Pen Shopping Bucket List Style 

Friends,

The blog has been a bit slow lately and for that I apologize. Things have been moving fast as we got a big bug up our backside— we saw a cruise ship repositioning cruise starting in April which leaves Ft. Lauderdale and crosses the Atlantic Ocean; stopping in the Azores, Spain, and Italy. There was only weeks to prepare for this adventure so my time was spent there. 

After arriving in Italy at the Civivvecca cruise terminal, we are training down to Naples to visit family for a couple of days then going back to Rome. Also on the trip agenda is travels to Florence and Milan before flying over to Paris to end the trip. We’re really stoked about the trip and can’t believe the journey has finally begun. As I write this, we are flying to Ft. Lauderdale to board the ship. 

Part of the planning involved researching all the great pen related stores and history available. My list is nearly two pages long! I contacted the pen manufacturers in the cities we are visiting to try and get a tour but the only one I was able to set up was at the Stipula manufacturing site. I still may try to visit the others anyway. I’d enjoy looking at the different models, see if there is a factory store, etc. I’ll have to take it slow in the stores though as I don’t want to blow my budget right away. This is hard enough to do at a pen show, I can only imagine the level of difficulty awaiting as you browse all the fine Italian pens in the historical places where they are made. 

I will do my best to keep a running account of the trip and the adventures had. We will be at sea eight days straight and there won’t be internet for us. We will be able to post the updates once we can connect again. 

This is truly a trip of our lifetime and I couldn’t imagine a better bucket list pen related experience. Until next time…