I need to blog more. This year I’ve been to:
- Paris (๐ซ๐ท)ย for New Year’s celebrations, followed by a trip to Italy to see Milan (๐ฎ๐น), Bologne (๐ฎ๐น), and Venice (๐ฎ๐น)ย before returning to Paris and from there to home
- Zรผrich (๐จ๐ญ)
- Several towns and cities in the Brittany and Pays de la Loire regions of France, including Nantes (๐ซ๐ท) and Angers (๐ซ๐ท), as the main caregiver for my mother who was also on that trip
- Confuzzled, Birmingham (๐ฌ๐ง)
- A 1080 km cycle along the Rhine, taking me through (amongst other places) Hoek van Holland (๐ณ๐ฑ), Rotterdam (๐ณ๐ฑ), Randwijk (๐ณ๐ฑ), Duisburg (๐ฉ๐ช), Kรถln (๐ฉ๐ช), Kestert (๐ฉ๐ช), Worms (๐ฉ๐ช), Hochstadt (๐ฉ๐ช), Lichtenau (๐ฉ๐ช), Village-Neuf (๐ซ๐ท), and Basel (๐จ๐ญ), before making a rapid series of Rhine crossings both ways, taking a few wrong turns, going up the worst possible not-a-mountain Swiss hill I could’ve chosen and being picked up by my friend from Zรผrich to hang out at his place and take a day trip to try (and fail) to reach the source of the Rhine near Andermatt (๐จ๐ญ)
- California (๐บ๐ธ), based mainly in Davis, including a multi-day road trip along the I-80 to Salt Lake City (Utah), returning via Reno (Nevada), camping one night more than expected in an unincorporated village near Redding whose name I can’t remember because the Carr Fireย had literally begun a few hours before it diverted us to a much longer route to the next stop โย McKinleyvilleย โ and a few days after that visitingย Eurekaย as we returned to Davis, having a few day trips to Sacramento, and then seeing the Pacific coast of San Francisco
- Berlin (๐ฉ๐ช), because I’ve moved here to escape from the UK
- Cambridge (๐ฌ๐ง) (where I used to live) and Portchester (๐ฌ๐ง) (near family and old friends, and it has a castle)
- The Mediterranean coast of Spain, in particular the Orihuela Costa (๐ช๐ธ), Cartagena (๐ช๐ธ), and El Castell de Guadalest (๐ช๐ธ)
- Helsinki (๐ซ๐ฎ), where I was for New Year’s, but I didn’t have anyone around for the celebrations this time, and my flight home the next day was too early in the morning to be worth going out alone.
I need to finish off my original series of blog posts on the topic of travelling around Europe for a month on an Interrail pass just before the Brexit referendum vote before I do these in any detail.