Raising a glass to Ed from Pensacola

And I saw a name on that thread >> Zoe <<, from when I was just a read only person - who I think was the one who said "and sometimes I just go somewhere because I like the sound of the name" - which is likely how I ended up in the Italian city of Pistoia, where I absolutely enjoyed every minute of my stay.

I saw that too Nigel!

Ed attended a couple of Atlanta Group meetings several years ago and it was always to fun to get his perspective on travel!

Cheers to Ed from Pensacola!

Yes if I hadn’t seen Zoe’s name I wouldn’t have noticed that it was an old thread. RIP

I missed Zoe's post. Thanks for mentioning it,

RIP Zoe

That's really terrific. In the short time that I got to enjoy his posts, I learned a mountain of useful stuff, and probably not half of it was regarding travels to Europe, truly a know it all, and a pleasure to read. Our relatively small time of five weeks in Europe was enhanced by Ed's presence here.

Oh, I miss Ed. He was one of the posters that made the forum really worth reading every day. Wish he would drop by here again, or at least stop in Frankfurt for a coffee.

I too miss Ed's always interesting and witty posts. Hopefully he'll pop by the forum sometime.

Nigel, thanks for putting this under our attention. Good to know he is still kicking around, miss his unique style of contributing too. If Pensacola deserves a place on the “Traveling through the Alphabet list” it’s because of Ed. Cheers!

Ed was a great addition to the forum for years and was immensely helpful through PM’s while I was planning one of my trips. He’s greatly missed. Thanks for mentioning him Nigel.

As I recall, not everybody liked him, but he certainly was memorable. And I think that's the way he liked it.

bump for old times sake

Yes, I too miss his posts. And to add to Zoe’s reason for a visit, we stopped in Krapina, Croatia because of the name.

What fun to see the names of old friends. While I never met either Zoe or Ed, I enjoyed their posts immensely and miss them. I learned a lot from them both, as I continue to learn from quite a few of you who are still posting here and contributing to my travel knowledge. Thank you all.

Ed was often A Man of Few Words, but got his message across effectively, as in the link in this thread.

Nigel, I see you mentioned back then that Croatia wasn’t a Schengen participant. Times certainly do change. As of just 16 days ago, not only is Croatia now in the Schengen Zone, but the Euro is its money!

Funnily enough I was thinking of some of Ed's advice recently. A poster was saying they didn't want to bring a cell phone because of the exorbitant international fees. I recall Ed saying something like "travel cheap so that when something goes wrong you can hose it down with money".

I am reminded of Ed often because I have saved an old post of mine and I go back and read it sometimes. He helped me a lot with a proposed trip I was planning, one I still haven't taken but haven't given up on yet. He always had good advice and wasn't concerned with the niceties when giving it but cut right to the meat of the matter. I learned a lot from him and and I wish he was still around.

plus one to Nancy

Ed could be brusque and maybe a tad impatient with someone who didn't see things his way, but he was always entertaining and I'm sure his information was always good. I remember his reaction to people who warned darkly about the ordeal of driving in big cities like Paris: "It's just streets." And the need to occasionally solve a problem by bringing out "the money gun."

I'm glad he's still kicking around (but how do you know that, Nigel?) and I wish he'd return to the forum. Maybe the webmaster could create an "Ed" category to lure him back and keep the rest of us honest. But I'm not sure I could pass the entrance exam!