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Make sure you eat a francesinha, it’s like somebody thought “hmm how I can make a croque monsieur less healthy” and it’s incredible. Don’t plan on eating for the rest of the day though! Check out the main station too, they have these gorgeous blue and white tiles mosaics in the main hall which are beautifully done.
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Jan 3, 2018 13:00
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I got my Iberian plans finalized, I'm going to visit/stay with my cousin who lives in Barcelona instead of the southern Spain thing. Any opinions on a good time allotment for Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon? Ignoring arrival and departure days, I basically have 12 days total to split between those three cities.
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Jan 5, 2018 05:51
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actionjackson posted:Any opinions on a good time allotment for Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon? Ignoring arrival and departure days, I basically have 12 days total to split between those three cities. I would say either 4-4-4 or 5-4-3 with a day trip from Madrid to Toledo or El Escorial.
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Jan 6, 2018 01:53
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MagicCube posted:I would say either 4-4-4 or 5-4-3 with a day trip from Madrid to Toledo or El Escorial. Thanks, I'll look up those two. Is Porto worth seeting in Portugal?
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Jan 6, 2018 02:14
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actionjackson posted:Thanks, I'll look up those two. Is Porto worth seeting in Portugal? Overall yes, but if you only have 12 days for those 3 cities I would say probably not on this trip.
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Jan 6, 2018 02:20
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actionjackson posted:Thanks, I'll look up those two. Is Porto worth seeting in Portugal? Frankly, I'd recommend Toledo about 1000x over El Escorial. El Escorial is not the sort of place I'd devote a day to in an already-crowded itinerary. But I suppose other people might well disagree with me.
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Jan 6, 2018 03:07
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I'm planning a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands for this May and I'm trying to figure out how I want to allot my time. I'm planning on flying in and out of Brussels, and seeing that city along with Ghent and Amsterdam over the course of a ~10 day trip. Any suggestions for how to split the days up?
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Jan 7, 2018 02:04
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John Wilkes Booth posted:I'm planning a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands for this May and I'm trying to figure out how I want to allot my time. I'm planning on flying in and out of Brussels, and seeing that city along with Ghent and Amsterdam over the course of a ~10 day trip. Any suggestions for how to split the days up? Brussels is kind of eh, I'd go to Bruges for sure though. I think Amsterdam has more to do than any city in Belgium so I would focus on that.
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Jan 7, 2018 05:23
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Brussels sucks. In Belgium, Ghent and Bruges are cool yeah. Perhaps Antwerp if you have no where else to go. In the Netherlands, Amsterdam, maybe Utrecht or something - and I'd at least spend some time exploring some touristy places in the Netherlands outside of the big cities. There's a bunch of nice old fortified towns, there are a couple of historical villages that are basically an open-air windmill museum, stuff like that. Also, half april till early may is tulip flowering season, if you're interested in that and visit the Netherlands early enough, you might want to go check out the fields.
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Jan 7, 2018 10:55
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Haarlem is very nice and quiet also. It's only 15 minutes by train from Amsterdam. For Brussels I would at least see the Grand-Place. Also right by that there's an atrium with some really nice retailers and pictures of all the historical flower carpets that have been done at the Grand-Place. I don't remember what it was called but here's a lovely picture I took 
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Jan 7, 2018 20:05
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I started following this forum before I'd ever been to Brussels, and after going there since, it's really not that bad. It's not that unique either, but it doesn't deserve its thread-given reputation as the Baghdad of Europe. I can't remember anything about Ghent either except that tower, and I think I've spent something like 3 days there. Edit: Turns out it's three towers of Ghent? Do you go up all of them? The only thing I remember about that city is going up towers, and it's only been like 5 years since I went there.
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Jan 7, 2018 20:34
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I stayed in Ghent but just has a base to visit some other cities. I only walked around the city itself for a day or so. I was right next to Gent-Sint-Pieters station which is pretty cool looking when it's dark out.
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Jan 7, 2018 20:39
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Going to Germany for 4 days. Will come into Frankfurt on 24th, spend day 1 there, next day do a tour of Heidlburg, then Berlin for a day and see Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, return the following morning for a wedding event in Frankfurt, then return on Sunday to US. Within Frankfurt and Berlin, any good recommendations for bars and restaurants? I'll check elsewhere too but just curious.
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Jan 7, 2018 21:18
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I had a great steak in Frankfurt here and it wasn't too expensive. http://www.restaurant-buenos-aires.de/ As a heads up, bars and restaurants in Frankfurt are cramped. I was always touching elbows with the people next table. Supposedly it's because of very high rents so they cram as many tables as they can.
