Do you remember that awful song by Cliff Richard? Last night I dreamed of summer, nothing definite, but it was warm and green and 'summery'. Perhaps this was because it was snowing when I went to bed.
So I started thinking about summer holidays this morning, and decided to pick your brains. I try and get away for two or three weeks in the summer with the child, who will have just turned 16. It is the time of the year that we offer each other some 'prime time' as between the lycée, skiing and mountain biking, we don't meet up too often during the year and I know that holidays with parents will soon be a thing of the past! So basically I am looking for a holiday that will please both of us - we 'did' New York a year and a half ago and both of us had a fabulous time.
Personally, I'm not too fussy - not worried about the weather, as long as it isn't too hot; don't think we would want to be in a city in the summer, but perhaps 30 minutes or so from one. I would like to be on the coast. Either Europe or North America.
A couple of things that have crossed my mind : what about a house swap? Have any of you done this or have friends that have done it? What about renting a National Trust property in England? Eastern Europe (Roumania, Hungary etc.)? No Disney land, thank you! Great for kids of 9, but no go for 16 year olds (and their mother!!).
My daughter has been offered a job in San Francisco - she is off on a fact-finding mission in May/June and if all goes well, will probably stay on - going out there could be a possibility although all those hours in a plane turn me off, but of course there are the XGames in CA which my son would probably die for.
The academic year ends the 3rd week of June and they go back the 3rd week of August, so we need to fit in with those dates.
So, any ideas? Tell me about your holidays - even places to be definitely avoided!
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31 comments:
Dear Louise:
I enjoyed reading your great blog! Here are a few thoughts about summer vacation. A friend of mine took her 16 year old daughter backpacking through Thailand. They had a wonderful time together and said it was very safe.
Personnaly, I prefer home exchange. Anything is possible. Like our last summer swap in Fiesole, nestled in the hills east of Florence. We stayed at a 400-year-old farmhouse in the midst of a beautiful olive grove overlooking Florence. Our kids loved it. For their games, they used what was there: stones, lavender twigs, lizards (I am afraid!). (Our older daughter also liked Medusa in the Uffizi Gallery, all that blood, I guess.) We loved the discussions with the son of the owner who stayed in another part of the house (it was very spacious.) Over a marvelous Tuscan meal with him and his very intellectual friends we learned about Italian life and culture today. Something we would have never had the chance to experience any other way.
Home Exchange has become such a passion for me that I recently started my own Home Exchange Network - JewettStreet (www.JewettStreet.com). I would like to invite you to join our growing number of members. (Membership is free for a limited amount of time, no strings attached.)
Ursula
P.S.
How do you like Switzerland??
I grew up in Lucerne, but lived also in the French part of Switzerland.
San Francisco is a terrific city with lots to see and do. It's very beautiful as is the coastline around it; and easily accessible. If the prospect of a long flight is daunting, you could always break your journey for a few days in Chicago. It and SF are my favourite American cities (and utterly different from each other); I much prefer Chicago to New York.
Or Toronto's always nice at that time of year. Quite possibly the best -- and, says the UN, most cosmopolitan -- city in the world.
But weren't you planning a trip to Rome?
I'll vote for SF too; masses to do that both of you would enjoy.
House swap: I've thought of it but I'd prefer to rent something and in the States accomodation's cheaper anyway.
Europe: Croatia's supposed to be beautiful.
Thanks for your visit and the website.
Angela
Right now, I'd swap my house for... well, make me an offer. I have a plumbing emergency (in the kitchen, Anne-anonymous, not my personal waterworks!) and the guy just arrived, dollar-signs in his eyes.
How about mine, Bill?
No. I wouldn't do that to you. You sound like a nice bloke :-)
Bless you, Gigi (did I tell you that on Sundays I moonlight as a priest?) but right now I'm more like a nice broke. The plumber just left, taking with him a chunk of the money I had earmarked for my golden years.
Yep. I know the feeling: money down the drain :-)
I often wonder how I would cope if I did own my own house. It would probably be a ruin within a couple of years. If - no, I mean when - things go wrong here, I just ring the landlord. When the phone's working, that is...
Did you know that the emblem of the plumbers' union is the leak...?
:-) :-) :-)
Now, come on...let's not sink to lavatory humour, Bill. We're lowering the tone of Louise's blog!
I promise I'll stop now.
Did you say blog or bog?
Sorry. I'll stop, too.
Wish I'd thought of that one :-)
Well, here I am, on today's post - as you might have seen on yesterday's blog, I have been running around trying to find Gus who did a Prison Break! He is home, defrosted in a warm bath, chewed a marrow bone, and is now dreaming of his summer holidays!
Thanks for your ideas so far - I will have a look at your site Ursula, thank you. It seems so far that SF is the winner (thought it might be...!). As Angela said, it might be better to rent a place rather than doing an exchange - I admit to feeling a bit embarrassed about my chalet - it's far more 'Chez Nous' than 'House and Garden' and all the places you see on the home exchange sites look perfect.
That flight to SF is horrific and this is what puts me off rather. Even if I could afford to travel in 1st, you are still in a sardine tin for far too long. Perhaps a break in Chicago would be an idea - my niece lives there, we have never been, and we also have some very dear friends in Wisconsin (The Road to Madison country - one of my most favourite films ever), the Harley Davidson Museum (not for me you understand!) - could be an idea.
Keep the ideas coming - I haven't bought the tickets yet!
Bill - next time you are in Europe, I will let you have my chalet - we don't have problems with leeks/leaks, but the boiler has a mind of its own - but my boiler repair man is wonderful, as are all the maintenance people here.
