As I struggle to achieve life balance travel becomes more important. I do not get to travel as much as I would like, that being said, I know I travel far more than most people are lucky enough to do so I shan't whine . . too much.
I've already shared some of my plans for 2018 on my Travel Tuesdays posts. But here are the details.
I am spending 8 days in Rome in March. This was a bit of an impromptu trip. It had been 4 years since I was last in Italy. There was a huge sale on airfares on Black Friday. It just sort of came together. Unfortunately Paul is not coming. Even though I'll be back before Easter he feels that they won't let him have time off since Easter is a food holiday (he works for a grocery chain). He didn't even bother to ask so whatever. While I will certainly miss having him along on the adventure I am also not adverse to traveling on my own.
I've rented a fabulous apartment about two blocks from the Pantheon. It looks as if it is behind St Maria Sopra Minerva Basilica, one of my favourite churches in Rome. St Maria Sopra Minerva Basilica is famous for its medieval tombs, Michelangelo sculpture & elephant obelisk out front.
I also found a great Black Friday sale on tours with one of my favourite tour companies so I booked two. The first is a tour of a preserved Roman house Case Romane del Celio. Located under the church of Saints Giovanni and Paolo this really is a collection of 2nd and 3rd century Roman houses in which Christians worshiped with a number of well-preserved frescoes. After that we will wander parts of the Colosseum and Roman Forum that are generally off limits to tourists.
The second tour that I have booked is a out of hours tour of the Vatican. Actually, I think only the Sistine Chapel portion of the tour is out of hours but the opportunity to be alone (or relatively alone) while viewing Michaelangelo's masterpiece is exciting.
We also tour the museums and St. Peter's Basilica. One of the things I hope to do is to actually go back and see more of the Vatican museums. Any time I have been there before I have been stuck in a huge group that raced past things that I wanted to see.
The rest of my time in Rome is unplanned but I know will involve amazing food, art, history, shopping, and people watching.
All good.
Next up on the trip front is a long weekend in Ottawa. Paul and I celebrate the 20 anniversary of when we met on May 18. It is also our second wedding anniversary. We've been invited to a colleague's wedding in Ottawa that weekend so we decided to make an extended trip of it. Our first getaway after we started dating was a weekend away in Ottawa. it seems sort of fitting that we return. We'll stay at the Lord Elgin hotel once again but I found a great deal on an upgraded room so we'll have a bit more luxury than we had 20 years ago. :-)
Other than the wedding we have no significant plans for our time in Ottawa although I'm sure we'll find many interesting things to do.
In July we head to Edmonton. I'll be in a meeting for most of our time there but I know Paul will have an interesting wandering the capital city of Alberta.
As soon as the meeting is finished we'll be taking a short flight to Kelowna to hang out in BC's famous wine region for a week. We had a taste of the region (pun intended) when I was there for a work function a few years ago but it was off-season and many of the wineries were closed or had reduced hours. We managed to get in enough tasting to know we wanted to go back.
Paul did the research for this trip. He found a beautiful house on a vineyard for us to rent.
I am looking forward to sitting at the table with my morning coffee and taking in that amazing view!
We will visit wineries, visit some farm-to-table restaurants, do some hiking, shop, and relax. . . a perfect way to enjoy wine country.
I am sure a few more things might come up over the course of the year but these three getaways are set in stone at this point.
Comments