We’ve been home now for a week and have had time to reflect on our big 8-week trip. One thing up front: it is nice to be home and not traveling. I am admiring our local surroundings like a tourist and finding a lot to like. We do live in a beautiful place.  But WOW did we create some family memories together.  Each of us will remember this trip for the rest of our lives.

There are a few takeaways on taking a trip like this that are worth sharing:

1. If you’re thinking of taking a trip like this with your family, buy non-refundable airplane tickets right away. We couldn’t decide on an itinerary for this big trip: Greece again? Amsterdam? Trains to Prague? We kept talking and talking about potential destinations for months and months. There are so many choices and all of them incredible. It took me booking the airline tickets to Madrid and back from London with specific dates for us to get serious about planning the trip. Having non-refundable airplane tickets was a great incentive to make sure the points in between were planned well.

2. Plan ahead and book your hotels and apartment rentals online. We started booking hotels and VRBOs about eight months in advance. Even with that much advance notice, we still couldn’t book all the the places we wanted. The best places get booked up way in advance. We booked 24 different hotels and apartment rentals via the internet and had zero reservation problems during our trip. 95% of our reservations were made with either booking.com or vrbo.com and all came off without a hitch, including a couple nervous all-cash on arrival VRBO bookings. You have to appreciate how technology is reshaping the vacation industry. If you haven’t tried a VRBO rental yet, you should. We stayed at some incredible places this trip for a fraction of the cost of hotels.

3. Build some down time in your itinerary. We really appreciated the longer stops where we had some time to relax and take in the surroundings. Paris in three days sounds good on paper, but a week in a small town in the Basque country of Spain is better. If we had to do it again, I would have booked longer stays in fewer places. Also remember that each member of your family will have a melt-down moment at some point in such a long trip (mine came in Paris at the Louvre). Plan on it and joke about it later. You can’t take a two-month family trip like this without a few hiccups.

4. Don’t procrastinate about taking a trip like this. Plan it, book your tickets, go! Time goes faster than you think and your kids grow up faster than you’d imagine. You only live once. Go see the world and its wonders while you can.

All this travel has also given me new eyes here at home. For the past week I’ve been able to look around at where we live with the same wonder I had abroad. We live in a pretty magical place here on Vashon Island. The incredible views off our front porch across the sound all the way to Mount Baker and Whidbey Island, goldfinches whirring about as I take it all in. Hugging dear friends that you missed tremendously while away, wishing somehow they could have come with you on your travels. A walk through Vashon town seeing so many people you know at the Saturday farmer’s market and at the small shops on main street, and the excitement of a happenstance meeting of new friends at the local winery, kindled by a future of kinship and laughter not possible with the transitory nature of traveling abroad.

It’s nice to be home.

We arrived in London on the 13th of August, meeting up with Aunt Corinne to spend the final week of our big trip. We’ve rented an apartment bordering Trafalgar Square. What an incredible location! From where I am writing this I can crane my neck to see Lord Nelson standing high upon his pillar.

I have been geeking out at all the amazing Horatio Nelson history here in London. The nearest subway tunnel portrays Trafalgar drawings showing the battle formation of the Spanish, French and English ships and other Nelson history:

And no trip to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich would be complete without viewing the uniform, breeches and stockings worn by Lord Nelson when he was shot and killed on the quarterdeck of the HMS Victory on the day of Britain’s greatest naval victory (you can see the bullet hole that killed Nelson in the close up of the uniform):

The apartment we’ve rented has its own geek factor: a very famous British pioneer of the computer industry (before Jobs and Gates, but arguably just as important) owns and lives here when not in use as a VRBO rental. It’s been fun to peruse the books of a knighted lord who paved the way for the modern day PC. The honor of staying here seems lost on the rest of my household though who keep complaining about the dead rodent smell coming from the lobby. Go figure.

For our last week we’ve steered clear of most of the heavy duty museums and churches (excepting the obligatory trip to Westminster Abbey and a pilgrimage to Lord Nelson’s uniform of course!). I think all of our brains have reached their limit in appreciating artwork and architecture. We had a blast visiting the cheesy London Bridge Experience and had fun zipping through the underground tube system to get around. Heading to St. James Park today to have a picnic to enjoy our first cloudless day here in London.