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Jan 7, 2018 21:28
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Brussels is okay for a day, but I wouldn’t prioritise it over places nearby. In Netherlands, consider checking out Edam which is a beautiful little town. We stayed on a houseboat 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam and loved it. Kinderdijk is a great spot to see windmills, it’s a short ferry ride from Rotterdam which is an underrated city.
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Jan 7, 2018 23:05
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Ghent was my favorite city in Belgium. It had a beautiful and walkable medieval center, but wasn't overrun with tourists in the same way Bruges was. Brussels was okay, but it felt very sanitized. I recommend going over to the Cantillion brewery. For as much as everyone hypes it up, you expect it to be some sort of uber-commercialized tourist trap, but it really wasn't.
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Jan 8, 2018 02:59
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Gatts posted:Going to Germany for 4 days. Will come into Frankfurt on 24th, spend day 1 there, next day do a tour of Heidlburg, then Berlin for a day and see Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, return the following morning for a wedding event in Frankfurt, then return on Sunday to US.
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Jan 8, 2018 11:24
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You're going to be sorely disappointed if all you see in Berlin during your 1 day there is the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie. Skip Checkpoint Charlie altogether imo.
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Jan 8, 2018 11:51
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Skip Brussels and Ghent and go to Antwerp imho
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Jan 8, 2018 16:21
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Yeah Checkpoint Charlie is a tourist trap now, unfortunately. We went past it on a walking tour without stopping and that was plenty of time. I'd say skip it as well. The Reichstag Dome is a must-do, though, and is close to the Brandenburg Gate.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:52
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If you're at the Brandenburg Gate / Reichstag building, definitely also go to the Holocaust Memorial. It's right behind the American embassy (which is to the left of the Brandenburg Gate as you're looking at it from Unter den Linden ... it looks like a fortress, you can't miss it).
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Jan 8, 2018 20:29
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I got to walk through the Holocaust memorial at night in the fog and it was very unsettling. The Jewish museum in Berlin was really moving as well.
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Jan 8, 2018 21:08
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Grillfiend posted:Skip Brussels and Ghent and go to Antwerp imho skip Bad City Brussels and go to Average City Antwerp, definitely do visit Good City Ghent
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Jan 8, 2018 22:44
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My Lovely Horse posted:What's your travel schedule on that? I feel like it's perfectly doable, but, let's say, ambitious. Heidelberg/Berlin is a five hour train ride, for example, and if it was up to me I'd probably rather do that in the afternoon of day 2 (Heidelberg is not that big). I recognize I'm not able to stay long in Berlin, which is unfortunate. But thank you all for your suggestions on avoiding Checkpoint Charlie, it would be unfortunate since it is a historic place. I'm welcome to any other suggestions. In Frankfurt on the 24th the afternoon will be shopping and evening will be bar-restaurant. On the 25th I will go out to Heidelberg and while I wanted to see a castle the weather if it snows may not allow it. On the 26th in morning I will fly to Berlin and get there by like 8:30, had planned to spend morning and afternoon seeing some city sights like the Gate and the Holocaust Museum and evening the nightlife. 27th morning will fly back to Frankfurt and in the evening will have to go to a wedding. The 28th I return.
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Jan 8, 2018 23:59
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Trust me, there is very little historic about Checkpoint Charlie these days. The guardhouse is not original for one thing, and the surrounding area is absolutely a tourist trap (souvenir shops, KFC, McD's, etc). If you've got a short amount of time in Berlin then I would absolutely say book the Reichstag Dome (it's free but you need to register in advance), see the Gate and the Holocaust Memorial, and maybe even (if there's time) check out one of the museums on Museum Island. Another option is to do one of the "free" (actually tip-based) walking tours to get a sense of the city. We did the Sandeman's tour which took about 2.5 hours and takes you around the Gate, the Holocaust Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, some of the surviving remnants of the Berlin wall, and many other important sites. While on the subject, I'll also plug the Berlin Craft Beer Experience tour which we really enjoyed, although you may want to be more flexible with such a small amount of time in the city: http://www.berlincraftbeerexperience.com/original-berlin-craft-beer-tour/
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Jan 9, 2018 08:33
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Checkpoint Charlie will be a huge disappointment. If you -really- must, you can breeze by it in about two minutes and see literally all there is to see. Pictures are better than the real thing, because nowadays it's literally just two people wearing unconvincing costumes standing in front of a fake little shack and holding flags. Brandenburg Gate and the surrounding area can occupy you for a fair bit. You'll get the Gate itself, the Reichstag is a three minute walk away, as is the Holocaust Memorial. You can also walk through Tiergarten, but since it's January I'm not really sure how nice that will be. There are also a few monuments on Straße des 17. Juni (the big street going from the Brandenburg Gate toward the victory column) that are neat to see -- just beware that it's a long-rear end walk -- as well as Schloss Bellevue (the residential palace of the president of Germany). In the opposite direction from the Brandenburg Gate is Unter den Linden, a famous boulevard down the middle of Berlin and home to a bunch of embassies and hotels. The Russian embassy is a really cool building and worth a look if you like architecture. Just off of Unter den Linden is a crap-ton of shopping and food on Friedrichstraße. You can also walk to Museum Island from there, or over towards the Fernsehturm (the bigass TV tower) and the Rotes Rathaus (the Berlin City Hall). The Berlin Cathedral is near there as well. Hackescher Markt is a pretty great little shopping/food/nightlife area right next to that. Berlin-Mitte is very walkable, just bring a comfortable pair of shoes. It's a shame you only have a day in Berlin though, otherwise I'd recommend shopping on Ku'damm or going to the Zoo.
