Alright folks, it's February, below zero, and I'm sitting in my cube in the basement at work. I'm totally European Dreamin' on such a winter's day.
So, I'll propose the question to all of you so I can live vicariously through your daydreams. When you daydream of Europe, what are your favorite daydreams?
My favorite daydream is about a very greasy, yet delicious, take-away order of fish & chips wrapped in newspaper from any small corner shop in Scotland.
I daydream mostly about Paris, just walking around and hanging out, people watching and enjoying life. Also, relaxing in a sunny Tuscan hill town (like Cortona or Orvieto) is my second most favorite daydream at this point. Walking around, eating delicious gelato.
Hey Jarrod,
Sitting on the patio of the pension we stayed at in Heiligenblut, Austria, having coffee and soaking in the gorgeous views including the Grossglockner.
Another favorite is driving the many passes through the Dolomites!
Keep warm up there!
If it's of help, here's some photo's to go along with this:
www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/travel11.html
Paul
My favorite is going to the Auto show in Frankfurt. Followed by a mixture of high speed blasts down the autobahn and leisurely drives on the backroads of Bavaria. The food, nothing like ordering off a menu you don't understand. You Jarrod, it's funny how a winter somewhere other than home is more enjoyable.
Since there is a pretty good string started here, I'll put in my two cents. I find myself daydreaming about the simple things. Sometimes it's just sitting in the Frankfurt airport watching people from all over the world go by. Sometimes it's walking through a small rural town past the bakery smelling all of the aromas. Sometimes it's eating that pesto pizza in the Cinque Terre. Sometimes it's the challenge of trying to communicate to someone who speaks broken English at best. Sometimes I dream about living in a country with a different political landscape, but I'm not going to go any further into that here (as I'm not trying to spark a political discussion).
Ultimately what I daydream about is seeing new things and experiencing Europe as best I can as a traveler. I imagine myself without a care in the world other than what I want to do next. I've got new places to see, new people to meet, new foods to eat, new sounds to hear and new smells to smell. I just can't get enough.
Barcelona and the costa brava. The smell of lemons everywhere. Sitting on the patio in our villa on the Mediterranean. I could sit there for hours. We are pretty chilly here in New York but nothing like where you are. This was a great topic for the day.
Riding the London Eye
Taking the TGV from Lyon to Nice and watching the green fields turn to azur seas
Walking (and walking, and walking) the harbor in Antibes
Eating Fennochio gelato in Nice
The smell of jasmine in Portofino as we climbed up to Castello Brown
The smell of the Mediterranean sea
Eating ice cold gazpacho on a hot night in the south of France
Provence, wine and chocolate ....
May I quote Cyril Connolly? (I'm reading about him these days.) Born 1903, died 1974, he was chief book reviewer for the Sunday Times for many years. In 1929, unlucky in love, he left England for Paris and got a room at the Hotel de la Louisiane and wrote the following: "I have a room for 400 francs a month and at last I will be living within my own and other peoples income. I am tired of acquaintances and tired of friends unless they're intelligent, tired also of extrovert unbookish life. Me for good talk, wet evenings, intimacy, vins rouges en carafe, reading, relative solitude, street worship, exploration of the least known arrondissements, shopgazing, alley sloping, cafe crawling, Seine loafing, and plenty of writing from the table by this my window where I can watch the streets light up... I am for the intricacy of Europe, the discrete and many folded strata of the old world, the past, the North, the world of ideas. I am for the Hotel de la Louisiane."
Good quote, Thomas!
On an island of Greece at the Aegean Sea, in the Cyclades islands : an island that is uncrowded: exploring, slowly walking, wandering under the big blue sky and that special light in the sky at Greece, walking past olive trees, almond trees, oleanders, wild juniper. Not thinking about anything.
Have you seen the commercial with the fisherman who has about 100 fishing poles in the water, another guy asks what he's fishing for and he says, "I want it all." That's me.
I dream of:
-hiking the Alps and staying in huts,
-walking England and staying in B&B's,
-watching sunsets in Cinque Terra,
-taking evening strolls in Venice,
-eating food at inexpensive small-town, family- owned restaurants where no one speaks English and they feed you until you can't eat another bite,
-enjoying a pint of Guiness in a pub with traditional music followed by great conversation with new friends,
-visiting ruined sites where events changed history,
-seeing the works of masters in museums, churches and palaces.
So much to see, so little time.
