Why 'To Ephesus With Love'?

So, why is my blog entitled 'To Ephesus With Love'?  First, I wanted to create the impression that Jean and I were 'going somewhere', and not just to Europe broadly.  So, I chose to twist the common phrase of 'To Rome With Love', the title of the 2012 Woody Allen comedy and the 1970s series starring John Forsythe.  There's also the 2002 drama 'To Moscow With Love'.  So, the precedent has been set.  Voila: 'To Ephesus With Love'.

Why Ephesus per se?  The title is symbolic.  In Europe, we'll be on the hunt for things that are 'old'.  We'll be exploring ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the city of Pompeii, preserved for 19 centuries under the lava and volcanic ash of Vesuvius.  We'll visit the remnants of the Visigoths underneath Barcelona, which pre-date the Romans by 2,000 years.  Also, a tiny fraction of our15-week trek around the Continent will be devoted to visiting a mansion in Italy and a castle in Switzerland connected to my family history.  We will see the famous, centuries-old art works in the Vatican, and the Mona Lisa in Paris.  And, of course, we will travel to the ancient site of Ephesus in Turkey, which provides the background image you see on my blog.

Ephesus will be a turning point too...literally.  From the time we leave Aberystwyth in Wales on 6 July, we will broadly follow a south-easterly direction across Europe.  After Ephesus, in mid-August, we will reverse, following a broad north-westerly direction until we finish up in Brussells in early October.  I could've called the blog 'To Brussells With Love',  but I don't think that sounds terribly exciting, do you?  You'd probably think I was some sort of EU nutter, and log out.

So, we hope you'll travel with us, vicariously, as we explore the 'old' as well as whatever's new.  We hope you'll enjoy our 15-week journey as much as we will.