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.