Sliding into retirement…

    Go to first post of Europe2017

    Jenny and I just ended our working career last Friday. Retirement seemed so far away when we embarked on our first family European trip back in 2011. This 2017 trip, our sixth back packing vacation to Europe, was seeded by Jenny and Victoria who, after viewing The GodFather II movie, felt like it would be nice to visit Sicily. They also suggested that it would be even nicer if we managed to drop by England to visit our older daughter working in London. From those ideas, we crafted a rough travel itinerary from Rome to London.

    Celebrating retirement was not the only big event this past June – Victoria graduated from high school after spending six years juggling a demanding school work load, culminating in her successful completion of her International Baccalaureate (IB) program.

    As for Jessica, she did not want to miss out on all the travel excitement and very early on, she committed to joining us for part of our visit to Sicily.


    • Winding down in London

      2017.07.25 – 2017.08.01 – London (England) Our week in London at Jessica’s flat simply zoomed by even though our days were fairly light from a tourist perspective. Along the way,… Read more


    • Locked out in Paris

      2017.07.15 – Marseille (France) After a nice breakfast at our Ibis Style hotel, we headed out to explore the city equipped with some daily transit passes. We started our visit… Read more


    • Broken shoe lace in Sicily

      2017.07.07 – Agrigento – Trapani (Sicily) One of Jenny’s worst concern came true this morning. She broke a shoe lace when putting on her shoes. We had breakfast and arranged… Read more


    • Eastern and southern Sicily

      2017.07.01 – Taormina (Sicily) This morning’s B&B breakfast consisted in a business card to a nearby bar which provided us with coffees and croissants. We realized that the bar was… Read more


    • On the way to Sicily

      2017.06.25/26 – Ottawa – Rome (Italy) While we were packing our luggage on the previous Friday evening, Jenny kept on reminding us that we were now retired. We had another… Read more