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quote:We mainly need recommendations for what to do on the free day in Paris, what to do in Munich for a day, and most importantly what to do in Vienna for our three free days. Paris is tough on just one day. Do you have a particular reason that you need to see Versailles? Schloss Schonbrunnn in Vienna is pretty much comparable to Versailles, is far less busy, and is in Vienna, which is much more easily done in 3 days than paris in one. If you have one day in Paris, I'd personally do the following: 1. See the Eiffel tower, as you mentioned. 2. Walk along the banks of the Siene. 3. Go see the (outside of) the Louvre, and walk down the Jardin de Tuileries and the Champs-Elysees 4. Maybe Notre-Dame if you have time? That's a pretty massively abridged version of Paris, but it will hit the major points of interest. You can probably even go up the Eiffel Tower or into Notre Dame if you're interested, but the Louvre is right out for a 1-day trip. If you do have a second day, Montmatre is the obvious choice. You'll be in tourist central the whole time, so expect to pay ridiculous sums for so-so food. Regarding Vienna, you can easily spend your first day just wandering the downtown. The palaces are gorgeous, the church is worth a visit, the opera house is worth seeing, great parks, etc. Use your first day to wander and figure out what you'd like to do for the remainder. As I mentioned, Schloss Schonbrunn is outside of the downtown, but much closer than Versailles is to Paris, and is pretty much just as opulent and over the top. If you do have time to venture a bit out of the city, the abbey in Melk is really fantastic and completely worth seeing, and that area is great for Heurigers - basically tiny little wine bars with amazing little meats and other cold things served with the wine. quote:Also, can we get away with a good coat and regular pants, or should we have long underwear on underneath? We're trying to keep our packing to a carry-on and personal bag each, so recommendations on essential clothing would be really great. If you're relatively accustomed to cold, I wouldn't worry too much. Europe doesn't tend to get really extreme weather. I'd count on it being maybe 0 to -10 around January. enki42 fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jun 24, 2010 |
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Jun 23, 2010 12:02
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FakeHipster posted:I'm going to Europe for the month of July. For the first two weeks I'll be working at a farm in Normandy, for the second two weeks I'll be working in a farm in Ireland. I did nearly the exact same thing in reverse, and there was really no way to get combinations of buses, ferrys and trains working to be quite as cheap as a flight. If you book ahead a ticket to Paris from Normandy should be pretty cheap.
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Jun 23, 2010 12:03
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aga. posted:Wherever you go check out any free bike/walking tours. The guides are usually great, they are time efficient and show you places to explore further later on and you can ask the guides anything during or afterwards. To add to this, in terms of specific operators, I've never really had a bad New Europe tour. They're in most of the major cities, and the guides are really good. Obviously "free" means that you should be tipping - I've talked to a couple of guides and they actually pay the company per person on their tour - meaning that if you don't tip at all, you're actually costing them money.
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Jun 25, 2010 13:32
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Fair enough. I would devote one whole day to Versailles, and try to get there early. Actually, one thing that might make sense is to do the Louvre / Champs Elysees area on the first day, and then you can see the Eiffel Tower on your way home from Versailles, which should be about dusk if you toured the facilities.
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Jun 27, 2010 14:25
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Riven posted:Speaking of Versailles...how do we get there? Are there shuttles? Taxi? We're just getting into day-to-day planning and I hadn't looked into that yet. You can use the metro system. There's two types of trains - the local metro that covers the core of Paris, and a suburban-rail sort of system. The suburban rail system connects to Versailles, it's really fairly straightforward.
