Europe 2025–Intro
Thursday, July 31st, 2025October 22 2025
I met Ty last night at the brewery across the street in the San Luis Ranch Marketplace just returned from his monthlong trip to Europe. He’d been at a business conference in Cambridge and then on tours in Germany and the Low Countries and visiting a friend in Spain. Earlier in the day, I’d had coffee with Ken who’d traveled in Europe for several weeks last Spring. And the day before I’d received George’s brief account of his recent trip to Italy with Marta. Exemplifying the growing flood of tourism noted in the media, the chaos of oversubscribed and cancelled flights, the masses of people flowing through airports everywhere, these travel conversations revived memories of our three week August trip to Scandinavia.
In the past, I’ve tried to memorialize and enrich travel experience in photos and prose, but this year, perhaps because of some negative features of the trip, perhaps because I felt no one would be interested in yet another installment, perhaps because of laziness, I abandoned the formidable task of adding yet another blog to those already collected here.
This afternoon, while resting in preparation for a Zoom Homeowners’ Board Meeting, I recalled my agreement with Ty that we both were no longer up to the job. But instead of falling asleep I was smacked by the thought that backing down on the writing was depreciating both the privilege and the investment the trip had required. The work of writing could re appreciate it and was a job I needed.
I should offer at the outset a note about pronouns. The alternation of “we” and “I” in what follows reflects the nature of a lifelong partnership. Much of it has involved an inextricable blend of two individuals and much has involved widely disparate outlooks and behaviors. The narrative in this account, however, is wholly my own, with the exception of Jan’s post on Bergen, Norway.
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