If needed, I might start off each blog with a brief description of the background of the selection so that it makes sense. Note, though, that I might intersperse other blogs in between these “Excerpts from Europe” blogs.

Background: A friend (Kelly) of a friend (Susan) was living in a very tiny town in Italy, and Susan was staying with Kelly. After just traveling in Greece and Turkey, I was taking an overnight ferry to Italy, to visit both Kelly and Susan, and to eventually spend a lot of my five-months in Italy…

Tuesday May 25, 2004 – I’m In Italy!
At the moment, I’m looking outside the window of Susan’s friend’s house in Camponocecchio, Italy. Wow, I made it here! I am sitting on Kelly’s couch, and there is a town church directly across the street, with a brilliant stained glass window above the door all lit up. A peaceful sight. So, here is how I got to this point…

the stained glass window

Last night on the cruise ship/ferry from Athens, I ended up watching a couple of movies. Then I slept on the couches of the ferry, as I did not pay for a cabin. I slept mostly right by the TV, but then I found a quieter spot later on.

In the morning, I still had several hours before we got to Ancona, so I basically lounged around. It was warm enough to actually try to get some sun on my legs, tummy and arms.

I also checked my email, and Susan said that she would meet me at the train station in Ancona. The ferry actually arrived an hour late, and I hadn’t realized it yet, but I had lost an hour going from Greece to Italy, as well. So now I am 9 hours ahead of Mom, instead of 10.

the church across the street

My first sight of Italy, while we were on the Adriatic Sea, was actually some snow-covered mountains. I will need to figure out what they were, because they seem too far south to be the Alps or Dolomites.

My second sight of Italy was the town of Ancona. Looked like a quaint nice town, with red-roofed houses, and several churches that I could see from the ferry. Of course, there was also the industrial side to Ancona, with the ports with ships and cargo stuff and huge cranes.

I got off the ferry, and needed to get to the train station. It was too far to walk, so I needed to take a bus, which was in the email from Susan. I asked the tourist info office how to do this. I used my first Italian words!!

I had to get a bus ticket at the “tobacco magazine” shop, and then walk just a bit to the square. Take bus #1 or #1/4. I got on #1/4, and I even had the bus driver tell me when to get off the bus at the train station.

the town of Camponocecchio

I had about a half an hour before Susan’s train arrived, so I had to get my first gelato!! The signs were all in Italian of course, but I figured out the choices between cup or cone, 2 or 3 scoops, and that it came topped with cream. I got 2 scoops, 2 yummy flavors, chocolate and nutella!

Susan got off the train and we gave each other a hug. Nice to see a familiar face, and nice to talk to someone I know. We had a quick bite to eat, then we took a one hour train ride, and got off at Genga Station. We had to walk about 10 minutes through this tiny town of Genga to get to Camponocecchio to get to Kelly’s house. We had, of course, chatted the whole time.

Sweet Travels!

In fact, cities in Sweden have dedicated bike lanes on the streets, the bicycles have their own traffic lights, and pedestrians even yield to bicyclists. There are many well-marked paths for cycle touring as well. The Swedes do their best to make cycling safe and easy.

Of course, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that cycling, even though quite functional for the Swedes, is also good for the environment. And healthy, too!

When I was in Malmö, Sweden, which is a convenient train stop between Copenhagen and Stockholm, on my 15-day circumnaviation of the Batlic Sea, I had a few hours to go do some sightseeing in Malmö.

However, before I even left the train station to go wander the streets of Malmö, the first thing I noticed was this “parking lot” for biycles. I definitiely did a double-take and had to stop and look when I saw it. It didn’t have just a few bike racks with a few dozen bikes that I was used to seeing. Instead this area must have had hundreds, no probably thousands, of bicycles!

Well, for some reason this sight just amazed me, so of course I had to take pictures. And not just a picture or two of the general overview of the parking lot, but also some “artsy” photos as well.

I found out that Malmö has 410 km (about 255 miles) of bike paths, and approximately 40% of all commuting in Malmö is done by bicycle.

I also found out that most people don’t lock their bikes in Malmö, as there are so many bikes and that most people have one, that theft is not an issue.

