The Grand Tour
Several hundred years later, with considerably less money, considerably more luggage and absolutely no intention of becoming responsible, Lyndall and John thought they’d give it a crack.
Their version was never going to involve a horse-drawn carriage, a solemn young tutor explaining Roman architecture while we nodded sagely. Nor were they planning to spend our days sketching classical statues or writing earnest letters home about the moral decline of the French.
They did, however, like the idea of combining European cities, history, culture, food, wine and just enough adventure to make the grandchildren think they were interesting.
An email from Imagine Cruising landed in John’s inbox. A river cruise along the Danube, beginning in Budapest and travelling through Bratislava and Vienna before finishing in Munich. Then flying to Barcelona, boarding a cruise ship and travelling through Ibiza, Cagliari in Sardinia, Messina, Salerno, Rome, Cephalonia, Corfu, Kotor and Split before finally arriving in Venice.
Now that sounded promising. Passports were checked. Tours were booked. Plans were made. Bags began their inevitable migration from cupboards to spare bedrooms.
Everything was looking wonderfully organised. Which, as any experienced traveller knows, is the exact moment when everything goes pear-shaped.
Three weeks before they were due to leave, Imagine Cruising contacted them with a slight problem. The brand-new river boat we were supposed to be travelling on wasn’t finished and the water level in the Danube was too low for the planned itinerary.
The proposed alternative involved sleeping on the boat overnight, getting off each morning and travelling by coach to the various destinations. Now, perhaps they were being fussy, but that didn’t sound quite like the luxury river cruise they had signed up for. It sounded more like a particularly expensive school excursion.
To their credit, Imagine Cruising agreed. Instead, they came up with Plan B. It would have an extra night in Budapest, fly to Amsterdam, board a river boat there and cruise through the Netherlands and Belgium, stopping at Kampen, Utrecht, Rotterdam and Antwerp before finishing in Brussels.
From Brussels, they’d be transferred to Barcelona to rejoin the remainder of the original itinerary.
It wasn’t quite what they’d planned. However, after a brief discussion, they decided to embrace the unexpected — an approach frequently recommended by seasoned travellers and generally adopted by Australians when there’s bugger-all else they can do.
Besides, the new itinerary had plenty going for it. New countries, new cities and the chance to see somewhere they probably wouldn’t otherwise have chosen.
So, in early August, Lyndall and John packed their bags and boarded EK413, bound for Budapest via Dubai. Just two Australians, a couple of passports, far too much luggage and a firm belief that European history is considerably more interesting when you can eat your way through it.
And so they were off … so over to them
