Note: The blog website automatically and somewhat indiscriminately hotlinks the names of the towns, which is why they are linked over and over at times and not linked at all other times. Go figure. Click and the information will open in a new window.
This trip actually started six years ago when my partner Bill and I decided to run away from home for retirement. Although we have a perfectly good condo in Greenville, SC, a lovely
Southern (small) city, we agreed to live and travel in Europe after we stopped working. To be perfectly honest, this was my dream. Bill had lived and worked all over the world and would have been perfectly happy to sail between the US and the islands upon retirement, but I had always wanted to live and travel in Europe, so he elected to help make that dream come true for me. To this end, we bought an apartment (condo in US speak) in Milna on the island of Brac off the coast of Split, Croatia, and started visiting every summer for our vacation with the goal of retiring there in 2010.
We ended up being a year later than we planned, but we were off at last!
Thanks to our friend Kathy who got up before dawn on a work day - we are truly blessed in the friends department - we boarded a plane at the Greenville-Spartanburg airport at 6:30 on the morning of March 15, the Ides of March. Had I been thinking when I booked our flights, I might have chosen a different date, but I didn't notice until after it was done. Fortunately, it ended up being an uneventful experience, no bad weather, no unexpected delays, no lost bags, so it didn't really matter in the end. At least it wasn't Friday the 13th.
Since I had been looking for cheap tickets rather than a sane route, we flew on Southwest Airlines (where bags fly free!) from Greenville,SC, to Baltimore, MD. We then changed airlines to American (where some bags do not fly free) and flew from Baltimore to NYC to London, England to Munich, Germany, changing planes at each stop. A note on the bags before I continue: always check the baggage policy before you pack. The last time we flew overseas in 2009, airlines were allowing two checked bags for free on international flights. Apparently, this had changed, and I had not checked. I had to pay $60 for my second bag!
After all four uneventful flights, we landed in Munich where we were met by our friend, Denise, who we had met on Facebook - who says you can't make friends through social media? - and who had invited us to stay with her in Freising for a few days.
Our great retirement adventure had begun!
Leaving Home
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Greenville, South Carolina, United States
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2025-02-09