Yes Thomas -- your quote pretty much sums it up for me!
alright, now I'm Jonesin' for a mug of German beer and some pork chops with sauerkraut and spaetzle. I'll have to make a trip to my local German restaurant. It's almost the same, but not exactly when the people around you aren't speaking in German and there isn't the lingering scent of cigarette smoke (MN is smoke free in bars and restaurants).
Walking around London checking out the markets...
Touring the Dalwhinnie distilery in Scotland and sipping a great single malt...
Watching the sun set over Princes St Park in Edinburgh
Sitting in Leciester Square in London and people watching...
Riding the train down the coast of Wales...
"window shopping" the Christmas market in Salzburg...
Eating Chinese in London... or Hong Kong...
OH MY!!!!!
BTW- Great topic!
OK Jarrod, I'm sitting on a bench over looking the Guidecca canal in the Dorsoduro area of Venice. It's a crisp winter morning and I'm watching vaporettos pass. I notice the unleashed dogs dashing on their own for their morning walk; their owners following 20 seconds behind at a much slower pace. About 15 minutes later, I observe them pass me by in the opposite direction. Ah, life in Venice...
Depending on my mood, the phase of the moon and the color of my socks, its always something different, I have many different europe daydreams,( many of you have mentioned them already) , but, best summed up by Brad.
I want it all.
Ok, so I know that sounds flakey,, LOL, meant it to, reality is all daydreams , in all countries , seem to revolve around me sitting at an outdoor cafe and drinking wine.. ( does that sound any better, LOL )
I do think it is more about a state of mind, rather then one particular place,,
Walking on the Parisien streets and stop in their little cafes and listen to old French music and drinking cofee and or wine.
My recurrent European daydream is this: waking up next to my husband in an Obidos, Portuguese villa on a lovely spring day. Then, listening to our children's animated chatter, no bickering, & eating of local pastries in the next room, while we decide which neighboring town to visit after breakfast. Once the decision was made hubby & I both fall back to sleep.
Two:
1) That wonderful feeling when the plane smooths out in its climb and you realize that yea you are really on your way. My dad always quoted the Hobbit poem about the road going on and on. I love that moment.
2) Walking through any small town in Europe (though my daydreams seem to feature southern England or rural Germany) after church on Sunday licking ice cream and chatting with other families.
Ummmm - now back to work!
Today I had this great daydream about Germany. I actually got lost in it for about 10 minutes. I was daydreaming that I could actually speak German, and I was having great conversations with people all over Germany.
Sigh.
For me:
sitting on the observation deck of the M.S. Austria, soaking up the sun, sipping effervescent, cool Grüner Veltliner wine, listening to Strauss waltzes, puttering upstream the Danube through my beloved Wachau valley, leisurely floating by abbeys, castles, ruins, and vinyards!
http://www.brandner.at/partner/brandner/english/f_default.asp
Great topic...it is fun to read every one else's reply.
For me, it would be sitting in an outside patio cafe eating eis in a Bavarian villate. Or walking along the cobblestone streets in the Alsace. Or waking up after a great nap in a hammock that is next to a vineyard in the rolling hills of Tuscany.
Sigh.....
Waking up to the sounds of church bells and horses clip clopping on the cobblestones in Bruges.
Gathering a lovely picnic from a Parisian market, then enjoying it on the Champs de Mars.
Trying to imagine my next destination...Scotland!
I have two:
Waking up, opening up the door to the balcony on a crisp morning in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, seeing the Zupspitze rise above the valley in the early sunlight.
The other: walking (or biking) with my fiancee through the back country roads of her native Limburg province in Belgium.
My daydreams vary with my mood, and some have been already posted ;
Knowing you're on the way when the plane takes off
Knowing you've "actually" there when you arrive
(Coming from a tropical area) forgetting that the train from Milan to Varenna was heading towards the Alps and catching that first glimpse of snow capped mountains
Paris at night eating that creme brulee tart in front of the Eiffel Tower
Training in to a very misty Venice
and so it goes. . .
One of my favorite memories is of Grindelwald, Switzerland in June. We took the gondola up the mountain to Pfingstegg. There's a rustic cafe at the top with outdoor tables that overlook Grindelwald. We eat our apple strudel and enjoy the incredible view before walking down the mountain. The path leads through farmland and past beautiful Swiss houses with flower filled window boxes and intricate wood carved balconies.
