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Slow Roll, Big Love!
Embracing challenges, cherishing moments, and discovering new adventures together
Planning a European wander with aging parents who have mobility challenges takes more prep than our usual trips — comfort, accessibility, and a realistic pace matter as much as the itinerary itself. This is the story of the four-city trip He-Stache's dad and Mom had always talked about and never thought they'd actually take. Consider this your proof that “getting old” and “getting around Europe” can, in fact, rhyme.
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To kick off my 50th birthday extravaganza, we decided to treat He-Stache's mobility-impaired dad and his Mom — fresh off a knee replacement — to the European grand tour they'd always talked about. Four cities, a wheelchair, and one mission: prove that getting old doesn't mean the trip is over. This wasn't just a wander. It was a rolling love letter to two people who once chased him around the yard with a wooden spoon. This time, we reversed the chase.
Picture it: Dad in his wheelchair, sunglasses on indoors because “I'm on vacation, dammit.” Mom clutching a paper map like it's 1997. The rest of us pushing, pulling, laughing, and occasionally crying because someone just rolled over our feet in the Louvre. These are the memories that outlive us.
Paris — Croissants the size of hubcaps, the Eiffel Tower sparkling like it's flirting with Mom, and an accessible elevator to every bathroom in Versailles (sorry). Pro tip: the Louvre has free loaner wheelchairs and zero judgment when Dad yells “That's the Mona Lisa? I've seen better smiles on a catfish.”
Edinburgh — Cobblestones, yes — the real, ankle-turning kind. Terror, also yes. But the city's thought it through: a courtesy shuttle at the castle (when it's running), and accessible taxis driven by men named Tam who call your Mom “hen” and mean it like a hug. On the Royal Mile, Dad declares haggis “surprisingly not terrible” — a sentence now immortalized on the family Christmas card.
London — Black cabs that swallow a wheelchair whole, no ramp required, just yeet the whole chair in like a boss. A fully accessible Westminster Abbey with staff who materialize like polite superheroes. The Tower of London was the one stop with no wheelchair access at all — and the one where Dad, apparently done taking it easy, climbed every staircase like he had something to prove. We did not see that coming, but we'll absolutely take it. Every red phone box is now legally required to take a selfie of Dad pretending to call the Queen.
Venice — Yes, 400-plus bridges, and every one of them a small negotiation with gravity. But also this: Dad, floating under the Bridge of Sighs in a six-euro captain's hat, and you finally understanding why people write songs about this place.
None of this works without real prep — and I was the one who actually read the accessibility pages instead of winging it like a 22-year-old backpacker. A few evenings, a glass of wine, and I turned into an accessibility ninja. When Dad rolled through Churchill's War Rooms without a single “mind the step, dear,” he looked at me like I'd hung the moon.
Forget rigid schedules. The plan was: move slow, laugh loud, eat everything, and collect moments like Pokémon cards.
This trip was never about ticking boxes. It was about watching two people light up like kids, realizing the world didn't shrink just because their knees did. It was about pushing a wheelchair through centuries of history and finally understanding that love is a verb with wheels.
So we booked the accessible vans. The ground-floor rooms with walk-in showers. The restaurants where the little wheelchair symbol actually meant it. We did the nerdy research, packed the extra batteries, the meds, and all the patience we had.
Because one day — sooner than we want — these will be the stories we tell through tears and belly laughs: the almost-riot Dad started in a Parisian pâtisserie over the last croissant, Mom dancing with a bagpiper in Edinburgh, all of us gloriously lost in Venice and finding each other instead.
This was a big one. We rolled slow, loved hard, and took a million terrible photos.
Europe will never be the same.