Getting Fit to Travel

Tonight, Nancy and I were trip planning for France, and one of the places we want to visit is Claude Monet's Garden at Giverny. We can get a train from Paris to Vernon and then get on a bus or walk 5 km to Giverny.  We both looked at each other and said, "we could walk that".  (We will walk, bike or bus depending of the weather).  It's nice to have walking as an option.  FYI, the bus is 4 Euros one way, and the Euro is currently exchanging for $1.34.  Keeping up with exchange rates in different currencies is always challenging.  More on that later in the trip.

I've been walking a lot this spring and summer and lost the 10 lbs that was my goal.  But hiking the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland might be a little different.  So, recently, I've been doing some hill work.  At UVa, we have an old Observatory way on top of a hill.  Last week, I made the 3 mile round trip hike during lunch.  The next day, my hips were sore, so I know I need to keep climbing.  It rained during lunch several days this week, so I just used the many steps in the library.--mostly to strengthen my knees.

With five floors and seven stairwells in Alderman Library, we have plenty of steps.

One other trip that we looked at tonight warned that the trip would require 2 hours of walking, some of it on cobblestones.  It's a good thing we weren't interested in that trip because, even though I can do the 2 hours easily,  I've got no clue how I would handle cobblestones.