very helpful.
As to the length of the trip, we both found it about right.  We thought that I would be ready to get home earlier than Mark, but we had such a relaxing and great time, that it was not the case. 
People ask us about the highlights or what was our "favorite" place and, we can honestly say that the entire trip and every country were almost equally wonderful.  Neither of us expected to like Venice as much as we did and credit that to the wandering we did and the vaporetto pass that allowed us to explore the nooks and crannies. 

And...a wonderful last day! May 24

We woke to rain today.  But, it was not windy or particularly cold, probably in the 50s F.  We packed, cleaned the little studio and walked into and around Reykjavik.  We had hoped to go birding for several but the weather was not on our side.  So, we went for lunch at the Fish Company.  And, we may have had the best meal of the entire trip!  Just by accident, really.  It is in an underground cave like room.  Mark had been wanting lamb while we were in Iceland and he finally got some.  It is against the law to administer antibiotics to farm animals and all is grass fed.  So, he had an amazing roast lamb, but it was the accompaniments that were so good and creative...parsnip foam, kale and squash purée...  I had bluelink an Icelandic fish. It was very mild, but, again, it was what it came with, including kale, barley and...who knows what.  All delicious.  Bread with three spreads were included - dill butter, yogurty butter and a red pepper, chile jam.  We split a fish soup first with coconut milk, scallops, lobster, lemongrass and mushrooms.  The waitress was awesome and wrote down the ingredients for my meal, which was the fish of the day, which was very nice of her.  We were very pleased with our last lunch on this trip, endless to say.

Then, we did a little bit of birding in the spitting rain in Hafnir, a little village on the coast.  Less than 200 people.  We did not see many birds close up, but did see some eider, some whimbrels  in the fields, and arctic terns.

Then we returned the car and went to the airport which was rather crowded with four flights leaving within a ten minute span.  We felt really glad we had been outside birding and had had such a great lunch.  As usual, we spent all our last coins...mostly on candy for our family this time.

The flight was uneventful and overcast, but smooth.  It was our fourth flight on the 757 called Eyjfallajokull.  Each time, we had an aisle seat and a window seat as the woman who booked us said that we'd have a good chance of an empty middle seat.  On the previous three flights that had not happened, but on this, our longest flight of our trip, we lucked out and had three seats to ourselves which was nice.  And, I was very happy to have my Ikea pillow to sit upon.  I watched Skyfall, a James Bond movie and The Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.  It passed the time.

We had a long wait for a train to Concord at North Station which was a bit of a drag. So, after landing, it took an extra three hours to get to Jecca and Willy's and we were really glad to be home.