We intended to go to France and Switzerland. That is our main destination, and where we will spend about six and a half weeks total.
France, we are going for the food, wine, beauty and beaches.
Switzerland for the mountains.
It will be our third time in each country, and we are seeing mostly new places.
I picked up our tickets in October 2015.
Norwegian Air, non-stop round trip, Oakland to Stockholm for $700 a ticket. Had I bought them the day before it would have been $690 a ticket.
We have never, in nine years, found a cheaper round trip flight to Europe.
I bought them right then.
We flew Norwegian last year to Oslo, and had a great flight. This year no meals are included, but for the price we will eat in the airport, take food on board and spring for a bottle of wine.
I mean, the tickets are $700 in prime-time vacation season.
So, if you look at the map below, you can see how we will end up going to three new-for-us countries. I mean, just enough time to try them out, to see if we want to return. A total of seven days for the three countries.
It was a real temptation to go to St. Petersburg, Russia and Riga, Latvia as well. In fact, we could have done an "Eastern European" tour of Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, and Romania.
But... that would have left out our main objective, France and Switzerland.
Maybe next year...?
On the way, we will cross over to San Sebastian, Spain. I mean, it is just right there. And, it is supposed to be a great beach town.
As we travel across the French-Spanish border, we'll spend a few days in the mountain country of Andorra. Never been there; looks like good hiking.
Finally, when we are on the Eastern edge of Switzerland, we will take a day-trip to Liechtenstein.
The map below makes it pretty clear.