This being the holiday season most right thinking folk have buggered off to diego land or the far east in order to improve their skin cancer prospects. Only the poor saps like me involved in the domestic tourist trade have to stay in drizzly Blighty and attend to the whims and peccadilloes of moaning tourists.
I watch them from my living room window, departing for another days jolly while I face the dispiriting prospect of mowing their lawns. I suppose I can't complain too much as their cash is germinating in my pockets, waiting to sprout vigorously in the winter when travel and accommodation is at its cheapest.
I'm getting the wanderlust bad at the moment, and am indulging in my favourite pastime: deciding where I shall go next. This is highly pleasurable as everybody knows that the most enjoyable part of travel is the planning and anticipation.
I would like to ask you to advise where I should bugger off to next. It will be for a month, or possibly six weeks, so it ain't gonna be a long weekend in Riga or Bratislava. I've narrowed the contenders down to three seductive prospects, but being torn as to which I should allow to ravish me can't make my mind up.
Spain
No Costas. Eating cooked breakfasts with lame and halt Mancunians (no offence KAZ) in Fuengirola doesn't appeal. I'm thinking mini cruise from Portsmouth to Bilbao for a mooch about the Guggenheim and some top Basque nosh. Then it would be a leisurely peregrination around Madrid, Seville, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona - possibly with some Balearics thrown in should time permit.
Italy
Three weeks in an apartment in Venice sounds good; nice and misty and romantic with loads of stuff to explore and no bloody tourists in St Marks Square. I quite fancy myself as a Doge. Then Genoa, Bologna and Florence. Nifty.
Mitteleurope
This one is definitely a strong contender. My bollocks might get frozen off, but Prague, Budapest, and Cracow would make up for it with their beer and dumplings. A bit of faded Austro Hungarian elegance appeals, and I relish the prospect of scoffing sachertorte in a grand hotel haunted by the ghost of the Emperor Franz Josef.
Over to you.
19 comments:
If the most enjoyable part of travel is the planning and anticipation, why actually go anywhere at all? Spend a month daydreaming about warm and lovely places, curled up the while under your duvet (you do have a duvet?).
How about a bit of goose stepping under the Brandenburg Gate?
Take pics.
Post.
mopsa
Fair point. That would be much cheaper. I hear that duvets are going cheap at John Lewis as there is a recession on. Do you have a duvet or do you snuggle down in the hay shed with a goat?
sid
The big bollix lives! If you lend me your SS uniform I vill comply with your request mien fuhrer.
Plenty to choose from here.
*detects scent of cabbage and Guinness farts*
Oh, hello SID!
oh, italy! and take LOTS of pictures! and stay in florence instead and visit the Bargello and the Duomo and Vinci and eat a ton of good food and lie around in the sun and TAKE ME WITH YOU!
No offence KAZ??
And how could I possibly NOT take offence.
I am NOT Eating cooked breakfasts.
I am not lame and halt.
And I am as far away from Fuckin Fuengirola as I am from Manchester.
I don't love you any more
mj
I think you and Piggy should sort out Afghanistan. The Taliban won't know what hit 'em
FN
You are welcome, but must adopt the persona of a aesthete. Yankee hollering and yeehaaing would be most unseemly in the cradle of the Renaissance.
KAZ
Twas but a jest. I fully appreciate that you are ever so sprightly and know your paella from your black pudding.
I'm with FN - I wanna go to Italy, too. I think pasta-a-go-go is the way to go. go.
Six weeks? Lucky you. Why not do it all...France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, etc. etc.
Peevish
I may purchase an Alfa Romeo to cut a suitable dash.
crazyrivergirl
I'm not keen on whistle stop tours, I prefer to play the flaneur.
What about Honduras, flights for about five hundred quid and you get unlimited hot women in thongs thrown in?
No culture.
Anyway, money goes much further in Cuba and the hot women in thongs are even hotter. Sizzling in fact.
Iceland. Or is that too 90s?
Nah, the booze is too expensive.
Mitteleurope of course. Haven't you seen Hostel? Take lots of pics and post.
Ohhhh, and Hi SID, we've missed you.
Perhaps I shall visit Transylvania and work my charm on some local wenches.
My British complexion has the pallor of the undead, so I should go down a treat.
I'd go for Spain, but that's probably because I'm craving a bit of bloody decent weather for a change.
Venice in winter? No way. Thinking about Don't Look Now has put me off that idea for life. If you do decide on this option, beware of short people in red duffle coats.
You may be right Betty, although the thought of Donald Sutherland's sideburns scares me much more than murderous munchkins in red duffle coats.
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