I'm glad that the internet and digital photography have freed you of the constraints of thirty years ago. Your coverage, descriptions, and photos from your 2022 return to this area are far more vivid and complete.

Rats.

You can’t. I never published it. There are three or four of our European tours where I either didn’t keep a journal or had such a poor set of photos because of camera issues that I didn’t bother publishing them. I’ve got the prints all scanned though, so I really should take them on one of these winters before the memories fade any more.

I certainly remember 9/11 in Orvieto though.

There are so many things like this that have completely transformed travel - the GPS, email, e-books, ATM’s, the euro. Just thinking about the simple act of making a phone call brings back all of the challenges involved.

It’s simpler in so many ways now, but I’m really glad that our first overseas tours were in that era and that I took the time to write down our experiences.

I'll have to go read that journal when I finish this one. It'll be interesting to read your thoughts on 9/11 as experienced from outside the U.S.

I was at work in a Federal building (rented space in the MD suburbs, not downtown DC) and of course they closed and sent us all home. Before that happened, though, I happened to be in front of a television when the second plane hit the South tower. I'll never forget, or fully recover from, the realization that I'd just seen hundreds of people die, in real time. The memory nearly makes me nauseous even now.

They are incredible, aren’t they? We didn’t see them then, but when we passed through again in 2001 on our way from Florence to Dubrovnik. An amazing tour, that one. 9/11 happened while we were in Orvieto.

I like that not every day has to be an epic event.

Were you able to see the incredible floors of the Siena cathedral? They're kept covered for most of the year, for purposes of preservation, but are revealed for a couple weeks every so often (I think once a year).

http://www.travelingintuscany.com/engels/siena/sienaduomomosaicfloor.htm

"...called home to our friend Lynn to let her know that we were alive and over the Alps. For 33,000 lira we had perhaps and eight minute conversation..."

Another significant change over the intervening three decades.

That is precisely how I imagine quintessential Swiss countryside to look.

Between the clouds, snow, and wet road surface this looks like it could have been positively miserable.

How different things were then, nearly three decades ago. Notes of paper and ink, photo developing... quaint! And different currencies for each country.

Thanks to the optics of an actual film camera followed by a digital scanner, this could almost be a photo of a very detailed and well-executed scale model. It reminds me somehow of the model of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, over which the opening and closing titles were scrolled.

Can you believe that? That’s the first and only time Rachael’s lost a bike to theft, so I guess she thought she’d get it behind her first thing. We were lucky they had a second one in stock!

"... Rachael a Bianchi Volpe. It was new that summer, as was her first Bianchi Volpe that she'd replaced with this one after the first was stolen on the day she bought it."

Oh that's a CRUEL thing.