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Jun 29, 2010 12:38
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quote:DarkCrawler posted: That particular itinerary does look to be more suited to flights than trains, with the exception of Berlin - Amsterdam. The budget airport serving Amsterdam is HUGELY outside of the city, and I'd be shocked if you actually managed to save money with a flight. Outside of that, I'd really recommend the ferry from Amsterdam to London - it's probably not hugely cheaper than a flight from Amsterdam to London, but with that flight you're paying a huge amount in both Amsterdam and London to get to the airport, and it's actually a really nice chill experience. Good stuff in Berlin: 1. The New Europe tour: Seriously the best tour they put on. It's only a few hours, and gives you an excellent introduction to the major sites of the city. I strongly recommend going on it. 2. Sunday flea markets and brunch: A really nice way to spend a Sunday in Berlin, and gives you a pretty good feel for the city. A good one to check out is in the Mauerpark in Prenzlauer Berg. After checking out the market, find a nice brunch place. Brunch is usually a buffet style deal in Berlin, and it'll be easy to find places around there to have it. 3. Story of Berlin: This is actually a really cool museum on the Ku'damm. It's low on actual artifacts, but really well designed and tells a great story of the history of Berlin (example - you descend downstairs at the point of the Third Reich gaining power, and each set of stairs has the same picture of Jewish Berlin citizens, which with every flight has more and more stamped with "Deported", "Exterminated", etc. 4. East side Gallery: The largest intact section of the Berlin wall, and the only one worth seeing. It's not well advertised, but you can get to it from the Warschauer strasse U and S-bahn stations. That area is really cool and worth checking out anyways, so it's worth a visit. 5. Tacheles - Basically an old department store occupied by squatters after the wall fell, and converted into an art performance space, studios, and a bunch of cafes and bars. It's probably considered slightly touristy, but it's very Berlin, and I've never failed to have a good time there. 6. Museuminsel: If you're a museum type of person, you're well serviced by Berlin, particularly the Pergamon. If museums aren't your thing it's by no means an essential though. 7. Potsdam: Probably only worth it if you're in town for more than a few days, but it's a really nice place to rent a bike and tour around on a lazy day.
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Jul 7, 2010 10:32
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NoSpoon posted:What you've said is basically what I was thinking - was just worried I'd totally miss the real Spain (eg if you come to New Zealand and spend some time in Auckland and some in Wellington you're kinda missing the point). Barca and Madrid are really not all that bad for a rough idea of Spain. Normally I'd say Granada is a must-see, but I'd much rather spend 3 days in each of Madrid and Barcelona than try to split it 3 ways. Anything between Barcelona and Madrid is definitely not worth it given your schedule. Valencia is nice, but not worth giving up a day on an already rushed schedule.
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Jul 20, 2010 12:16
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Regarding minimizing transaction fees while in Europe, it's worth checking if your bank has some sort of uber-elite account with no foreign transaction fees that you can switch over to if you're on a particularly long trip. My bank had one for about $20 / month, still better than paying fees constantly, and on top of that even the fees were waived if you had more than $8000 in the account (which was true for a good chunk of the trip)
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Aug 13, 2010 14:43
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Honestly, even Vienna isn't really all that fantastic unless you have a specific reason for going there. It's nice, sure, but if you have 10 days I guarantee you'd have way more fun with Berlin - Prague - Munich.
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Aug 18, 2010 00:07
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OTOH, wireless connections in hostels are fairly ubiquitous. I wouldn't expect to find random open wireless connections during the day, but it shouldn't be too hard to find hostels with free wireless. If you go to hostelworld.com, they'll usually list what internet options they have.
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Aug 22, 2010 12:41
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You could probably shave a day off Frankfurt and not really miss that much. Frankfurt is nice enough, but really only worth a day or so, and certainly doesn't hold up to Vienna or Prague. That being said, I personally think that Vienna can be a little ho-hum if you're not particularly into history, museums, or over-the-top Baroque architecture. Schloss Schonnbrunn is worth seeing, although I'd choose one of either Versailles or Schonnbrunn. The christmas markets will be in Vienna though, so that's definitely worth seeing. I'd also recommend an extra day in Berlin, although I'm not sure where I'd steal it from. Is Hamburg there for any particular reason? I wouldn't usually consider it a must-do compared to the rest of your itinerary. Finally, this would require some serious rejigging, but it might be pretty cool to be in Austria or Bavaria on St. Nicolas day (Dec 6th) - basically germanic christmas - Berlin probably won't be the best place to experience all the Christmas stuff. enki42 fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Aug 26, 2010 |
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Aug 26, 2010 04:09
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If you're into local culture stuff and do have some time to spend, there's a ton of small towns around Vienna (really near Melk) that are totally worth a stop. The monastery in Melk is fantastic, and that area is really great for nice little authentic Austrian restaurants and Heuringers (basically Austrian wine bars that sell small little plates of amazing stuff to go with the wine)
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Aug 26, 2010 11:49
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25 is probably the ideal age, but you can have a ton of fun at really any age over say 18 or so. I traveled for a year at 28 / 29, and never really felt out of place or too old. The fact that your Eurail passes are first class if you're not a youth is a nice perk as well.
