We have the best travel agent in the world!

It helps that my travel agent is also my oldest and dearest friend.  

She spent Thanksgiving with us in 2012 while we were still in the talking phase of the trip. When she left we had a deadline.  The airline tickets had to be purchased by the end of January 2013.  Talk about planning ahead!  

That gave us two months to set our itinerary.  It was complicated.  I live in Florida and Melissa is in North Carolina, so we decided to fly to Atlanta and meet in the airport for the final leg to Europe. 

Initially we were going to Hungary and Serbia to search for information on my paternal grandparents and of course Plitvice National Park in Croatia, but we had to fly out of Paris so it seemed a shame not to arrange a stopover and see the Louvre. (Every time we've been to Europe we planned to go to the Louvre, but for one reason or another we never made it.) 

We then found it was better to fly into Dublin, which gave us an opportunity to search for the birthplace of Michael Woods who died in Albermarle, Virgina in 1762.  Instead of just a trip to Eastern Europe, our plans expanded even more to include Switzerland, the ancient home of our Felder ancestors.  

I have to give credit to Rick Steves for all the advice available on his website and in his books.  The tidbit that finally set the itinerary was his suggestion to start in the north if traveling in late summer, so as you move south the temperatures will usually be dropping. The result should be a fairly even climate.  Also to save the places where the water is iffy and the food unusual for the end of the trip on the theory that if you get sick, you don't ruin the entire vacation.

The itinerary was set:
View Vacation 2013 in a larger map

Fly to Dublin - stay 3 days
Fly to Paris - 3 days
Train to Zurich - 2 days
Night train to Budapest - 3 days
Drive to Miskolc - 2 days
Drive to Novi Sad - 2 days
Drive to Erdevik - 2 days
Drive to Zabreb - 2 days (includes trip to Plitvice)
Return to Budapest - 1 day
Fly Home