Today was a day of mixed news. First we received an email stating that the St. Columba Hotel on the island of Iona, Scotland was totally booked up for the time we are planning to be there. This left us with a bit of a defeated feeling. We had very carefully looked at all our options (and on Iona that's not lots) and we got most excited about the St. Columba Hotel, for many reasons. I keep being astounded when I discover time and time again that booking things like flights, hotels and such 4 months prior is not enough time to avoid being shut out. The irony of this is that some places such as some Bed and Breakfasts establishments and the Rail Companies don't allow booking more than 3 months in advance! This is making our planning a bit more difficult, but we press on.
The first two weeks of our time in Europe will be with an organised Tour. We did this at the recommendation of some friends and our travel agent, and it seemed to make sense to us that we use a tour in the area where we felt least capable, namely Italy and France. We also heard that Tours get into certain tourist destinations easier than folks off the street (for example being shown in a side door at the Vatican, rather than waiting in line for four hours at the main entrance). As it is, that first 11 days we are part of an organized tour is costing us a significant amount, but at least we don't need to worry about arranging accommodation, and most meals. So other than this package tour (Italy, Switzerland, France and ending in London), Beth and I are doing all of our accommodation and transportation arranging. Much of this planning has actually been fun, but when our plans fall through, as in the news that St. Columba Hotel is already booked to capacity, some of the fun is knocked out of the process.
On the other hand, later today we got the news that our accommodation in Oxford, England has been reserved and confirmed. We will be staying in a little 7 room 17th Century Guesthouse in the heart of Oxford, the Tower House Hotel. Here's a link to their website: http://www.towerhouseoxford.co.uk/ This is really more like a Bed and Breakfast by my way of understanding, but what I'm discovering by all this internet research into accommodations in Europe is that many European Hotels are small, family run operations. So now that our time in Oxford has been set we turn our attention to other parts of the trip.
One of the best parts of the internet for travellers is having access to reviews written by average folks just like us. A site like Trip Advisor ( http://www.tripadvisor.com/ ) has been very helpful in identifying both places to consider and potential problems to avoid. I decided today that I would make a point of writing my own reviews for the places we stay on our trip. Maybe I can help someone down the road who is planning their own pilgrimage of sorts.
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