2021 Travel Dreams

Post written by Laura

Happy New Year!

What has now become a ‘From Blue to Green’ new year’s day tradition where we share our travel plans and ideas for the year ahead this post has a very different feel from previous years. In the past we’ve excitedly looked forward to actual travel plans for the new year not at all considering the unthinkable where they might not take place.

On 1st January 2020 I wrote about “a new decade of travel to look forward to” with none of us having any inkling of what was about to happen.

I spent much of 2020 reading about travel, writing about and reflecting on travel (with my blog posts) and planning future travel (I have a few itineraries up my sleeve…) And also literally dreaming of travel! Yes, I am not kidding! Most nights I have weird and wonderful dreams of beaches, towns, countrysides, mountains and planes and I’m often somewhat disappointed when I wake up!

So for 2021 I’m posting about dreams for 2021 rather than plans. Lets hope some of them come true…

Italy

Thanks to Covid disruptions our planned Via Francigena 100 mile walk into Rome has been booked and moved 3 times! Together with a small group of friends the plan is to fly to Rome, travel by train to Bolsena and spend a week walking back into Rome, staying in a different little town each night.

I had taken on the role of travel agent and had booked accommodation in each of the walking route towns together with a luggage company who is to transfer our luggage between each place. This was originally booked for May 2020, then moved to October 2020 and has been moved again to September 2021… fingers crossed!

Other ideas for 2021 include:

Cornwall: we’re hoping to spend a week in Cornwall in February but as we are now in Tier 4 lockdown and likely to be for a while yet, this remains a hope rather than a booking! If restrictions are eased we’ll book something at the last minute…

Azores: We’re still keen to visit the Azores and do some trekking up to Mount Pico; this might be worth the risk of a cheap flight and hotel free-cancellation booking basis…

Borneo: nearly booked for our 10th wedding anniversary in 2020 and while we have an itinerary planned thankfully we hadn’t booked anything. This will remain on hold until we are confident of the ability to travel without the risk of cancellations, positive covid tests, closed borders etc. This may need to be postponed to 2022…

While our adventures didn’t go entirely to plan we were fortunate to have taken some excellent trips in 2020… here are a few memories:

An exotic heady mix of ancient and modern… my solo long weekend to Tel Aviv in January with a day trip to Jerusalem and Bethlehem thrown in.

Above is a photo from the last time either Chris or I travelled abroad… we had a fabulous weekend in Porto, Portugal in February 2020.

One week before the first major UK lockdown in March… we had a lovely long weekend in Plymouth with Teresa, our sister-in-law. Chris and I popped over the border into Cornwall and visited Looe and Polperro.

By August Covid restrictions had started to lift and as we emerged and started to venture out, Chris and I had a weekend in Seaton in Devon where we walked for 10 miles along the South West Coast Path, which is also part of the Jurassic coastline. This was not long after the compulsory face coverings were introduced in England.

In September and still within the socially distancing rules we had a family weekend in Norfolk and Suffolk which included a visit to Southwold.

A proper holiday at last! One week spent at the end of September with our friends Yvey, Matt, Clare and Steve in Pembrokeshire. This was great especially as I had Pembrokeshire in mind as somewhere I had been keen to visit. Shortly after arriving back, Wales was put into lockdown and travel from England was banned.

Another holiday… yay! This was an active week at the end of October in the Yorkshire Dales with other friends Russell, Roza, Flo & Mike. Again we were lucky to have squeezed this in just before the November clamp-down in England began.

The November lockdown was lifted on 2nd December and as I returned back to the gym I was rewarded with a lovely sunrise. Unfortunately this little freedom was short-lived as after only 3 weeks or so, Covid cases were on the rise again and we were plunged back into lockdown… just before Christmas…

On Saturday 19th December, Boris Johnson cancelled Christmas and immediately banned any mixing of households for around 16 million people across the south east of England. Chris and I celebrated Christmas day on our own. What is now called Tier 4 this ban has since been extended to most of the country and our chances of a week in Cornwall in February are looking pretty slim at the moment…