When Health Concerns Necessitate an Itinerary Change
For my second solo trip to Europe as an older woman, all did not go according to plan. My experiences illustrate the kind of decision making you might face if a significant health problem crops up while you are away—or before you are away, as in my case.
I take long trips, for the sake of economy. (In comparison with several one-week or two-week trips, the long excursions spread the cost of the airline tickets across many days, as well as limiting the non-monetary costs of getting home and family needs addressed before leaving.)
A disadvantage of the long trip preference is that it increases the likelihood that something will go wrong health-wise. In this article I will describe how I chose the original itinerary for my second trip, as well as the process of making modifications along the way when knees would not cooperate.
My Supposed Itinerary for a Second Trip to Europe
Having visited the big three (London, Paris, and Rome) on the first trip, the second trip was designed to emphasize Athens, Amsterdam, Ireland, Vienna, somewhere in the Balkans and Scandinavia, and back to Berlin, where I lost most of the sightseeing on the first trip due to illness.
Since this trip started in spring, I followed a general south to north plan. Since conventional wisdom was that it would be hot in Greece in the summer, I planned to start in Athens. My next high point was to be Vienna. Since I don’t like flying, I decided this was the perfect time to take a mini-tour of the Balkans by going point to point by bus or train.
After some study, I settled on Athens to Thessaloniki by train, bus to Sofia (Bulgaria), bus to Belgrade (Serbia), bus to Zagreb (Croatia), train to Ljubljana (Slovenia) even though I later learned that bus would have been much more convenient due to station locations, and then train to Vienna, ending the 11-night Balkan and former Yugoslavia portion of the trip.
With the next major destination of Berlin, I looked at the map. I heartily recommend this!
I was beginning to formulate the idea that I didn’t want to just blow through an interesting destination without stopping. Thus came the very natural plan to stop in Prague, a favorite of the younger set right now, and then Dresden. If you think Dresden is an unusual choice, you would have to understand my sometimes unsavory interest in glitter and glamour, which can be indulged freely at the Green Vault. (Besides, I was intrigued by the fairly recent heist there.)
In an earlier version of the itinerary, I had posited two nights in nearby Leipzig, but in the end, I did Leipzig as a day trip.
Then at last, I was planning to be off to Berlin. From there I had decided the most practical place to sample Scandinavia was Copenhagen. It’s an all-day train trip, folks, but it was worth it.
Next up on the “must do” list was Amsterdam. The second time through, I decided to stop overnight in Hamburg instead of just passing through on the train.
Looking at the prices of staying in Amsterdam, I decided to spend exactly the amount of time there I needed to fulfill my museum needs and then move to Rotterdam for further sightseeing in The Netherlands. This is a decision that many would dispute, citing the very short distance between the two and the supposed inconvenience of unpacking twice and dealing with lodging twice. For me as a hostel-dweller, those inconveniences are minor to non-existent.
Also I am undeterred by the argument that Rotterdam is a much more modern city than the European destinations that weren’t bombed as significantly during World War II. As a city planner, I find the more “modern” European cities just as interesting as the older, admittedly more cute and charming cities.
My next big target was Paris because, well, it seems impossible for me to ever exhaust what I want to see in Paris, even though I had been there for 13 nights on the first trip.
Looking at the map again, a minor inconvenience I continue to recommend to you, I saw that I would pass through Brussels. My day trip through Brussels on the first trip was a miss, since I literally never connected with the sightseeing bus I was planning to take there and thus wandered aimlessly through less than wonderful areas of Brussels all day. I wanted to see more European Union buildings and targeted the Parliamentarium (which I loved). However, this again was a day trip, with the final destination of Antwerp.
You want to know why I chose Antwerp and not fan favorite Bruges or Ghent. This was simple geography, as Antwerp is on the train line. My research showed plenty to do there.
Now it was time for Paris, a quite simple train ride away. I had several days of sightseeing sketched in, either for places I ignored the first time or that were closed when I made the first trip.
Another high point for me was the French Riviera. (I mentioned I liked glamour, didn’t I?) The plan became taking the train from Paris to Nice, which would serve as a transportation hub for destinations to the north, west, and east, as well as a good place to hang out in and of itself.
Since I was in France and needed to head back north, it seemed like a good time to indulge my inner foodie a bit to stop in Lyon, home of the bouchon, Paul Bocuse, and other things meaningful to foodies and trivial to anyone else. It’s a city vibe very different from Paris, people tell me.
The next stop was Geneva, a place beloved on my agenda because of priorities that appear to be very different from those of most tourists in Switzerland. I’m interested in international cooperation, Protestant history, and the cutting edge of physics. Every one of these can be addressed in Geneva, and I could add a day trip over to Montreux to visit Chillon Castle, the subject of a favorite poem of this English major, Lord Byron’s “The Prisoner of Chillon.”
Note that the order of Lyon and Geneva is a toss-up, and both provide quick transportation back to Paris. From Paris I was headed to London on the Eurostar train. A second visit to London allowed six more nights (on top of the 13 already spent) and still didn’t exhaust London for sure.
