Deve’s Blog

Christmas. New Year’s Eve. Time for holidays. Time to rest. But to me, most importantly, one of the two main occasions in all year, together with summer, to travel.

I like travelling. Sometimes I like the travel in itself. But in particular I like visiting new places, far places, different places.
For this reason, when I have the occasion to travel but I can’t use it as I would like to, I get really annoyed. So you’ll understand that last year, when our vacation plan was confirmed on December 19th, and more importantly when I got chicken pox and couldn’t go anywhere, I was really pissed off.

This time the vacation plan arrived in early november. Unfortunately barely two weeks, thanks to the festivities in quite favorable spots; but people on other projects get three weeks off. Thus it is.

My first attempt was for this Contiki tour: I’ve never seen Berlin, Prague, Budapest and they intrigue me, especially near Christmas; Vienna didn’t struck me as particularly interesting when I visited it, but two days there certainly don’t bother me; and a Contiki tour is fun and carefree, just what I needed.
But even if the web site kept saying “Available”, after a few days from my booking request (which in Italy must go through the CTS agencies) they replied: the December 27th departure is full, availability for the 20th or January 10th. I tried to organize, managed to get the ok for a modification to the vacation plan, and the day after I asked to reserve the December 20th departure. After a week: sorry, this one is full, too.

Will I ever manage to go on a Contiki tour again before I get 35, considering the short notice I have for holidays? Who knows…

At this point, getting close to December, I decided to look for a tried and tested alternative: GAP Adventures. By looking at interesting locations and availability, my choice fell on8 days in Cuba.
It’s only going to be a taste of it, as Cuba is larger than you’d think; but I hope tehre will be a bit of everything, in the western part of the country which is described as the more naturalistic one: valleys, caves, beaches, tobacco plantations, Havana. And a lot of relax I hope.

I’m leaving on December 27th and I’ll be back in Italy on January 5th; and as Vince would say, flagged another destination!