I had an interesting conversation last night with my brother Richard, who has just returned from a geology field trip.
I told him about my planned tour of Europe (EUR05 I've named it), and we began to talk about the number of countries we'd visited.
My list currently stands at 14, though there are a couple of countries I could add to that if I so desired: I have been to Holland but was too young to remember; I have been to Greece, but Corfu is so unlike Greece (or so I hope) that I refuse to count it, and also I was too young to have much choice about the matter of going; one summer we spent six weeks exploring the West Coast of America, and hopped across the border to Mexico where we had a look around Nogales.
Holland and Greece I certainly will not include in my list. I'm only including the places I visited when I was old enough to appreciate them. But Mexico? I decided a while back to only include places where I had spent at least one night, so having only seen a few hours' worth of Mexico it doesn't get onto the list.
But really, where does that leave me? What if I want to add Vatican City or Monaco to my list? Will I be able to?
A partial rethink might be required - one that makes excuses for the smaller countries I might see in the future.
But unlike Richard, I'm not going to count places where I sat for five minutes in a traffic jam, even if Lichtenstein affords huge bragging rights.
Oh, and that list in full, as it stands today:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Czech Republic
- France
- Germany
- India
- Italy
- Japan
- Portugal
- Spain
- Switzerland
- United Arab Emirates, The
- United States of America, The
3 comments:
FWIW, I think my list is smaller than yours (and less exotic) (and not in alphabetical order):
1. Sweden
2. Holland
3. Luxembourg
4. France
5. Spain
6. Italy
7. Tunisia
8. Swizerland
Pathetic eh? I'll hopefully be able to add the USA to it before the year's out. And if I choose to go on a stag do there, Latvia will be added.
And I'm leaving off Monaco and the Vatican City. And Wales.
Good luck on your travels mate.
I don't see why you should drop Monaco and The Vatican City from your list. Wales I can understand, what with it being part of the GB, which is part of the UK. I wouldn't count it either. The other two I would.
Although your list is shorter (just), there are a couple of places on it that I haven't seen but would certainly like to. Sweden is a possibility this time round...
Stockholm's nice mate, can recommend it. Stay at Af Chapman, it's a hostel, and a boat (here it is). It's cheap as chips and absolutely fantastic.
Luxembourg's nicer than you might think, though I wouldn't think about spending more than a couple of days there, and I'd definitely visit the museum of modern art. It's fantastic (I don't know whether the building or it's contents are more fantastic).
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