Travel as Performance

Mitchell Lurie, the great American clarinetist with whom we both studied in our early years, once remarked to Brian, "When I perform, everything leaves me but my preparation." 

He was at least as great a teacher as he was a performer, and we listened carefully to his pearls of wisdom. We realized even in our youth that the importance of  preparation is a truth applying to anyone who "performs," whether as a pilot, a surgeon, or, yes, a traveler. 

Even when circumstances require that you  improvise or downright fake it, the success of your efforts will be based on your experience, unless you're relying on luck. Luck for us is strictly a last resort!

Over the past couple of weeks we've been involved in preparing for three upcoming European trips, one starting in a couple of days, one in March, and one in April. Kathy, who works out the vast majority of travel and accommodation arrangements, has also set up an itinerary for her younger brother and sister-in-law, who will meet us in Frankfurt.

We're now down to the final details. As we've mentioned before, we rely on the invaluable Tripit, which enables us to document every bit of our itinerary. We'll be on an Oceania cruise ship for 11 days, sailing on Marina from Athens to Barcelona, so much of that part of the itinerary is set for us. It's the first couple of weeks in France and Italy that require particular attention to detail.

For example, as we travel by train through France and Italy, we want to figure in advance how to get from the train station to the hotel and back in the cities we're visiting. We generally prefer Uber-like ride share services over taxis, and that requires some research. We compare our own past travel experiences, if any, with the latest information we can find on the internet. We find the travel forum section for various cities in Trip Advisor to be useful. 

Brian has accounts open with at least seven foreign ride share services in addition to Uber and Lyft. Uber works in France, but is generally limited to luxury cars in Italy, due to strict Italian regulations. We make a note in Tripit to try the Freenow taxi app. In Barcelona, Uber is now somewhat available, but some travelers suggest Cabify. [Update: a subscriber kindly let us know after we published this that Freenow works well in Barcelona. We always appreciate such useful feedback!]

We land at Athens late at night the day before we board Marina, and we've hired Welcome Pickups to meet us at the airport and transport us to a downtown hotel not too far from the cruise port. For two couples, private transfers can be quite cost effective, and this prepaid ride is 30 Euros per couple for a 45-minute trip into a rather congested (in our experience) city. 

Incidentally, as T-Mobile subscribers, we both enjoy free data in most of the world, making the use of such apps cheap and efficient.

Our port-intensive cruise results in a list of nine countries we'll be visiting this trip. In addition to Germany, France, and Italy, the cruise ports add Greece, Croatia, Montenegro, Malta, Tunisia, and Spain. 

Tom and Ellyn are flying to and from Frankfurt via Istanbul and Amsterdam, so they'll be two countries ahead of us on this trip. It will be our first visit to Tunisia, and the 83rd sovereign country we've visited, so we're still ahead of them overall. But who's counting (as we always say)?

We've stuffed our belongings into our rollaboards. Thank goodness for Oceania's twin virtues of no formal nights and free laundromats on every stateroom deck!

Are we looking forward to our upcoming travel adventure? Yes we are, and we hope to relax and enjoy every bit of it, with our preparations in place. We'll be ready to improvise and even fake it if necessary. 

We hope to keep you posted.