Nick and I enjoy travel very much, but several years  have passed since our last trip. This is due in part because of  Covid, and  also because  we have each had a variety of medical issues that needed our attention. In early summer, we were very pleased that our doctors declared us to be  in excellent health, and  they cleared us for travel.

We have enjoyed four European tours with Rick Steves’ company, aptly called Rick Steves Tours.  In June I decided to check their website for 2024, but Nick suggested that I see if  anything  was  still available this year. I discovered that there were a few spots open on a trip to the Basque Country of Southern France and Northern Spain in September. We remembered that during our four  previous  tours, we had been told by other travelers that the Basque Country was their favorite destination. We  had tucked that information away for “someday,” but  we asked ourselves, “Why not now?” We booked the trip.

Upon sharing our plans with our Parisian friends, they said they’d love to have us visit them at their summer home in Cap Ferret, France, near Bordeaux, either before or after our tour. We decided   to visit them after our tour, so Nick began working on our calendar.

We were advised to add days to the first destination of our trip, before the tour was to begin, in case of airline problems. We have done that before, and we found it to be helpful for us because we can acclimate ourselves. We would  depart on  September 5, and we’d arrive in Biarritz, France, on September 6. Our tour would begin in Bayonne, which is pronounced differently from the one in New Jersey. In France it’s called “By-unn.” We planned to get there from Biarritz  by taxi.

We read the itinerary very carefully, and we saw that this trip would required a lot of walking, so  in order to be ready, we added steps to our daily walking total. I also practiced French and Spanish daily, using DuoLingo.  A week before our departure date, we noticed that a wheel was missing from one of our suitcases, so off we went to get another piece of luggage.