Hard to believe our two month trip ends tomorrow!

If you think life is a long stretch of the mundane with an occasional sprinkling of the sublime, then you must not have been to Ireland. Everything is backwards here: the roads, the steering wheels in cars, the direction of roundabouts, even the brakes on bicycles. And yes, the ratio of mundane to sublime is reversed here as well.

I love that feeling you get when you’re in the middle of doing or seeing something that you know you will remember for a lifetime. I had that feeling so often here that at times it felt like a pleasant form of vertigo. Winding narrow roads with breathtaking vistas, dotted with meandering sheep, and holding your breath around blind curves; tiny villages rising up as you drive through the countryside, all bright colors and full of charm and welcoming; ancient rock walls dividing everything, even mountains; cliff edges inviting you to peek over if you’re brave enough, the wind gusting up to take your hat as you do; smiling and friendly people, quick to laugh or tease, making even the most ordinary thing sound extraordinary with their manner of speaking, more like bird song than speech.

Hemingway thought Paris was a moveable feast; I feel that way about our time here, a visit that will surely stay with me for the rest of my life. Thank you Ireland! Thanks a million!

Ireland is a magical place.

We’ve visited some incredible places on this trip and have truly enjoyed ourselves everywhere we went. I wish I could have spent some more time in Spain, particularly Valencia, and eaten just a few more plates of pasta in Italy.
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Our taxi driver said it best, shaking his head as we drove to the airport at the end of our three day sprint through Paris: “You need a month here to really see Paris, at least a month!”

In planning our big Europe trip, we debated coming to Paris at all, knowing we wouldn’t have much time to allot to the city. But in the end, we decided to try to see as much as we could in such a short time. And try we did.

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When you plan a two-month vacation so far in advance, you can gloss over some important details. Like: Italy is amazing! And: what was I thinking when I only planned eight days here?!
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We’re half way through our two month trek through Europe and I thought I would provide an update on how our travel gear and technology is holding up.

We wanted to pack light on this trip and so we each brought just one bag that we could carry on the plane. I have the awesome Tom Bihn Aeronaut, Lisa went with a traditional black rolling bag, and the kids are each using the High Sierra rolling backpack.
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We finished our month in Spain by visiting the region famous for its ancient windmills that Don Quixote jousted with on his trusted steed Rozinante.

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When I was a boy, younger than Connor is now, I believed all the stories my dear Pop told me. He sailed across oceans, traveled down the Nile, jumped out of planes in the 82nd Airborne, drank with Hemingway, conspired with Castro, along with many other misdeeds and adventures. While my kids are constant skeptics of any tales I tell, even the true ones, I didn’t question the stories I was told. Pop was a great story teller. He would get this gleam in his eye while he drew you in and threw in such vivid details of the surroundings and the things that happened to him that you couldn’t help but believe.
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We made our way east from Zaragoza in our little Kangoo to Barcelona for a three day visit. Our first lunch in the city was unfortunate. Mallory and I ordered spinach salads as we were craving vegetables after a diet long on ham, cheese and bread, but short on greens. Both of us got sick later that night and spent a whole day recovering in the hotel room while Lisa and Connor explored on their own. We were back in business by day three and got a chance to explore the city by bus and walking around. Lots of amazing architecture and art everywhere. We took in an impromptu concert in one of the many museums featuring three trombones to Connor’s delight. The Gaudi Basilica was particularly awesome. Hats off to the staff at Hotel Montecarlo for taking such good care of us during our stay.

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Our two day visit to Zaragoza was far too short for this amazing city. A few snaps from our stay there:

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We enjoyed our trip to the Basque Country of Northern Spain.  We rented a house in Etxalar, Navarra for the week.  The village of Etxalar is tiny, and our house was even more remote.  Our little Renault Kangoo car had to navigate some dicy back roads and hills to get to the house.   The house itself was awesome: perched on a hilltop looking out over the village below.  Here’s a picture from the porch:

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We took the day to visit Toledo, an historic city about an hour south of Madrid.  This place is special.  It was the original capital of Spain before Madrid took that title 400 years ago.  The city is a labyrinth of tiny endless roads featuring Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious buildings dating back a thousand years and more.  The active catholic cathedral was breathtaking.  The pictures don’t do it justice.