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Aug 31, 2010 16:12
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Mackieman posted:I'm going to Salzburg for MLK weekend 2011, and I cannot figure out the trains. I am flying into MUC and plan to take a train from MUC to Salzburg, but when I attempt to use bahn.de I am told that'll be $120 US round trip. That actually sounds about right. Keep in mind you're crossing a border, so a lot of the really good deals aren't going to be relevant for you. There's a really good deal in Austria where you can get unlimited travel on regional (slow) trains for 27 Euro for up to 5 people outside of rush hours, but that wouldn't really help you for a Munich to Salzburg trip, particularly if you're on your own.
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Sep 3, 2010 03:34
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Cheesemaster200 posted:So I am flying to Vienna in 3 hours, anyone have any suggestions of places to see and eat at? How about nightlife? If you're in Vienna for more than a little bit, do yourself a favour and take a day-trip to Melk. The monastery is pretty awesome, and Heuringers (basically Viennese wine bars with all sorts of awesome little snacks to go along with your drinks) are amazing so long as you're outside of the fakey ones in Vienna proper.
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Sep 9, 2010 21:54
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Fists Up posted:Other than Madrid and Barcelona what are some good places to see in Spain? Granada is probably my favorite part of Spain. They do the tapas thing to a ridiculous degree there, and you can pretty much live off 2 Euro beers, the Alhambra is incredible, and the whole place has a really nice chilled out vibe. Valencia is nice as well. I didn't have an absolute blast in Seville, but that might have just been travel burnout.
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Oct 1, 2010 12:00
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Regarding overstaying your visa, the risk is really quite small. As others have mentioned, checking exact durations of stay is fairly rare in most European countries, and checks between Schengen countries should be non-existent (some countries do have a habit of doing "random" checks around borders though, which they really aren't supposed to do). One thing I have heard multiple times however is that border crossings with Turkey tend to be far more controlled than typical crossings. Switzerland I'd also consider a risk. Really your best bet, if you're set on overstaying, is to remain in the Schengen zone until you're ready to leave it for good.
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Nov 4, 2010 19:37
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I did hear about more people getting their wallets stolen in Barcelona than anywhere else, but without exception the poeple in question were passed out drunk when it happened. If you're planning to go out drinking, I'd recommend making some friends in the hostel to go with first. If you're sober and halfway alert, I think you'd be fine though. I would really recommend a hostel if you're going by yourself. Barcelona in particular has one of the best hostels I've stayed at - Sant Jordi, just north of the Old town. It's well equipped, and for whatever reason always has a ton going on - you could find people to do things with pretty much anytime if you wanted to, but the rooms are seperated enough that you won't be kept awake by partiers. Off the strip in Vegas is a million times sketchier than any part of Barcelona that a tourist is likely to be in.