Now what I really want to know is…how would you ever find your bicycle in a place like this?

Sweet Travels!

All photos Copyright Debby Lee 2010

This has been a “life changing” trip for me, in the sense that instead of being organized and knowing where I would be every moment, such as I had planned on my Alaska and New Zealand trips, that instead, for nearly five months, I was just spontaneous most of the time, not really knowing where I was going the next day, or where I would be sleeping the next night, and many times, not even knowing what I would be doing a few hours later. It has been great to live like this! The freedom and flexibility. Spontaneity at its finest…

These are two paragraphs from my journals that I had written at different times during my five-month solo European journey back in 2004. The first paragraph was written very early on in my trip, during my second week; the second paragraph was written during my fourth month. Reading these two paragraphs today, brings back thousands of memories, and gets me filled with the excitement that I felt back then. Man, what a great feelings I had during those five months – the spontaneity; the freedom. The exhilaration of being able to decide at any given moment where I wanted to go next, and what I wanted to do!

You see, prior to my Europe trip, as I alluded to in the second paragraph above, I was completely organized in my travel planning. For the Alaska and New Zealand trips (both approximately two-week trips), I had made myself itineraries, knowing exactly where I was going to be on any given day. I planned; I reserved places to stay; I booked things to do; I made lists. About the only thing that wasn’t so predetermined was where I would eat. Now granted, for these particular trips, I enjoyed this type of pre-planning. And, I needed to do this type of arranging considering the short amount of time that I had in those places. And believe me, because of all this preparation, both of my Alaska and New Zealand journeys were fantastic!!

But, something was different about having five-months time. It was too much time to plan out day-by-day. It would have been near impossible to make about 150 hostel reservations, or make sure that I didn’t miss a train, or know exactly when I wanted to visit each museum, or see each sight. Yes, I had done quite a bit of pre-planning for this Europe trip, such as picking out what countries I wanted to visit, and what cities, and what I wanted to do in each city. In fact, I did a lot of research prior to this trip. I read books, many books, highlighting and writing down the places of interest that I wanted to see; I attended travel lectures about places to visit; I looked on the Internet; I talked to people who had already been. I even had a map where I circled in pink all the general places I wanted to go, and I wrote a list of the general direction of travel, including the order of the countries, that I wanted to take. I was organized…but as it turns out, only to a point. There was no way that I could plan out day-to-day; and before I knew it, even my general direction of travel got all turned around.

My “Planning” Map

The first week of my travels, I did stick to my original plan. This was because I had made a few flight and hostel reservations that I had to stick with. But after that, the rest of my well-thought out planning mostly just went up in the air. I began realizing the joy of being spontaneous; the fun I was having just winging it; the amazing experiences I encountered when I just happened upon something that I was not planning on. Sometimes I realized that I wanted to spend more time in one place than originally thought; sometimes, I realized that something I thought sounded interesting to me before I left, no longer had its appeal; sometimes something else would happen to me that just changed my course and direction for the day, or for the next few days.

Now this is all not to say that the pre-planning I did was worthless; in fact, it made my spontaneity all that much better because at least I had a sense of the places I wanted to go, and the things I wanted to do, so that became my base. But the order in which I did them was completely changed. And after all was said and done, I found that some of the places I originally thought I would get to, I never did; but conversely, I got to many places that I did want to; and on top of that, I had thousands of experiences that no planning could allow for.

What is interesting about me is that for most of my life, I had been the planning-type (as evidenced by my Alaska and New Zealand adventures). I wanted to know where I was going, what I was doing, and to be sure that I had a place to sleep. I had always been a very organized person, paying attention to all the details, and really thinking things through. (I sound like I am writing a resume.) But during my European journey, a new part of my personality emerged. A part of me that just threw caution to the wind. A part of me that was traveling by the seat of my pants. A part of me that was living in the moment. A part of me that had faith and trust that it would all work out. A new-and-improved me!!

And the best part about everything is that fortunately luck was on my side during my five month solo European journey, and knock on wood, I never had to sleep in the street, and I always had something to do tomorrow…

Sweet Travels!

I will say, however, that the planner in me returned when I went on my journey around the Baltic Sea.