From there I was to head up to Edinburgh, a nice five-hour train ride, and then over to Glasgow, almost as interesting to me as Edinburgh. Again, some would treat this one-hour trip between the two as meaning they should stay in one and day trip to the other, but I found meaningful sights for several days in both. It was the second time for this trip that I chose more nights in the less expensive city.
From Glasgow I dipped southward again to Liverpool. The appeal there was not only a bit of Beatles nostalgia, but also and more importantly, an English city quite different from London and one with an important history regarding the slave trade.
From Liverpool one can take a train through scenic north Wales to Holyhead, where the ferry to Ireland begins. I planned my stay in Dublin, then took the two-hour detour, some would say, to Belfast for a multi-night stay. Backtracking to Dublin, I reserved my plane trip home.
Considerations in Forming an Itinerary for My Solo Older Woman Trip
- For this trip, I was stricter with myself about the idea of stopping over for two or more nights when passing through an intriguing destination. On the first trip, I decided on Florence for exactly that reason, but this time, you can see that Dresden, Hamburg, and Antwerp were attractive additions because they were “on the way.”
- This itinerary reflects the “I hate flying” motif, resulting in considerable lengthening of the trip.
- Repeat visits to a city occurred only with specific sightseeing in mind. I included Berlin because I missed many targeted sights on my first trip there, and Paris and London both made the itinerary again because the supply of worthwhile sights is nearly inexhaustible, but also because they are central to transportation networks.
- Adding in quirky and very personal destinations is a meaningful way for me to travel. Not many would share my combination of triple whammy interests I could combine in Geneva, and others would not emphasize city Ireland as I did, due to my partially Irish heritage.
- I was interested in adding “second cities,” or third or fourth cities if you prefer, including Liverpool, Lyon, Geneva, and Thessaloniki.
How Adversity Impacted This Planned Itinerary
You might reasonably ask how was the trip. Eight days before I was to leave, I landed on my knee awkwardly while weeding the bank in front of my house. Imaging showed no real injury, so my doctor said I should go when the swelling and pain subsided. Obviously I was going to miss Athens and most of the Balkans. I decided that rather than trying to reschedule the entire trip, I would simply begin where I would be when I predicted the knee would feel fine. That turned out to be Vienna.
However, when I called the airline to change my trip, I learned that the cost of flying to Vienna on a Friday felt astronomical. Hearing my reaction, the agent started looking at alternate dates. She found that I could fly the previous Wednesday for $1,500 less than on Friday. (This was with the lowest cost economy fare, mind you.) I quickly settled on that alternative and reserved more nights in the Vienna hostel.
All went well on the trip until I was in Dresden heading out for the morning the very short distance to the train station, where I intended to pick up a train to southwest Poland to see the factories producing the famous Silesian pottery I collect. The second knee buckled under me, and I hobbled back to the hostel/hotel to spend the day resting and reflecting. I decided to proceed but also to try to walk less and walk more slowly. I survived the rest of Dresden and all of Berlin this way, until it happened a second time in Copenhagen.
After losing another whole day of travel experiences sitting in a hostel lounge (thankfully, a very pretty one), I decided to try to buy a cane. Surprisingly, I was able to do so at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning a short distance from the hostel. With that assistance, I was able to get around quite well.
The only complication was the awkwardness of getting around with the cane. Instead of having two hands to manage my luggage and personal item, now I needed three hands to corral or use my cane as well. It was tricky, and in Antwerp at the beautiful train station, I actually had to let go of my larger piece of luggage on the long escalator. Fortunately, a man caught it at the bottom and brought it up to me. That was scary though.
The last straw came in Paris. I had a fun day trip to Nancy, France, because well, my name is Nancy. After coming back to Paris, my subway broke down repeatedly trying to get me back to the area of the hostel. This was a two-hour ordeal or more. I was tired by that time, hadn’t eaten, and began to feel pretty sure I didn’t want to be on a train to Nice the next morning at 6:15 a.m. as scheduled.
My son had been wanting me to shorten the trip and come home ever since Dresden. This was the first time that this seemed like a realistic possibility. The hassle with the cane, the worry about not meeting responsibilities at home (that’s another story), and the realization that at least a night in Nice would be sacrificed began to pile up on me.
I spent a restless night thinking and praying about what to do. When morning broke, I found out about the death of someone near to me, and it seemed like the answer I was seeking.
After finding out I could spend an extra night in the same hostel in Paris, I spent that last day making new arrangements. I learned it was relatively simple to fly to Dublin and that from there, the airline would simply modify my flight date at no charge. Of course I’m simplifying the thinking and research that went into this, but that’s what I decided to do.
While I could not get tickets to the popular Kilmainham Gaol on short notice in Dublin, I did most of the other things there I had planned.
So that is the tale of itinerary modification on the fly, which may become necessary due to health issues as we get older, ladies.