Will we start in Athens????

Well, asking the magic eight ball is about where we are when it comes to planning these days. If you had asked a few days ago, we would have said that our first stop is Portugal. We got tired of waiting to see if Portugal would open by June 12, soooooo.....Let's Go Greece. Greece is open now for vaccinated tourists and so we have booked flights and lodging for our first few stops. Greece wasn't on our original itinerary but we are delighted to visit Athens again. Mia would like to go back and see the Acropolis again and we can enjoy souvlaki while we overcome some of our jet lag. We had a very practical orderly plan for Europe and that's all pretty much been shot to hell. Now we will go to whichever countries allow us in, when they allow us in, and we will hopscotch and plan as we go. Patience and flexibility are the mantras I chant when I wake up in the middle of the night in a panic.

So the first part of our trip will look like this:

June 12 LAX to Athens

June 13-15 Athens, Greece

June 16-20 Oia,Santorini

June 20-22 Heraklion, Crete

June 22-25 Chania, Crete

June 26-28 Lucerne, Switzerland

June 28-30 Zermatt

June 30-July 4 Lauterbrunnen

July 4-5 Chamonix, France

July 6-9 Rome, Italy

July 10-17 small boat cruise of Croatian islands, departing Split

After this, we are playing things by ear. Malta is now open, and other countries we would like to go to are also opening. If you have been in Portugal for 10 days, you can go to the UK and if you have been in certain other countries for 10 days, you can go to Portugal, so we are watching the dominoes to see how they fall.

If it were up to us, we would spend a bit of time in Croatia and Slovenia before flying to Malta. After Malta, we would like to go (in this order) to the Algarve in Portugal, do a UK driving trip for a few weeks, and then head to Norway to see the fjords. (Norway is dragging their heels on opening so TBD.) Those destinations will roughly be from July 17 until September 8th.

Our plans post September 8th are based on countries that are currently open.

Sept 9-18 Maldives

Sept 18-28 Seychelles

Sept 28-Oct 3 Istanbul, Turkey

Oct 3-7 Cappadocia, Turkey

Oct 8-22 G Adventures small group trip Egypt and Jordan

After this, we wait and see if SE Asia will open for October and November and if Australia and New Zealand will be open in December.