It's a Small World

Or, at least, a small continent. From our part of the UK it is incredibly easy to hop over to mainland Europe. The main budget airlines fly out of two London airports, one of which is under 30 minutes from us, and the other 75 minutes if there is no traffic. Over the past three years we have taken advantage of discounted flights to as much of Europe as we can manage. Last year we went on short breaks to Stockholm, Disneyland Paris, Normandy (by car and ferry), Gdansk, and Genoa. We also took a longer summer trip by rail across central Europe, visiting Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic. Smallest daughter also went on a school trip to Lille (France). This year we have already been to Disneyland Paris again, and have trips lined up to Rome, Genoa again and Greece.

This sounds incredibly decadent, but most of our flights have worked out at less than £50 return, and sometimes much less. Our middle daughter is spending the year studying at the University of Genoa in Italy, and she has truly mastered the art of the cheap flight - the lowest fare she has managed so far has been £4.25 to return to Italy after Christmas! She gets the benefit of a student discount and flying to a small and less popular airport, but this still boggles my mind - it costs as much for a two station, ten mile hop on the train. Popping home for the weekend is as easy as it was from her UK university. And when she is there she gets the view in the photo below from her apartment window. The other pictures in the post are also from our trip to visit her in Genoa last October.

Every time we travel, I realise again just how privileged we are to live at a time when the world has shrunk so that we are able to explore so many extraordinary places so easily. In a speech a couple of years ago Prime Minister Theresa May, pandering to the more insular faction of her party, said "If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere". In my view she couldn't be more wrong. I am a proud citizen of the UK (though admittedly rather less proud as we endure the embarrassing shambles that is Brexit), but also love being a citizen of Europe - I am not sure I can quite claim "citizen of the world" as I haven't ventured further afield yet. Even if Brexit means we lose the right to live, work and study anywhere in Europe, I don't intend to let it rob me of my identity as both British and European.