A series of essays.....
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| NAVIGATING FRANCE IN 1990 WITH CHARM AND GRACE ~ STILL POSSIBLE TODAY & HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! |
.....as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E. Hughes
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” Quote by Gustave Flaubert, born 12 December 1821, died 8 May 1880.
If travel makes one modest then, in my humble opinion, travel planning can be a very fulfilling and gratifying experience that allows you to fit nicely within the vast world around you. Planning any trip, whether large or small, is the act of creating the skeletal structure that gives everything its shape, keeps things in place and running as smooth as possible. Good planning is equivalent to the solid outline of your soon to be written story and serves to guide you in the basic direction of theme, plot, and purpose of each character involved.
Where your story (trip) takes you from here, remains unwritten. Your yet to be discovered activities will lead you down small, cobbled streets, country roads, meeting new people who may speak different languages, and your imagination will guide you to just about anywhere you’d like to go; help you to experience just about anything you’d like to experience. What a beautiful thing!
Planning a trip from the beginning to the time you step off of a plane, train, ferry, or any other mode of transportation in order to arrive at your destination, is a challenge I willingly accept. I love it! For me, it’s like designing and building a ‘stick’ house and actually visualizing each separate room even before the sheet rock is installed and room demarcation is formally established. Sometimes, even at such an early point, I can decorate each room with distinct colors and have pictures up on the walls.....especially, if I am comfortable and familiar with whom the rooms are being, figuratively speaking, built for.
Back in 1990, I recall sitting on the other side of the desk, the back of the computer, a wheezing, beige hulk of perforated plastic, glared at me while the travel agent looked-up the possible flights we could choose from for our first family excursion to Europe. I was frustrated. I knew that, given access to and the proper tools to look up the information on my own, I could do her job with gusto and aplomb.
Needless to say, that was the last major trip we were required to have to use the services of a travel agent. And, having the tools right in front of me, on the screen of my own computer, worked right into my hands and vivid imagination. I knew that there would always be people and corporations that would require the important services provided by a travel agency. Like many services today, offering the convenience of supplying time and effort into something others do not have time to deal with or, when multiple people are engaged as a group and traveling at the same time, these services will always be a welcomed necessity.
I had the world all to myself! With the eventual added convenience of Websites and most accommodations relying upon a personal Website to advance their establishment’s information, how could I not imagine flirting with all of these worldly facts on my own? Everything was, conveniently, at my fingertips; at my disposal.
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| "ALL ILLUSTRATED WITH PEN-AND-INK SKETCHES" |
I recall purchasing one of my first Bed & Breakfast books at the Michigan State University Book Store on Grand River Avenue in East Lansing. It was entitled, “Karen Brown’s French Country Bed & Breakfasts ~ A Travel Guide to the Charming Bed & Breakfasts of France with Descriptions of Over 160 inexpensive Places to Stay,” with a copyright dated 1989. It included small, pen and ink sketches of each property along with the names of the hosts, a short description of the place, directions, and their telephone number. That’s all I needed.
Even though we required the agent to book our various flights to Munich, London, Dublin, Düsseldorf, and back home, once again...I dug deep into my resources and knowledge of the French language to pull together our twenty-day adventure.
Knowing I needed to write in English to all of the German establishments I contacted, I truly did make an effort to write to the lovely places we stayed at in France en français which included a romantic manor home in Auxerre, a charming small hotel in the old town center (Centreville) of Strasbourg, and more. In return, I received amazing letters back, written in French and welcoming us to that country with open arms. It was a stimulating and adventurous endeavor on my part to make this all come together and work for us as a family. Eventually, our experiences in Europe were worth every word written and each agonizing week it took to hear back from the individual hosts in response to my inquiry.
The skeleton was established and the layers of work that compiled the ‘who, what, where’ and meat of this project began to form and take on a shape that was very satisfying and pleasantly doable.
This inaugural trip to Europe in 1990 was a huge success for us. Since that time, I’ve put together quite a few visits back to different areas of France, several trips along the Wild Atlantic Way and the West Coast of Ireland, and I am in the midst of planning a brand new trip to Scotland, Wales, and Ireland scheduled for 2018. Dan and I will be traveling with our good friends and, coupled with the excitement of putting together some incredible memories along the way, writing about our adventures is something I am very much looking forward to!
Honoring a ‘right of passage,’ otherwise known as formal retirement, we will be like four ships passing through the territorial seas of foreign states and straits used for international navigation. Only our ship will be rental cars, mainly, with a ferry boat thrown in for good measure between Holyhead in Wales, U.K. and Dublin, Ireland!
As a travel writer today, I have to say that it’s with pure joy that I am fortunate enough to experience so many different places, points of interest, historical revelations, and innumerable local traditions. I believe that by listening to the lilt of a foreign language or a particular vernacular, the experience will sweep you into a different world; a new dimension in time and space.
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| WISHING ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR IN 2018!!! |
Copyright © 2017 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved
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