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In point of fact, we arrived home from our most wonderful, two week European trip last night, and what you’ve been seeing on the blog in the past two weeks was blogged ahead, as I did not take along my computer to blog in real time as I usually do. This was a true vacation, from work, from cooking, from screen time, from blogging, from driving, from our usual environs, even from reading.

Now, for the next two weeks I’ll blog my photos of our adventures in chronological order, including the exquisite beauty and fascination that surrounded us.  For those of you with me on social media, some of this coming content you may have already seen, but the travel log that’ll be here on the blog will be more thorough.

Our two week trip was mostly to Switzerland, followed by a weekend on the French Mediterranean. I traveled with my husband and both daughters. The destination was inspired by my long time bucket list desire to visit the Swiss Alps.

We realized we haven’t traveled all together since our youngest was 9. She’s now 26, so it felt like high time to do it again. This summer was a sacred sweet spot in both our daughter’s transitioning adult lives, when we could all get some time off together, so we jumped on it.

Our older daughter and I planned the whole itinerary, via zoom, last winter. We did a great job, both in keeping costs low and interest high. Other than having a bit rain, which sadly blocked some mountain visibility, the whole plan was perfect.  Each of the four of us had priorities of what we wanted to see that we accommodated into our plan, which made for a varied and interesting experience. Our Swiss travel pass made complicated mass transit connections a breeze, and the whole unfoldment between destinations operated like clockwork. Plus the pass got us in free to many of the attractions we visited.

Our older daughter flew directly from San Fransisco to Lisbon, Portugal, and we met up with her in the Lisbon airport having come in from New York City. Then she joined us for our last leg to Zurich.

Air Portugal was affordable but had weight limits on carry-on luggage: 22 lbs per carry on and 4 lbs per personal item. (This is tricky when packing for everything between alpine snow and beach heat!) You can see our very light packing in one of the photos below: mine is the one with the purple backpack on top. However, many times on the trip we all felt earnest gratitude that we had packed so sparingly– it is truly the way to go, but requires a little more forethought.

Also, note our trip mascot: a dear walrus named Alistair Butternut Cromwell. (He goes by Butternut.)

We couldn’t be more excited!

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