The initial spark for
our 2109 European trip started back in August 2017 in Helsinki when Dublin won the right to
host this year’s World Science Fiction Convention.
As a past Worldcon
Chair I’m particularly interested when the convention finds its way to
non-traditional cities and as we hadn’t been to Dublin in about 25 years the
option to go was easily decided. Then it was just a matter of figuring out what
else to add to the itinerary.
Iceland loomed large
on the near-north horizon and it was always a place that Robyn and I had both
wanted to visit. In addition Robyn had discovered
that her great-uncle had died at the Battle of Fromelles in World War I and she
was pretty desperate to visit the memorial there. And if we were going to be in
France then we had to drop on to see Eve and John Harvey near the mid-Atlantic
coast, and we also needed a few days in Paris. A couple of days in southern Ireland looking
around Robyn’s family’s roots, a catch up with some of her second – (or is it
third-?) cousins in Northern Ireland, and things were already starting to get a
little crowded.
At first we gave some
thought to throwing in a whiskey tour of Scotland for a week to 10 days but the
other higher priority destinations did away with that as the full trip would
then have moved north of 6 weeks – too long by some way. We’ve found in the
past that we can safely handle a month on the go before we start to pine for
the comforts of home and our own beds.
So shuffling things
around a bit, compensating for the loss of a flight from Belfast to Reykjavik
due to the collapse of an Icelandic budget airline, figuring out when, and
where, and how, and more importantly “how much”, we finally settled on a plan.
Basically the outline
is:
1. fly direct to Dublin
2. couple of days driving around the south of Ireland
3. back to Dublin for the Worldcon
4. train to Belfast
5. couple of days in Northern Ireland
6. fly to Edinburgh for a day
7. fly to Reykjavik
8. 8-9 days in Iceland
9. fly to Paris
10. 3 days driving around the World War I battlefields
11. train from Paris to Niort
12. stay with Eve and John Harvey for 3-4 days
13. train back to Paris
14. 3-4 days in Paris
15. fly home
16. collapse
1. fly direct to Dublin
2. couple of days driving around the south of Ireland
3. back to Dublin for the Worldcon
4. train to Belfast
5. couple of days in Northern Ireland
6. fly to Edinburgh for a day
7. fly to Reykjavik
8. 8-9 days in Iceland
9. fly to Paris
10. 3 days driving around the World War I battlefields
11. train from Paris to Niort
12. stay with Eve and John Harvey for 3-4 days
13. train back to Paris
14. 3-4 days in Paris
15. fly home
16. collapse
We start on Friday 9th August with a flight to Dubai, and then on to Dublin. We arrive early afternoon Saturday local time, pick up a car at the airport and then drive directly to our hotel about 45 minutes away. Hopefully we arrive in one piece. I'm sure that the edges of that piece will be more than a little fuzzy by that time. And I'm equally sure a few Guinnesses will help to smooth them out again.
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