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Snowy posted:It’s my gf’s birthday and I just now surprised her with a trip to Lisbon. It’s basically a surprise for me too because we’re leaving on Wednesday and this wasn’t planned out in the slightest. The Lisbon aquarium is marvellous, I wouldn't miss it. Lisbon is generally quite a pretty city to wander around, head for lunch/dinner down a cobbled street and on Praça do Comércio. We stayed at Neya Lisboa, but that was almost 10 years ago. It was easy to use the metro, so you could consider staying a little outside the city centre for better value for money.
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May 6, 2024 17:24
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| # ? May 8, 2024 20:33 |
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Recommendations for things to do in/around Barcelona, San Sebastian, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, and Paris over the next few weeks? We've got a few days in each.
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May 6, 2024 17:53
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Recommendations for things to do in/around Barcelona, San Sebastian, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, and Paris over the next few weeks? We've got a few days in each. With just generic info like "things to do" then just check Wikitravel, as those places will have good detail for generic tourist info. If you want more useful information, then what do you like to do? Have you been any of those places before? I know Paris quite well so if you have specific interests I can probably give more specific recommendations than "see the Eiffel tower, walk around the Marais, and go to the Louvre".
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May 6, 2024 19:22
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Recommendations for things to do in/around Barcelona. If you’ve ever thought to yourself “you know, I don’t need to pay money to go in that big church/building/museum that all the other tourists are doing, I can see it from the outside.” Just know that you absolutely need to go in and see La Sagrada. It is loving amazing.
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May 6, 2024 19:29
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Saladman posted:With just generic info like "things to do" then just check Wikitravel, as those places will have good detail for generic tourist info. I've never been to Europe. I've already looked up more stuff than I can possibly do, so I was just wondering if anyone here had some personal "must dos" around any of those places. We're hoping to do museums, shopping, food, architecture, history, hiking, biking, kayaking, caves, live music, art, festivals, other cultural things, trains, parks, gardens, fountains, etc. Elysium posted:If you’ve ever thought to yourself “you know, I don’t need to pay money to go in that big church/building/museum that all the other tourists are doing, I can see it from the outside.” Just know that you absolutely need to go in and see La Sagrada. It is loving amazing. Yeah... Barcelona is the first place we're flying into, and la segrada is already sold out for the time we're there. Does anyone know if it's still possible to buy tickets at the door? E: got lucky and found two tickets on ticketswap! Fitzy Fitz fucked around with this message at 00:20 on May 7, 2024 |
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May 6, 2024 23:00
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I've never been to Europe. I've already looked up more stuff than I can possibly do, so I was just wondering if anyone here had some personal "must dos" around any of those places. We're hoping to do museums, shopping, food, architecture, history, hiking, biking, kayaking, caves, live music, art, festivals, other cultural things, trains, parks, gardens, fountains, etc. Not trying to be a jerk with asking "give some more details", it's just that "must dos" vary enormously from person to person. e.g. most "top 10 things to do in [big European city]" lists are personally not my vibe, since I don't like huge crowds and have little interest in European art pre-1850, and zero interest in sculpture. So on that line, I vastly prefer the palace of Fontainebleau to Versailles, and much prefer the Museum of Anthropology (Quai Branly) to the Louvre. So, my must sees are very different from people who love crowds and who love traditional European art. Despite that, I do really like Sacre Coeur because it has a great view of the city, and the metro station to get there (Abbesses) is famously bizarre -- it is a spiral staircase of what must be like 7 uninterrupted flights to get out of the metro (e: apparently 176 steps), so there are always old people struggling on the stairs, or people waiting for 5+ minutes to take the one tiny elevator. Paris is extremely bike-able now, with lots of separated bike lanes. Their mayor has been going on a jihad against cars, which is generally great. We rented e-bikes and went around a couple months ago, and I was surprised at how extremely pleasant it was. We're going back this week by car, which will be less pleasant, but we have to pick something heavy up. You can even do kayak tours near Paris now, particularl this one in Crecy la Chapelle looks cool to me and we're thinking about doing this weekend : https://locadventure.com . I notice their website is only in French, but English is very widely spoken in Paris. I speak French but occasionally in the past few years I've even come across people working service jobs who address us in English (even when we're speaking