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Jan 9, 2018 09:55
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Pergamon-Museum is one of the coolest things in Berlin imo. They actually have the entire loving gate of Babylon crammed in there somehow. Unfortunately it’s being renovated so you can see only half of the museum.
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Jan 9, 2018 10:40
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I haven’t been to Berlin in 10 years but I remember thinking the checkpoint Charlie museum was super interesting. Checkpoint Charlie itself is nothing though. Yeah Pergamon is amazing but too bad it’s half closed, including some of the better stuff. I hear the new Egyptian museum is cool too? I went when it was still in the old museum and it totally blew but I’m sure it’s better now that it’s not in 1960s style — a bunch of small artifacts in glass cases under dim lighting with worthless labels saying like « XIV dynasty, statue of Horus ».
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Jan 9, 2018 11:26
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The absolute best thing about German museums like the Pergamon is how they all complain that "well we used to have these artifacts from Turkey but then those dirty Soviets stole them after World War 2 so you can't see them" with absolutely no sense of the irony.
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Jan 9, 2018 11:46
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I went to the museum of medical history a short while ago. Pretty loving morbid in parts, but very interesting, and definitely something you don't see in every city.
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Jan 9, 2018 11:56
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My dad was absolutely flabbergasted at Checkpoint Charlie - “it wasn’t like this in 1976!”
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Jan 9, 2018 11:57
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webmeister posted:My dad was absolutely flabbergasted at Checkpoint Charlie - “it wasn’t like this in 1976!” My mom had to sneak the film she'd used to take pictures inside East Germany when she went back to West Berlin in the 70s as well. She went through checkpoint Bravo, not Charlie though.
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Jan 9, 2018 12:02
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My Lovely Horse posted:I went to the museum of medical history a short while ago. Pretty loving morbid in parts, but very interesting, and definitely something you don't see in every city. There's actually surprisingly many of those around the world. My girlfriend loves all kinds of medical ailments and goes to all of those museums and sends people postcards with pictures of pickled siamese twins and cancerous pancreas on them
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Jan 9, 2018 12:12
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Ras Het posted:There's actually surprisingly many of those around the world. My girlfriend loves all kinds of medical ailments and goes to all of those museums and sends people postcards with pictures of pickled siamese twins and cancerous pancreas on them
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Jan 9, 2018 14:20
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Thank you everyone. I appreciate the information.
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Jan 10, 2018 01:58
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I'll have about three days in Edinburgh in June, and I'm wondering if my time would best be spent exploring the city or venturing out, like on a day tour somewhere. I'd love to see the countryside someday but time is short, and I hear the city is fantastic. Any particular part of town that puts me more in the middle of things? Food, drink, sights? jackpot fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Jan 11, 2018 |
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Jan 11, 2018 16:27
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Go up Arthur's Seat, that's a nice countryside fix for the time constrained tourist. And old town has plenty of sights but you weren't going to give that a miss anyway.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:59
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Yeah the nice thing is the conference is at Dynamic Earth, which backs up directly against Arthur's Seat. And so to be close we'll most likely be staying in Old Town, which looks great.
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Jan 12, 2018 20:35
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I'm traveling to Barcelona from the US the first week in February and looking for suggestions on things in and near the city. I like trying new foods and interesting restaurants. Any suggestions here would be welcome. Art museums, I see Picasso and Miro are featured, anything else not obvious but worth visiting? Is there anything easy to get to and worth seeing outside the city? Also tips on getting tickets to a game at Camp Nou? The tickets available on the FC Barcelona site currently are just single seats and I'm trying to get two seats next to each other. FACKER fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jan 12, 2018 |
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Jan 12, 2018 21:10
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I enjoyed La Paradeta, a simple restaurant with exotic (at least for me) seafood. Not expensive and very popular. When I was there a queue formed 15 minutes before it opened.
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Jan 13, 2018 15:03
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