First of all, I need to give a big cheer for Home Exchange. We have successfully completed three home exchanges - using the cottage at Cape Cod as our exchange. This has given us free lodging for the entire time except for the final two days in Madrid. We also had full use of a car for touring except for the two and a half weeks in Nice where we really didn't want or need a car. It was perfect. We used the cars to make day trips frequently and to make overnight trips (5 nights in southern Spain and 2 inbetween Provence and Nice). All in all we spent 10 nights out of 60 hotels, which we found to be extremely inexpensive and wonderful. We stayed in 4 star hotels all of which cost less than $100 a night. We even had free calls to the US for 5 out of the 8 weeks from our exchange homes. Amazing.
What we learned about home exchanging is to be more selective about the exchanges both in terms of the specific location and the homes. While these worked well in most regards, they could have been better. The Chateauenard location was perfect but the home could have been better. The Nice location was also perfect and the apartment was comfortable but not really well equipped for making alot of meals. The apartment in Valencia was wonderful - clean, modern, very well equipped but we fairly quickly exhausted what there was to do in Valencia, so our 6 day trip to Andalucia in southern Spain worked very well. All in all we have gotten to see and experience a great deal of Mediterranean France and Spain on this trip and that was our goal.
The weather has been terrific. I think we had just two rainy days in the entire 60 days. That's pretty incredible. It has been very hot most of the time but sunny. The sun here is somehow stronger than at home. When you step out into it, you immediately feel it on your skin much more than at home. In another week or two I think I would become a real blonde at the rate my hair is bleaching out. We both have very good tans.
It is impossible to summarize (or even recall) all of the wonderful and interesting sights we have seen. This was the primary reason for this blog (as well as to share the experience with friends and family who were interested). There have been lots of castles and cathedrals on our itinerary, but also lots of dips in the Mediterranean and quiet strolls observing what is the same and different between Spain, France and home.
Some of the most memorable experiences include walking down Gibraltar, sailing in the Med at Antibes, walking along the Med into Monte Carlo, and revisiting old haunts from when we lived in France for 4 months. We have learned alot about the history of Spain and France and even the roman empire and the Moor occupation of Spain. It has been fascinating.
I have come to the conclusion that globalization of culture is occuring at a pretty good rate. Being in Madrid doesn't feel particularly foreign. If you didn't pay attention to the signage you could easily convince yourself that you were in NY or Washington DC. I find this to be kind of a shame. This is slightly less true in France where more effort has been put into maintaining their cultural differences and their heritage. I liked the excitement of the foreigness and the discovery of the differences.
But it is time to go home. We have been away long enough. I miss my friends and family. I miss my dogs alot and I miss just being able to justify sitting around doing nothing for a while (here we hated to waste the opportunity so we were pretty constantly on the move.)
Thanks for sharing our journey with us. I hope you have enjoyed it.
I loved your blog. So glad you had a great adventure. I hope our retirement is as much fun as yours. Hug the pups for me.
ReplyDeleteLinda T.