Sunday was a strange day. It started with an overnight flight and maybe two hours of sleep, but I have been on a few long flights recently so that wasn’t the weird part. Nor was returning to a city I’d visited before. I’d been to each of the cities on our recent European jaunt at least once already. No, what made Sunday strange was trying to compress the best parts of what took me two weeks to explore before into a single day for the benefit of others. It was like trying to be the tour guide of all tour guides, yet my charges had so little by way of expectations that anything I showed them made them happy. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned there, but I’m not yet sure what it might be. In any event, the expectations can lengthen the joy of traveling as anticipation builds during the planning phase. I am not the only one in my group who has looked forward to this week for several years.

I have been accused of taking people on death marches before, and was yet again on Sunday, but this walking wasn’t bad. Besides, at the end of each leg of the journey was either food and drink or a change of clothes and a hot shower. I wanted my travel companions to get a feel, ideally a positive one, for a city I greatly enjoyed in my previous visit and hope to enjoy again soon. The best way I know to gain a feel for a place is to walk through it and eat its food, and this we did. I carefully selected the neighborhood just as I carefully chose the location of the hotel, and even during the early afternoon on Sunday there were inklings of the vibrancy that characterizes the place. I felt slightly insulted when they were surprised by how good lunch was, but I have come to expect that people will erroneously question my food choices.

We spent the afternoon on a whirlwind tour by private car. I directed the drivers from spot to spot. Once we arrived at a location, we exited the vehicles, we walked around the location, at least one of the members of our group took way too many pictures, I instructed the drivers where to go next, we got back into the vehicles, and off to the next destination we went. I tried to cram as much as possible into a half-day tour, a very American way of traveling but appropriate for the circumstances.

I was questioned even more about my choice in restaurant for dinner. As there was a nice brisk walk before we arrived from the hotel (chosen based largely on its location relative to that specific restaurant), the peanut gallery was in full voice by the time we arrived. Not even being greeted by champagne while we waited for our table was enough to silence the doubters. The meal did though, and I basked in the glorious silence that sets in during a feast when everyone is eating and no one wants to waste any precious time talking while all that food is just sitting there. That feeling and the satiation that came from the meal made for a very pleasant walk back to the hotel. Then we were off early the next morning, onto the next destination and the main event of the trip.