85 Days, 20 Cities

Over the span of 85 days we spent time in 20 cities. That does not count London where we flew in, caught a cab and rode the train out; all in the span of about 4 hours. Tomorrow is city number 21, Spokane aka home, weather and volcano permiting.

Some of the cities were day trips from a semi-permanent home base. These included St. Andrews, Dunfermline, Bruges, Findhorn, Arles and Strasbourg.

Others were transition points where we spent one night, or in the case of Edinburgh, 2 nights; Kinguissie, Marseille, Madrid, Vigo. Vigo is the one city out of all of these I very much would like to explore further.

Some towns were very small; Leven, Kinguissie, Lossiemouth, Findhorn. Other than to visit friends, I see no reason to return to any of these.

Some were overtly touristy: Bruges, Strasbourg, St. Andrews, Porto, Colmar, Reykjavik and we heard Madrid also, but what we saw was not touristy. Simply being inundated with tourists is not the kiss of death when it comes to whether or not I found each city attractive , or not. Where we are now, Reykjavik, is very congested in the downtown area; but it is still easy to navigate and feels less hectic than the other heavily touristed areas. Here is a mural from Reykjavik.

Bruges and Strasbourg were the most heavily congested cities, but I found the crowding more tolerable in Bruges. The two are similar in the preponderance of shops, etc. but there is more historic fairytale charm and character in Bruges, and people are less rude. Colmar is more of a poor man’s Bruges and I didn’t even understand why the streets were so crowded.  Porto was the most irritatingly obnoxious of all of these cities. The overwhelming mass of people in some areas, some pushy, some appearing to simply take up space, sucked the oxygen out of us. We couldn’t wait to get out of the old downtown and the Market, including Santa Cristina Street. St. Andrews was crowded with tourists but fairly inoffensive. I don’t know that I would return to any of them.

A couple of the larger cities were a bit dull, Lille and Colmar. Definitely nothing we would return to see.

The least attractive were Marseille, Edinburgh, Lille and Porto. This list is perhaps a bit unfair. We spent one night in Marseille. It was dark, dreary, dirty, the 3 D’s. I saw nothing to recommend it and was glad to get back on the train the next morning. Perhaps away from the railway station is better? Admittedly, I almost certainly did not see enough of Edinburgh to be an authority. What I did see was a thumbs down. We spent more than enough time in Lille to state equivocally, it did not endear itself to me.

Some times a city feels immediately comfortable based on things like friendliness, convenience, prices, walkability, things to do, quality of food and drink. The ones we found most comfortable were Nimes, Beaune and Oviedo. Grenoble and Vigo followed. We only spent a night and a day in Vigo, but it was enough to convince me I would return. Nimes is the city we spent the most time, 17 days I believe, and I gladly would have stayed longer. It’s vibrant positive energy made getting up each morning a treat. Beaune is smaller and calmer than Nimes, but has much of the same French charms and advantages of Nimes. The drawback I see to Nimes is the same as in Beaune. Being in southern France heat is a problem in the summer. It was the escalating heat in France that pushed us to Spain. Oviedo Spain doesn’t get hot except in very rare occasions. It also has mild winters and is in proximity to both the mountains and the ocean,  pretty ideal situation.  It was also the cheapest overall of all the cities we visited. It is open and inviting and over time reveals more of itself. It is where we spent the second longest amount of time and I would be glad to spend even more time there. It took a bit of time to accommodate to the gritty energy of Grenoble, but over time I realized it is an exceptionally energetic youthful city. The downtown area has several distinct areas, and there are other areas of interest also. By the time we left I was ready for more.

Ready for more. That brings up a concept. There were stressful planning times when Sheila stated, “that is why some people have an agent plan everything”. I get that, but, in having a trip planned out a lot of opportunity and spontaneity is lost. Even with more control though, it can be difficult at times, to extend the time in a city. When I was ready to stay in Grenoble we were already financially committed to Colmar. With a planned out trip, though, we would not be in Iceland, but we would have traveled eastern Europe. Give and take.

Overall I rate our top 10 experiences in the cities we visited in this order:

1. Nimes

 

2. Beaune

3. Oviedo

4.  Lossiemouth

5. Reykjavik

6. Grenoble

7. Vigo

8. Leven – sorry Leven you seem to have disappeared

 

9. Dunfermline

10. Kinguisse

 

We had planned to go to eastern European countries. Ultimately, the concerns about heat in nearly all of Europe, and the decision to not take planes, or rent cars anymore, kept us from doing that. We found we loved train travel. The train systems linking west and east  Europe lacked an ease for travel. Consequently, we ended up in northern Spain, Portugal and Iceland.

Edinburgh, Leven, St. Andrews, Lossiemouth, Kinguissie, Lille, Bruges, Nimes, Arles, Grenoble, Beaune, Colmar, Strasbourg, Marseille, Madrid, Oviedo, Vigo, Porto, Reykjavik,  Dunfermline