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Nov 6, 2010 13:19
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You really should book hostels in advance, but if you're not going during the absolute peak season, keep in mind that "in advance" can mean "1-2 days before". It's nice to have some flexibility if you decide to stay somewhere longer, and I've rarely ran into problems with booking a day or two before (Worst case we ran into was needing to stay at a still OK hostel that was a bit out of town)
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Nov 13, 2010 12:27
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One thing to keep in mind with the Eurostar between London and Paris is that it's probably the best example around of being worth booking in advance - if you do it well in advance it's competitive with the cheapest plane fares, but it can kill you if you get a last-minute ticket. London and Paris both have really good free walking tours done by New Europe - they're only a few hours each and they're geared mostly towards a brief intro to a city, but they give a pretty good overview and you can spend the next couple of days visiting all the interesting places you breezed past on the tour. "Free" in this context means that they run off tips, but it still comes in much cheaper than your other options (generally we usually gave about 5 euros per person, and the guides seemed happy enough with this)
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Nov 15, 2010 16:01
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Seconding the Christmas markets. We did Vienna and Salzburg around Sinterklaas and it's probably the perfect time to visit those cities. It's cold, sure, but there's a ton of stuff going on and the cities feel a lot more alive. With 13 days I'd recommend doing Vienna for 3, Salzburg for 3, and maybe Munich for a bit.
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Nov 16, 2010 19:32
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The only place I've heard could potentially have some issues is Berlin outside of the Ring (there's a large ring that the S-Bahns travel around) could be trouble if you look "punk" - but I lived there for a couple of months and didn't experience anything like that, and besides, there's zero reason to go outside of the ring as a tourist.quote:Yeah I saw a video on munich recently and it said the park is clothing optional? I thought they were exaggerating as the idea of an entire urban park being nudist friendly is almost unthinkable. Maybe it's a general German thing? I do know I saw a surprising amount of naked old people in the Tiergarten in Berlin (not TONS, I'd be surprised if you ran into one visiting once, but if you're there daily for a month you'll probably run into a couple) Regarding Christmas markets, Nuremburg is the typical choice for that, but honestly you can get pretty much the same experience in Vienna (which has multiple really excellent Christmas markets). I wouldn't be surprised to hear Munich has a good one too, but I wasn't there around Christmas. Personally, my experience regarding hostels in the winter was that they were far less busy, and outside of the absolute top-ranked must-go places it was pretty easy to book same day or one day in advance. If you're picky about your particular hostel it's probably worth planning in advance, but otherwise it may make sense to keep flexibility in your schedule and book the day before you leave for your next city. We got burned exactly once for this - for a hostel that holds rooms for people scheduled to check out that day in case they want to stay longer - and even then, we got into a place a block away that was still insanely well reviewed without issue (and IIRC, that was on St. Nicholas day, which would be the biggest "Christmas" day in Germany / Austria) enki42 fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Nov 28, 2010 |
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Nov 28, 2010 02:49
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One thing I've found when travelling solo is that your choice of hostel makes a much bigger difference on how much you'll enjoy a place. If you're with friends, and your hostel is the quiet type of place that everyone just uses as a place to sleep, it's not really that big a deal. If you're relying on your hostel to have a place to meet and chat with people, it can make for a pretty boring night. You definitely want to err on the side of "party hostel", even if you're not looking to get shitfaced with Australian teenagers every night. Because typically even the biggest party hostels will have a lot more friendly chill, non-crazy drinkers than the HI-type places. If you're going for 2 months, you should definitely not fix your schedule in pretty much any way. Book hostels the day before you leave the city you're currently in. Flexibility is probably worth some hassle / cost, particularly if you're alone.
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Nov 30, 2010 13:31
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Berlin is a minimum of 2 full days, I'd say, but you can easily fill a week or even multiple weeks. A basic tour of Prague can be done in a day, and you wouldn't miss all that much, but again, you'd probably want to spend longer. I'd imagine after 3 days or so you'd exhaust touristy stuff to do (it's still a great party city though) Budapest is somewhat similar to Prague - possible in a day, best to give it a couple days. On the night before your last day, get far too drunk and spend your last day in the baths recovering, it was probably one of the most relaxing days we had.
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Dec 4, 2010 03:31
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If you can make them weekend trips anyway, you might just want to cut out Dublin. It can be a pain to get to, and your time would probably better be spent with extra time in London or in somewhere else in central europe. New Europe is excellent, and you should go on their free tour the first day that you're in a city. It comes out cheap too, 5 euros seems to be the standard rate to tip the operator (make sure you do tip them or else they actually lose money on a tour - they have to pay a euro or two per head). I would imagine all of the hostel "recommendations" on their flyers are just paid ads - hostelworld is a much better resource.