French between one-another), sometimes who don't even speak French at all. Menus, etc, are almost ubiquitously in English. If you're into bouldering at all, that's the same Fontainebleau that's the bouldering Mecca as where the famous chateau is. For any sort of artistic niche you have, there is inevitably going to be a world class museum for that. Me, I like photography and contemporary art, and they have that in spades. The Institut du Monde Arabe usually runs extremely good contemporary art exhibits (e.g. right now: https://www.imarabe.org/fr/expositions ). The Centre Pompidou does good art exhibits as well, although it usually focuses on modern art (which is an increasingly misleading and out of date term...) rather than contemporary art. Avoid the Latin Quarter for food - it is on lists of "must see" in Paris for its boutiques and restaurants... but those lists are like 30+ years out of date. Now every boutique is a fridge magnet and novelty t-shirt store, and the restaurants all sell reheated chicken nuggets for €20 a plate. There's still some amazing stuff there like the Pantheon, just avoid the shops and restaurants. For anything that is even remotely famous: you need to book in advance, at least one day. Don't show up to any museum that is even vaguely remotely famous, and expect to get tickets on the same day. Maybe you can - and maybe you can with a two hour queue - or maybe you can't. Anyway, decide the day before. Same warning for food if you care about restaurants -- a large number of restaurants will book up a day or two (or even more) in advance. You can always get something decent to eat, but if you want something particular, then book in advance.
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May 7, 2024 16:12
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The queue for the Louvre isn't bad if you get there right when it opens. Because everybody goes there - eat in advance of going to the Eiffel tower because there's not much good around there.
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May 7, 2024 16:25
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As an art fan, I love the Louvre, but my big tips are: buy your ticket in advance and use the underground entrance in the Carrousel du Louvre as early as possible. It opens, I believe, at 9am. This is the entrance connected to the metro station via a series of underground passageways through a supposedly fancy shopping mall (it's not that fancy, despite what some want you to think), right by the inverted glass pyramid. Don't take any big bags or anything that might need to be checked, because you go through airport-styled security when you enter. You can usually get to the top floor of the Denon Wing, which is where the Italian Renaissance art (including the Mona Lisa) is, fairly quickly this way, before the crowds get too stupid. I strongly recommend looking at a map and picking out a few things you really want to see in advance. The Louvre is massive. I've been there two or three times and I've still not seen everything. Personally, I'm a fan of the Northern European stuff at the top of the Richielieu Wing - Vermeer's Lacemaker is here, and it's usually very quiet compared to the Denon Wing. Also, renovations are STILL going on at the Louvre, so certain galleries are closed on certain days. These are depicted on the website too, along with various other maps. Make sure something you really want to see isn't closed off when you go!
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May 7, 2024 17:21
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Rick Steves has a good tour of the Louvre that I really enjoyed. (https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/audio/audio-tours/paris)
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May 7, 2024 17:31
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How long are you in Barcelona? Don't want to recommend something you don't have time for. Glad you got Sagrada tickets.
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May 7, 2024 17:54
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| # ? May 8, 2024 20:33 |
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Hedgehog Pie posted:As an art fan, I love the Louvre, but my big tips are: buy your ticket in advance and use the underground entrance in the Carrousel du Louvre as early as possible. It opens, I believe, at 9am. This is the entrance connected to the metro station via a series of underground passageways through a supposedly fancy shopping mall (it's not that fancy, despite what some want you to think), right by the inverted glass pyramid. Don't take any big bags or anything that might need to be checked, because you go through airport-styled security when you enter. You can usually get to the top floor of the Denon Wing, which is where the Italian Renaissance art (including the Mona Lisa) is, fairly quickly this way, before the crowds get too stupid. Based on multiple visits to the Louvre, this is exactly how to do it. In particular, doing your homework ahead of time and picking the one or two exhibits you want to see. I'm also a big fan (or was, anyway) of just getting the museum pass you can buy at any of the publicly-owned museums, you used to be able to skip all the lines and just flash your pass but I haven't been to Paris in probably 8 years and don't know if that's still a thing. The trick was to buy at the Orangerie since that was likely to be the least-crowded of the museums you could buy the pass at so no line to purchase it.
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May 7, 2024 17:58
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