Wish List: Philly Bookclub’s European Vacation.

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Two Saturdays ago, we had our monthly meeting of Bookclub.  The book was The Splendor of Silence by Indu Sundaresan.  It was a rich tale about two cultures clashing, two people meeting and the lifetime they shared in four days and its repercussions.  So our theme was Indian food and the specialty drink was a gimlet. (There were vodka gimlets available for those who didn’t want gin.)

After we thoroughly talked about the book, someone in the group mentioned going on vacation en masse in Europe.  This idea expounds on our proposed weekend in Washington, DC, when we read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.   We would read the book for bookclub and instead of meeting we would spend a day in DC at some of the sites in the book chatting about the novel – a fun idea.

The Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC
If going to DC would be a fun idea, going to Europe would be fantastic. At length, we discussed in detail whether or not we all could travel with each other.  We came to the conclusion that we could and, now, the plan is to find a villa.  We settled on renting in August in the Mediterranean areas of Europe: Barcelona, Italy, Grecian Islands, etc.

Casa Bacardi near Barcelona
Except for Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, we couldn’t name another book that we read which took place in Mediterranean Europe.  Therefore, we will focus area on locating something in Catalonia, yet our final decision will be based on what we can afford as a group.  We are staying open to the idea that we could end up in Greece, the Dalmatian coast, Bari or elsewhere for that matter.  If we go somewhere else than Barcelona, we have about a full year to pick a book or two to read that’s set in the area where we’ll holiday.

View from the Villa Aris on Koufoni, Greece
The vacation, however, will be simple.  We will get a villa for a week and we will use that as our headquarters for the stay.  We will take turns cooking meals from the local meats, eggs and produce and enjoy the nights drinking local wine.  For two or three days, we will plan some side trips from the villa based on our bookclub reads.  Outside of our book-themed day trips and evening meals, we will be flexible to do anything that we want or to do nothing else at all. Perhaps we take a day-trip to a neighboring county or we spend the days lounge in the villa reading our future bookclub novels.  Once we’re in Europe, we’re all free to stay longer and create our own adventures, but we are looking forward to a fun, literary vacation on the continent.

Images courtesy of Wikipedia (Capitol Rotunda), RentVillas.com (Casa Bacardi) and HomeAway (Villa Aris). 

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