re: Honeymoon ideas

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Since we're going in dec we'll be stopping at some Christmas markets and bs things like that.

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C'mon, the Christmas markets are def not "BS things". It's dark and cold at that time of the year; everyone bundles up and goes outside to hang out w/friends & drink & eat in public. The shopping part isn't as important as the socialization, esp in the early evening hours....some of the market food/drink stalls are commercial, others are run by community or school groups/volunteers. It's a great way to meet locals, too.

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If you say so. Sometimes a single day will be plenty. It depends on the person, the location and their interests.

The point is that every time this comes up there is a Rick Steves-like tendency to lecture the new international traveler going abroad for the first time to only do a couple of cities (if that) over their 7 or 10 day trip. The reasons posters give for this are very valid considerations, but it's a one size fits all approach to travel from people who travel frequently to people who don't, and who may not in the future.

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While I appreciate that infrequent travelers or those with time constraints want to rush around and "see" as much as possible, I'll continue to advocate for a slower approach. There is more to travel than looking/seeing--simply "laying eyes" on a place is an extremely superficial experience. So you've taken a train thru Place X and looked at it....you didn't experience much beyond the visual. Why be obsessed with a new place, or another place, when you haven't spent 24 hrs in the first one?

I tend to count meals rather than days...how many breakfasts/lunches/dinners will I get to experience in the places I visit? Often, for me, the ability to stay a little longer and visit a bakery that grinds its own wheat onsite, or have dry-cured sausages hand cut by the maker's wife, or to eat breakfast next door to a cathedral while listening to the resident choir practice for the next day's service--those kind of things are ultimately more significant to me than the newness of another place.

I spend two extra days in Bayeux last fall, just to experience the Saturday market during the apple harvest in Normandy (bought 6 diff varieties to sample, all new to me); watched two nimble women shuck fresh scallops as fast as possible to sell to a long line of locals (and me); chatted with an old man making buckwheat galettes about his days at the market; ate a bunch of samosas from a French/Indian family's food truck. Bayeux is a smallish city/big town; some would have packed in all its sights in two or three jammed days.

You're right, everyone's style differs. Some travel to sightsee--I'm always chasing a deeper connection, especially to local food culture.