Paris Italy

Its exactly a month before I do the inevitable, something I have known for many years would happen in the 29th year of my life. Life has never gone as expected except in this case for me. Yes, I am getting married on 12th of March 2007 and for the first time in my life, I am actually planning a trip, bczo it happens to be my honeymoon. Its not a usual thing for me to plan date by date departures and hotel bookings so well in advance.

I have travelled a fair bit, needing many flight/train bookings along with hotel reservations but I hardly ever booked much in advance except the tickets for departure from wherever I was departing. I dont remember having stuck to too many return dates as booked in before departure. But this trip is different. I am not a backpacker anymore (not atleast for this trip) and there is someone who expects me to plan things on the dot and there is some reputation at stake. So I am down to planning everything that I can for a 15 day honeymoon.

Start has not been too difficult for me. So far so good. Atleast I have known for a long time where I wanted to go for a honeymoon. Italy has always sounded like an ultimate romantic place to me. Having decided to see many places in Rome after having read The Da Vinci Code and due to my interest in photography, it wasnt too diffcult convincing my fiancee on the destinations. She did have her own ideas of visiting France (esp. Paris) which I happily accomodated as she gets a sponsored ticket if we fly to Paris via certain airline. Cool savings of approx. $1000.

Few hours of reserach on Google, Yahoo and Lonely Planet has put the map of my trip in my mind.  Now I also know about the places I want to visit within Italy apart from Paris in France. However, the challenge is to book tickets and hotels after having decided about the locations. I have wanted to visit some off-beat places in the smaller towns/villages and stay in small motels and peaceful surroundings. Unfortunately I am dropping Cicily for the time being so that we can be back in Paris to take our return flight to New Delhi. Lets see how things go and where all I end up being a tourist.

Return flight to Paris from Delhi is costing $1000 odd and thats scary to start with. A month ago when things were not so clear about my wedding date, I was getting the same for just $750 odd. Next target is to find Hotel names and rates. More work tomorrow.