The Olympic rings are still a popular spot to snap your picture no matter the time of day
I am slowly coming off of my Whistler high. The posts are almost done (I swear!) and we are headed up to Vancouver this Saturday for another long weekend adventure. As I flipped through my notes and pictures something dawned on me. We are going to a lot of Olympic sights this year, but never during the Olympics.
The Vancouver Olympics, which partially took place up in Whistler, were held in 2010. I was sitting on a beach in Maui with a 5 month old Dek at the time. It was heavenly. Nothing like watching the snowboarding events while you have the door to your condo unit open to bring in the warm breeze.
Whistler village shines like it's Christmas and still draw in a large international crowd
This fall we are headed back to Europe and stopping through London to see some friends. The Olympics would have wrapped up a few months before and the city will be clear of sports fanatics. Well, except all those football fans. English Premier League will be in full swing much to Mike’s delight. We will miss all of the action, but still benefit from any city improvements going on. Hopefully they won’t improve it too much though. I liked what I saw in 2008.
If I think back even further, we have been riding the Olympic train even before this year. We went to Beijing in December 2010. There was a whole separate track our travels could have taken just visiting the Olympic venues alone, but we opted for the more historical sights. The Olympics were definitely long gone by the time we got there. It was really interesting to walk around town and wonder what it must have been like swarming with tourists, athletes and media outlets from around the world. The cold of winter had driven many international tourists away. Some days we thought were the only western visitors there.
We popped by the iconic symbol of the Olympics almost every day
It’s kind of incredible to think that we have been to 3 Olympic cities in just 2 years. Maybe this will be our new thing. We’ll just have the Olympic committee decide were we should go next and then head in that direction a few months or a year later. Not a bad way to see the world. Then again, maybe we should just start at the beginning. I have never been to Greece and it is one of the top 5 places I want to see. Yeah, maybe we will just start at the beginning and see where that takes us.
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February 14, 2012 at 8:42 am
Thanks for this post! We were lucky enough to enjoy the Olympics in Vancouver 2 years ago…we had a blast. So fun to reminisce. You are so right though…take advantage of all the great city improvements post games! We got to see Atlanta around Thanksgiving, not the most amazing city, but we liked imagining all the activity that was present many years ago.
February 14, 2012 at 9:01 am
You can never avoid English football fans in London! I’m a football fan so I don’t mind it.
February 14, 2012 at 9:11 am
Hubby is a HUGE Arsenal fan. He gets up at 6am just to watch the games live here in the states. He may finally get to see a game in London with our buddy, who happens to be a Liverpool fan. Could be interesting if the two teams play
February 14, 2012 at 2:55 pm
I’m a bit of an Olympic nut and keep track of this too…I’ve been to 8 Olympic host cities…although a couple of those go way back like Amsterdam and Paris…
Hope he gets to see an Arsenal match…I’m a huge United fan, and do the whole 6am wake up on Sunday too:)
February 14, 2012 at 2:58 pm
You will never hear me complain about soccer. Saturdays are my mornings to sleep in. The World Cup in South Africa was awesome. Almost every morning I got to sleep. It was heaven!
February 14, 2012 at 7:03 pm
What a great excuse to start planning a trip to Rio! Who knows how many tickets you’ll need by then, but maybe you should do some advance scouting just to be safe.
February 14, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Already saving for Brazil’s World Cup 2014! At least one kid can go to games with dad while me and the little one sit on the beach
February 14, 2012 at 8:54 pm
I love this traveling idea. You are going to London later this year right? It’s quite a trend.