Time to feed the child, and the usual back to school lecture after every half term - he is most upset as I have his results online every week from the school, so I actually know about the awful results in Maths as opposed to the super results in English!
Louise, thank you! That's a generous offer.
Hello chocolate et Cuckoos - just a little visit now that Sarah showed me how, and to thank you for your support and ideas en live!
A bientot, and I'll think of your happy hols. Have you thought of those catalogues which propose swops of houses? Of course I'm out of date, I suppose that exists on the net too.
ng
Hi ng, It's good to see you here, and yes, house exchanges do exist on the Internet now!
I'm afraid my 'help' is only virtual, but the odd idea might just plant a seed!
To those of you who are a little baffled by this comment, do go to Sarah's blog and Promo'Arts, or link from this blog, to see their site for raising money for cancer research.
They are holding an art auction in May to raise money, and all help and ideas would be a bonus.
Yes, Bill, I am planning a trip to Rome - but probably without children...although it would be better, in my mind, that the child visits Rome, rather than jetting off half way round the world to the US. I know what his choice would be!
I don't think more than a couple of days of museums, churches and antique ruins would be possible with him and at 16 I was probably the same. And I don't want a holiday with a sullen-faced, grumpy adolescent!
The US trip sounds lovely except that if you are visiting family, you'll have less 'quality time' to devote to your son.
Eastern Europe is an amazing place at the moment and you could divide the holiday into two or three bases. I remember my brother Inter-railed around Europe and loved Dubrovnik, but then he's a history freak.
I'll have to ask the ResidentAdo to ask her 16yr-old boyfriend where his parents take him on holiday. Don't be surprised if I come back and tell you they all trek off to the maison de compagne in Lozere. I think they are that type...
Thanks for linking Promo'Arts!!
Yes, I agree that seeing family does break up doing things together - however in this case it is Pierre's cousin who we would be seeing and they get on so well - and now that she is in Chicago we don't see her unless our holidays coincide with her trips back to France. And I don't think either of us would manage 'à deux' for three weeks!
I'm tempted by Eastern Europe - one of my brothers is working in Odessa at the moment, but he said we should only come for a weekend - that was enough!
Was he talking about us or the place?! He has been working out in those parts of the world for ten years or so, and his favourite country was Georgia.
The old East Germany is fascinating, Louise, especially Dresden -- a truly lovely city. It used to be (and I'm assuming still is) a nice train ride from there to Prague, which is much more touristy than it used to be but still well worth a visit. Rent a car and drive around the Czech Republic.... you could do a lot worse.
I have had this longing for many a year to visit the Eastern European countries - probably because I should have been a Russian in another life!
However, I'm wondering whether my rather bourgeois mentality and way of life, will be able to cope. I don't need 5* hotels all the way, and definitely not MacDonald's or KFC, but I need a minimum of comfort - after a day of driving, visiting etc., I need a decent meal and a half-way decent bed!
It's like wanting to visit India - my images of India are based in the days of the Raj and that world doesn't exist any more!
This sounds terrible, doesn't it? But it isn't just me - the favourite son at the present time is also a product of the Western world, and if Mother is around picking up the bills, why slum it! In a few years he will be off on the most awful trips with a rucksack filled with smelly socks and eating terrifying food with his friends - but at the moment I'm afraid he is subject to peer pressure...that makes him sound awful too, doesn't it? But these are facts of life - my days of camping in Amazonia are over (and even that was hard in the beginning, even though I was in my 20's) and Pierre will discover this world later with people of his own age, not with his Mum!
When visiting such countries, if you don't speak the language, or at least have a vague idea, one is stuck on the tourist circuit, which although it can be interesting, pretty or whatever, doesn't give one much idea of the life the people of the country live.
But perhaps one should just stick to the tourist circuit - maybe the lives of those who live in the old Soviet bloc countries are really pretty desperate and not very interesting.
You need to bite the bullet and just throw yourself in, Louise. People the world over are basically good-natured and will usually meet you more than halfway. I've gotten lost in the slums of Mexico City, speaking only "restaurant" Spanish, and Jakarta and had wonderful experiences. I've done the same in parts of China so remote they didn't even know what an American dollar was and my only words in Mandarin were hello, thank you, tea, beer and fried rice. It was totally rewarding. There's a world -- no pun intended -- of difference between being a tourist and being a traveller. But it's not too difficult to switch from being one to the other. A little leap of faith...
Bermuda?
Why? So as I can get lost in th Triangle?
Sorry, palm trees and beaches are not my idea of a holiday.
I wonder what anonymous REALLY meant by that.....
Mind you, having just shovelled snow for an hour, perhaps a palm tree and a bit of warm sea wouldn't be a bad idea!
How much does a cubic metre of snow weigh? My drive is 15m long, 5 metres wide and the snow was a metre deep - someone make me feel good by telling how many tons of snow I've shifted! However it is snowing so hard that all my good work is disappearing fast. Forecast of -16 tonight - sounds fun!
My calculations may be somewhat awry (which is why I'm a journalist, not a mathematician) but I think you shoveled at least 6 tonnes. That's taking the weight of a cubic metre of snow as between 80 and 85 kilograms, which I believe is about right.
Cooo - I hope your Maths are right! That does make me feel fit and healthy!
( private beach )
Sorry, still haven't cottoned on there....and there are other places in the world that have private beaches.
( yachting with the neighbour )
(sssshhhhhh! which neighbour - they've all got yachts)
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