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Dec 13, 2010 23:02
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hankor posted:I´d avoid the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe if I were you, while it´s impressive it´s also a failure. After it was finished some handicapped people in wheelchairs sued them because it was too narrow for them (which is the whole idea) and after that was over the whole thing was in danger of breaking down because they used lovely concrete. I don't know if it's necessarily worth avoiding. It's good to have some background on the controvery surrounding it, but at the very least it's extremely simple to visit and free. It's worth visiting if only to form your own opinions on the controversy. Other things worth checking out in Berlin:
As another "since you are interested in castles" tip - if you're into Baroque palaces, you really can't do much better than Potsdam, which is a really easy daytrip from Berlin (you can get there from the S-Bahn for a few euros). Rent a bike, get a picnic lunch and ride around the amazing park and see some of the palaces. Technically I think you're not supposed to cycle through a good deal of the park but virtually everyone was last time I went.
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Jan 10, 2011 21:54
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Comlink posted:nearly everything i've read suggests the same. oh well. It probably doesn't help that it's close enough to Vienna to make staying there pale in comparison unless you're absolutely 100% sick of Vienna (and I don't even particularly like Vienna). If you had to do a quick day trip in that area, I'd head out to Melk instead, check out the amazing monastery, and chill out in a Heuringer (which are absolutely 100% not worth it in Vienna proper but absolutely amazing near Melk and anywhere along the Donau)
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Jan 10, 2011 21:59
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Some other random Berlin areas to check out for a tourist: 1. Oranienburger strasse is a pretty decent place to wander around and find a couple of cool bars or shops - it's considered a little touristy, but there's a good number of interesting little places. Tacheles is an interesting place to stop by for a drink - it's completely covered in graffiti, with some artists shops in the building, and a few different bars. Very berlinish. 2. If you're there on a Sunday, absolutely check out one of the many flea markets in the city, and find a good brunch place afterwards. Brunch on Sundays in berlin usually consists of ridiculously nice buffets. For a first time, I'd go to Mauerpark on a Sunday and either find a random restaurant serving brunch (it's in Prenzlauer Berg, so there's millions of places) or check out a place just across from the Mauerpark called kauf dich glücklich (rough translation: buy yourself happiness).
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Jan 11, 2011 20:09
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ChadBroChill17 posted:I appreciate the way that the different culture/art/architecture combine to create a completely foreign environment for me to explore. I thought Paris was absolutely beautiful. It wouldn't have been the same without all of the buildings, statues, and monuments. It's difficult for me, however, to get excited about looking at one individual piece of art, especially if it's just sitting in a museum. For this, you actually have a pretty good itinerary. All the cities you mention have a pretty unique feel to them. On top of that, there's not really many in your list outside of perhaps Berlin that absolutely demand more than a few days. Venice, Dresden and Salzburg honestly don't have much more than a couple of days worth of stuff to see. Florence is only worth an extended trip if you're an art buff. Prague is fun, but you can spend a couple days without really feeling like you've missed a ton.
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Jan 14, 2011 12:39
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I was actually in Vienna, Salzburg and Berlin a couple years back right around Christmas and it was completely fine - you shouldn't go expecting warm weather of course, but virtually everything is open and tourist crowds are pretty much non-existent. To be honest, I had a better time in Vienna around Christmastime than I did during warmer times - the Christmas markets are very nice, and the only thing we really missed out on was the gardens at Schloss Schonbrunn. Spain is also a great option during colder months - you shouldn't expect to hang out on beaches or anything like that, but it's not busy and it's basically the equivalent of perfectly fine spring weather.
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Jan 25, 2011 19:19
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Boxhagnerplatz is definitely number two on my list of cool sunday flea markets. Did you get brunch? There's an awesome place near there called Intimes. And yeah, Spielewiese is one of my favorite places in Berlin, I can't believe I forgot to mention it. Glad you had a good time!
