A Crazy Idea Too!

By Chris Wells

A second crazy idea. This time to do a bus tour of Europe in the company of good friends. We visited ten countries and had lots of laughs in each of them. Including riding in the back of a pickup truck in Greece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Wells
• Release date: Apr 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370737789

Chris Wells

Born and raised in England, Chris came to Canada in 1969 and lives with his wife Rosalie on Vancouver Island.

Book preview

Intro

These blogs were either written on the tour bus or late at night in our hotel room following a few glasses of wine. I've cleaned them up a bit but I'm sure they're not perfect. This was after all, my first attempt.

They are meant to be fun and I hope that I delivered the sense of the fun we had.

I have to thank the following people.

Peter: who was the butt of most of my jokes; he's a great guy.

Suzie: who kept Peter in check and holds the record for the fasted beer drunk.

And of course Rosalie: who kept me in check and gave me all the encouragement.

Most of the quotes came from https://www.brainyquote.com

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.

Thomas Aquinas

The Idea

We don't travel very often, maybe every year or two. 2015 was quite the exception, though. We started January off by going to Mexico for a month. In September we went to Europe for six weeks, and in January 2016, Arizona for two months.

When we got back from Mexico we were booked on a one-day river cruise up the Alberni Canal to Bamfield on Vancouver Island where we live. On the way back we were talking with a group of people when one lady mentioned that she was going to Europe for forty days. From what she was saying, it didn't sound too expensive. So, on our way home my tiny mind started ticking over, and I thought maybe we could do a similar trip. What I didn't think about at the time, was, that she was only one person and Rosalie and I are two, therefore, it would cost more.

The following day I paid a visit to our local travel agent to pick up a few catalogues. I had looked online for some possible tours, but she advised against the ones I chose, as they were pressure tours and sometimes on some of them we may even have to use public transport.

As this was my project, with Rosalie still working, I picked out another tour. I originally chose an eighteen-day trip that didn't include Spain. But as this may be the only time we could do a trip like this I picked the twenty-one-day package instead, just to see what the extra cost would be. Back to the Travel agent!

She said that it was a good tour, and as Rosalie liked this one also, we started checking dates. We originally wanted to go in 2016 as we needed time to get used to the idea as this was a big expense. For some reason, the dates we wanted were all sold out. There happened to be a tour starting at the end of August 2015. They were selling fast but with four seats unsold. Yikes! Decisions, decisions! The travel agent also told me that she could hold two of the seats for three days at no cost, so I agreed and she reserved them for us.

Rosalie and I were starting to get excited now as it really looked as though we would be going. That afternoon we went to our good friends Peter and Suzie's house to tell them the news and, as they are sensible, down to earth people, maybe they would point out the pitfalls. They took one look at the itinerary and said: We want to go too. So much for them being sensible! I remembered that there were two more seats available and promptly called the travel agent again. She confirmed that they were still unsold, so I handed the phone to Peter, and the rest, as they say, was a whole bunch of fun.

No, No! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time

Lewis Carroll

The Blog

As the trip got closer someone suggested that I should do a blog for friends and family back home. I thought this might be an idea worth looking into. I had a tiny bit of experience so I set up a website (http://www.abnd.ca), and started practicing.

I planned to blog each day, but couldn't guarantee it as we had a hectic schedule and some concerns about Wi-Fi access. I bought an app that would allow me to blog off-line as we were travelling, and download the content later. This turned out to be a smart thing to do because often after a day on the bus I was too tired to think about blogging.

I wanted to include photos and had to do this in the evening, although I was able to add a few on the bus. We also wanted to keep the evening clear as Peter and I planned to try the local beer and wine in each country we visited. My good friend Malcolm and his wife Vivian live on the island of Crete He gets his wine locally in a one hundred and fifty-litre barrel so, as we were eventually heading there, I told him to make sure it was full when we got there.

We started off in England for a week visiting family and showing Peter and Suzie places they hadn`t seen. Then the tour started in London. We went to France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the south of France, Spain, back to France where the tour ended in Paris. Then we flew to Athens and then Crete for a week, then back to Athens for two days of sight-seeing. From there we came home. Phew!

Yippee! I'm going to Europe

Rosalie

The Fashion Show

About mid-way through the tour, the schedule showed that we were to have one evening in Monte Carlo. I've always wanted to drop the phrase When I was in Monte Carlo. into everyday conversation just to impress people. Yeah! Right!

Anyway, we had to have appropriate dress for the evening so I checked out my ‘wardrobe' and found it was