We are being a little cautious - better safe than sorry...

We have decided not to post any photographs on the Internet or social media sites to avoid people knowing that our home is empty for a few weeks so we are sharing images and a bit of a travel journal via this Blog, which will be a first for us! 

Please don't share the link wider without our consent, we will be sharing the link with family, friends and our neighbours as we approach our departure on the 10th August. if we miss anybody off and you want us to include them please send us a message.

If you need to contact us while we are away, you can reach us via: 

       familyrichards101@gmail.com

 

       traceyrichards21@gmail.com          +44 7891 562823

       prefer2paddle@gmail.com               +44 7531 503533 

but there might be times when there is no signal or we are in a setting where we might not want / be able to access a phone!! We are likely to be home late on the 1st September?

The clock is ticking down for our summer adventure

The countdown is on, we are getting closer to the trip by the day!  We are now less than a month away from Ian and Tracey's European Roadtrip which is in August 2024.

Tracey's 60th birthday was in May 2024 and we discussed doing a trip to mark it using trains , booking via Eurail, but as Tracey had a new car for her birthday, we decided to use it to do a grand European adventure. 

The car we are doing the trip in is a Mazda MX5, so not a lot of space for luggage and equipment, but it has a soft top roof, so hopefully we can take the roof off and make the most of good weather as we journey across Europe. 

after several attempts we settled on the itinerary below:

• Home to Folkestone, where we will board the train and travel through LeTunnel, a journey that takes 35 minutes to reach Coquelle, on the outskirts of Calais,
• Luxembourg,
• Strasbourg,
• A campsite near Salzburg,
• Padova as a base to visit Venice, and perhaps more importantly Murano.
• Rome.
• Puglia - where we are staying for 4 days in Martina Franca.
• A campsite near Bologna, where we will visit Florence and Milan.
• Chamonix.
• Thiat - to see Bernadette and Dave their family and friends to celebrate Bernadette's 60th birthday for a few days.
• Orleans.
• then head back to Le Tunnel and the drive back to Peterborough. 

Join us on our travels, during or after, as this blog will be the story of our adventure!!

Give us some feedback, we would love to hear what you think?

Ian and Tracey

FamilyRichards101@gmail.com

Getting closer now!

It's finally feeling like the grand adventure is almost here, 11 days to go and the car is almost packed, clothes are packed, feeling excited!!  Only 9 more working days, then freedom for 3 weeks

We love an adventure!!

where this trip was conceived!

last year we really enjoyed a trip to Scandinavia and this picture shows us on a train between Oslo and Filipstad, which was where we started to hatch this adventure 'in principle'. 

All work and no play can be dull and we are at our best when we have a travel project in the pipeline...

When we were talking through the things we would like to include if it were to be a road trip Tracey's list included: 

• Driving through the Alps. 
• Watching an opera at La Scala in Milan. 
• Visiting the Aguile de Panorama, at the top of Mont Blanc. 
• A visit to Florence. 
• Eating Pizza in Naples. 
• Driving along the Amalfi coast. 
• Visiting Monaco, and possibly driving through the tunnel you see on the Formula One race there.
• Going to a French festival.  

When we return home we will revisit the list to reflect on these ideas and comment on where we actually went to!

Have you just received an invite to view a blog?

 

you might wonder why you have just received an invitation to view a blog? 

Tracey and i have decided to do a road trip into Europe between 9th August and 2nd September and decided that as our house will be empty for 3 weeks that we would be better not "blasting Facebook full of pictures"... 

so as we make our way around we will be posting photographs, video clips and a diary onto a blog - which will be a first for us.

if you have done similar in the past, we would welcome any tips or feedback, if you think we could do better, please be gentle with us as this will be a new approach to keeping, and sharing, a travel diary with a difference

Tracey will be posting things as i will too - it might be while we are travelling, taking a break, at an overnight stop etc. 

as Tracey said in the last post, by this time in 2 weeks time we will be well on our way!