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Mar 16, 2011 12:02
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Umbriago posted:I'm going to camp and tramp around Tuscany for three weeks in July, and I'm definintely spending a good few nights in Florence and Siena. Where else should I stay, what else should I try and see? I'm interested in anything and everything, but in particular history. More "picturesque villages" than historical, but I've never met anyone who's been through Cinque Terre and not been absolutely blown away by it.
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Mar 21, 2011 11:11
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It really can't be overstated how sketchy and run-down Marseilles feels in comparison with the rest of Southern France. I was only there for a fairly short time, but it's just so much drearier than any other town around it. I'm sure the experience is better if you're there for a while and get more of a chance to explore. In the worst case, the surrounding region is absolutely beautiful down there, with lots of places to see in a relatively small area.
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Mar 28, 2011 12:21
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If you want cheap in Amsterdam, your best bet is to stay outside the city and take a train in. The commuter train system is pretty amazing, and you can get into the city from as far as like Eindhoven in an hour. It's obviously not ideal, but Amsterdam is a pricey place, probably one of the worst in Europe.
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Apr 1, 2011 10:56
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Oh, I didn't notice that he said hotel and not hostel. Yeah, if you're trying to find a hotel from for $90-120 pretty much anywhere in Holland you're going to have a tough time. That's even a fairly small budget for a hostel in Amsterdam, but I think dorm sleeping is the only way this is going to work for you.
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Apr 1, 2011 11:19
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NihilismNow posted:Eindhoven-Amsterdam is more like 90 minutes and costs €34 for a roundtrip. Might want to stick within a 30-40 kilometer radius of Amsterdam if you want sane travel costs and time. Maybe Schiphol or Utrecht, that's a pretty short train ride to Amsterdam. Yeah, I should have been clearer that I meant Eindhoven more as the "complete extreme" end of where you could stay and still visit Amsterdam, there's much saner options closer.
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Apr 2, 2011 17:58
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Generally I've found for bookings, the following rule of thumb works pretty well: If you're dead-set on staying in a particular hostel, book before you go on your trip. If you don't care about a particular hostel, but do want one of the higher-rated hostels in a city, book the day before you're going to arrive there. If you just want a place to sleep, you can find something the day of. The only real exception to this is really seasonal places, like the south of France in the summer or Ibiza or something. But for the most part, this has never really served me wrong.
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Apr 23, 2011 15:07
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Are you married to your partner? If she's a British citizen, you have pretty much no problems, you're guaranteed a residency permit in any country in the EU as the spouse of an EU citizen. Even without said residency permit, if you're accompanied by her on every border crossing you go through (important! don't split up, you should both go through the same line, even if there's an EU citizen / non-EU citizen line) the officials can only question or detain you if you're believed to be a threat to national security, and not for visa overstay issues. Secondly, obviously there's no guarantees, but saying you absolutely will be caught for overstaying a Schengen visa is a massive overstatement. People regularly overstay their visas and even work without getting caught. Your odds are actually quite good so long as you're not crossing Schengen boundaries often and not crossing any borders with a reputation for being tough, like Turkey -> Greece. I knew many, many people who lived and worked in Germany and regularly flew home to visit family, all for multiple years without a residency permit.
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May 13, 2011 12:11
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If you plan things well, a year trip can really only involve a couple of Schengen crossings. The schengen zone is pretty big. I only crossed it twice in a year in Europe.
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May 13, 2011 12:50
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The Atomic Man-Boy posted:She really likes art and architecture, so the Sagrada Família Church is the absolute must. After that maybe another architectural sight or two, but I would really like to spend a day off the beaten path, maybe see something that most tourists don't. Can any goons give me some recommendations for things to do? We rented scooters in Barcelona, and it was one of the more memorable days of a year long trip. Traffic can be a bit hectic, so if you're nervous about riding through busy streets it might not be for you, but it was an absolute blast - definitely check out the Sagrada familia, the Gaudi park, and the hill off to the side of the city that I can't remember the name of. If either of you are Dali fans, there's an amazing Dali museum actually designed by Dali about an hour north of Barcelona by train - it makes a great day trip.
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May 17, 2011 12:54
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