cinque giorni prima (five days before)

Stephen & Mary Elizabeth May 27, 2000

It has been a crazy and exciting few weeks since we finally committed to this trip - our fifteenth anniversary vacation to Italia! We had been planning this for a long time, but I am not really sure either of us really thought we'd do it. Well, the trip is booked - thanks to many years of Aeroplan point collections; the accommodation made - thanks to Airbnb et al; and this week many of our hoped-for excursions are beginning to come together including Da Vinci's Last Supper (Milan), and the Uffizi and Accademia Galleries in Florence.

I commented to a colleague this past week that "hopping across the pond" for a little vacation is not quite like heading out to the cottage."Closer to spending two weeks on the moon!", she replied - and so was born the idea and theme for this travel blog. It really is like that in the preparation - there's no running back to the house to retrieve the boogie boards. You have to think about being on another planet for the next two weeks in terms of what you pack and what you don't. What can you not live without and what is a like-to-have that will have to be left behind. Then there's all the arrangements for things left behind - primarily our two Calico girls, K.D. and Sasha (they'll be seeing lots of their cat nanny, Angela for a couple of weeks). Is the Will up to date? Travel Insurance? Call the credit card companies and banks to let them know you may need to use the cards a few miles from home. We are planning on coming back...but all the "just-in-case" stuff has to assume you might not! Due settemane sulla luna! Italy might as well be the moon. Over the next few days, I'll try to describe our preparations and provide some hints and tips that we learn in the process (my darling wife is already such an accomplished traveler so much of the learning will be my own :-)) After that, we'll turn this into a travelog and I'll try to post daily so you can share our trip. Ciao, for now.