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We arrived in Madrid yesterday after a red-eye flight from New York.  What a beautiful city!  We have rented an apartment near Puerta del Sol which is walking distance to most everywhere in central Madrid.  Quite a contrast to New York where everything was hustle-bustle.  Here the pace is more tranquil maybe because many of the streets are pedestrian only.  No car horns here only the sound of street music, footsteps and continual spanish banter.

The people here are beautiful and friendly especially when you try to speak Spanish.  We are hobbling along in that department but are improving each day.  

We took a bicycle tour through the city today.  In three hours Connor managed to crash into a police car, take out a passenger car mirror, and suffer at least three spills, but he is ecstatic tonight for having such a great time.  He refused to stay behind with us and pushed on to stay with the tour leader the whole three hours. Watching him careen past taxi cabs caused my heart to race a bit, but fearless Connor pushed on unfazed.  Tomorrow we rent rollerblades and tour the Central Park here.  I hope we can avoid medical facilities!

We have already talked about moving here when the kids are out of the nest. We really like Madrid!

We began our European tour with a long weekend stopover in New York.  Still in the U.S., but like a foreign land in many ways.   I lived in New York in the mid 90s before Lisa and I got married, and Lisa came out to visit a lot.  So for us this was a trip to revisit old haunts (wow – it has changed a lot since then!).  But this was a totally new experience for Mallory and Connor.  I enjoyed watching their expressions as they took in the sheer audacity of New York, especially the controlled chaos of Times Square on a Friday night. 

In the course of about 48 hours we tried to take in as many sights as we could: Times Square, Grand Central, the Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, China Town, and Ground Zero.  We spent the afternoon in Central Park, then took in the Upper West Side and Harlem via the double-decker tour buses.  We visited the Met and MOMA, and of course sample some great pizza and bagels.  We must have walked the entire length of the island by the end of the weekend.  We couldn’t see it all but we tried.  

We got special tickets to climb 360 steps to visit the very crown of Lady Liberty.  Here we are inside the crown:

Connor “volunteered” to join in this amazing street performance:

Mallory at the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art.  

Connor really liked the pizza!

On our last morning, I got up early to make a pilgrimage to Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue.  The  only Apple store open 24 hours a day.  I got there just after 5 am.  Very cool.

Next stop: Madrid!

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Our dream trip to Europe starts this week!  Two more days of school followed by two final days to get everything ready for departure before we blast off.  Leaving home for two months takes a lot of pre-planning, but I think we have everything covered.

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Since this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, we want to share it with family and friends and keep a permanent record of our adventures.   In the old days, we would have had the kids keep a journal.  Today we blog.  Each of us will be posting our experiences here on the-breens.com as we make our way through eight weeks of European experiences.

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Traveling light is our mantra for this trip.  Too often we pack too much stuff and end up lugging huge bags around with stuff we didn’t need to bring.  Packing for a two-month trip brings its own set of challenges, particularly the climate differences between Madrid and Dublin, but we’ve all agreed that we can fit everything we need in a single carry on.  Since laundry facilities are included on many of the places we’ve rented, we really only need to bring a week of clothing.

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Our European vacation is just 25 days away! Five countries, sixty days, 21 different hotels, apartments and inns, planes, trains, and rental cars, all selected and reserved.

The highlights of our itinerary:

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This is a test post on our web site to make sure we can take pictures using our Nikon DSLR camera, transfer them to an ipad   using our new Kensington Mobilite sharing device, edit the picture using iPhoto for iPad, and finally upload it from our iPad blogging app.  If you’re reading this, it worked.  The picture below was taken this weekend at the long-abandoned dairy farm of the Northern State Mental Hospital outside of Sedro-Woolley which locals say is haunted.

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The Breen family is heading to Europe this summer.  We each will be sharing our experiences and photos here on this travel blog, along with some travel anecdotes leading up to our departure.  Check back often!