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Betazoid posted:I'll be in Amsterdam during the daytime in January for a few days by myself (husband is working). Goonrecs for must-do things? I'm going to walk on the canals and go to the Rijksmuseum to see the Rembrandts, but I'd like to hear what others have done that was really great. Thanks! I think I've done a bunch of Amsterdam recommendations in this thread so click on the question mark under my name and you should find something! e: Feeling helpful: Bollock Monkey posted:It depends what you like, but the Vondelpark is pleasant to wander around. The Tropenmuseum is my favourite museum in Europe, it's an anthropological museum with superb special exhibitions. Worth the ticket price just for those, in my opinion. Plus Kartika for rijsttafel. I hear Hap Hmm recommended a lot but have never been myself. Haarlem is a cute place and easy to get to on the train. Bollock Monkey fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2018 18:13
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Bollock Monkey posted:I think I've done a bunch of Amsterdam recommendations in this thread so click on the question mark under my name and you should find something! Amazing post! Thank you so much! It looks like a terrific country and we're really excited to go.
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Dec 27, 2018 17:29
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birds posted:I have two free days between Cinque Terre and Rome. Are there any lesser known towns or cities to see? I'm looking at an Albergo Diffuso in Tuscany but just wondering if there's anything else to consider. Maybe San Marino? Although I don't know if it's worth two nights. I've been to Florence, my partner hasn't but we're going to skip it since I was just there recently. If you're in to wine at all Montepulciano and Montalcino are both amazing, and way less touristy than Siena. We did one night in Montepulciano wish we'd done two.
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Dec 27, 2018 18:19
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I'm going to Berlin next week and I'll be at walking distance from the Tiergarten. Outside of the mandatory visits to the Brandeburg gate, the Reichstag, check point Charlie and the Treptow Soviet memorial, what other historical landmarks can i visit? Won't be staying for much time so I want to focus on visiting the city itself. Any museum recomendations?
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Jan 1, 2019 20:22
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Mans posted:I'm going to Berlin next week and I'll be at walking distance from the Tiergarten. The Pergamon is pretty cool and unique. I haven't been to the Egyptian museum since it moved, so maybe also that? I haven't been since it moved; when I went it was a bunch of dusty artifacts with "XVII Dynasty, 1850-1800 BC" written on placards next to them in gothic German font.
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Jan 1, 2019 21:44
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The best part about Berlin museums is the signcards complaining that 'we used to have more similar [ancient Egyptian/Turkish/other country's object] but the Soviets stole them after WWII those dirty bastards" without any sense of irony.
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Jan 2, 2019 00:18
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Mans posted:I'm going to Berlin next week and I'll be at walking distance from the Tiergarten. You can skip Checkpoint Charlie.
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Jan 2, 2019 11:34
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Mans posted:I'm going to Berlin next week and I'll be at walking distance from the Tiergarten. Checkpoint charlie is poo poo, don't bother. I'd check out the open air wall museum on the north side of town instead, if thats all you have time for. If you are at the Brandenburg gate then its just a few metro stops away. Withing walking distance of the gate is a memorial to the jews of WW2 which has a pretty great museum underneath it, Europe is full of memorials for the crimes of the nazis but I think this one is one of the better ones. It's not fun but it's very much worth it. Listen to the recordings on the phones at the end. Pretty close also is the site of the fuhrerbunker where Hitler and a few of the big name nazis died, though there purposely isn't much to see there. If you don't want a somber trip, the pergammon museum, cathedral, and egypt museum on museum island are also near the gate and are very good. The Cathedral is a pretty modern one as far as Cathedrals go, and imo it was the more interesting ones I went to. It's pretty different from the rest, it's like a palace, it's pretty regal, and a very different style. I went around the roof, which is definitely worth it, and there's a display about people working on the cathedral with MEN AT WORK stenciled onto the wall, which got the start of Land Down Under stuck in my head. I was by myself up there and was whistling it the whole way down the stairs, I kinda loudly sung the drums at the start as I walked through the door at the bottom which is where I learned the tour ends in a tomb, that had a big tour group in it. A+ experience underage at the vape shop fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 12:12
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Alternately if you want to ramp up the somberness of your visit, there's the Holocaust memorial/museum which is guaranteed to (a) put a damper on your day, and/or (b) make you an angry old grandpa/grandma because there's a tour group of teenagers loving around and being loud.
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Jan 2, 2019 12:38
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You can also do stuff like: - Berliner Unterwelten, guided tours through subterranean facilities like old nuclear bunkers or a flak tower (which I suppose isn't technically subterranean) - the Spy Museum which isn't quite as touristy inside as it comes across on the website, and actually quite interesting - Museum of Video Games if that's your thing - the Museum of Communication is always pretty interesting and has nice special exhibits - the Museum of Magic - quite special interest and it's a pretty small exhibit, but it's interesting to visit (and it's about real life mysticism and history, only a little about stage magic - I used to wonder about that all the time before I went in and had a look) - the Ramones Museum, as long as we're talking special interest. Like the video games museum not a must see for any Berlin visitor but if you like the Ramones then obviously you're gonna want to go.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:17
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The DDR museum is fun
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Jan 2, 2019 15:46
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I started to quote you all and then i realized i would be making a megapost, thank you all so much for your help! The Pergamon is definitely on my wishlist now. I'm only staying for four days so maybe i don't want to spend half a week doing an exclusively Holocaust memorial trip otherwise I'd be way too bummed to come back, but i'll definitely visit the memorial near the park since it seems very powerful and basically next to where I was planning to go. I wonder, why is Checkpoint Charlie poo poo? seems like a place to take a photo before moving on. Is it too crowded all the time? I think i'll have the majority of my trip inside Museum Island, it seems amazing. What do you mean there's a Vidja Game museum in Berlin???
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Jan 2, 2019 22:44
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Checkpoint Charlie is super touristy, overcrowded, and has basically nothing remotely resembling authenticity anymore. It's basically Berlin Disneyland, complete with paying "soldiers" 5E or whatever to take a photo with them. But yeah Museum Island is awesome.
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Jan 2, 2019 23:16
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Mans posted:What do you mean there's a Vidja Game museum in Berlin??? It's unrelated but I went to the video game museum in Zwolle, a city in the Netherlands. It used to be close to the train station and basically they had some large warehouse hall and turned it into a museum using plywood barriers. Looks like they moved to a new location in Zwolle last month. I thought it was quite neat, at the old location they had things set up such that you walk through the history of video gaming year by year, starting with ancient computers that could play simple games or had game easter eggs in them, and then to all of the consoles. Lots of them still work and other than the museum pieces that are on shelves, they also got consoles and handhelds set up so you can just try them out and play them. Near the end there were modern consoles you could play games on, some arcade machines, and then an Oculus Rift demo to end the thing with. They also got a bunch of video game merch for sale. Like I wouldn't suggest going to Zwolle just for this, but Zwolle is a neat little city, there's some other beautiful towns nearby such as Kampen, and there's a bunch of nice national parks nearby too, so if you're driving through the area for other reasons and like video games it might be worth a stop.
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Jan 2, 2019 23:52
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What are American's experiences with EU airport lines? I mostly (logically) wait in the non-EU lines, but one time I was allowed to go through the EU line. I know the Swiss (and possibly Norwegians) are officially allowed to do that, but is there some unwritten rule that Americans can go through?
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Jan 3, 2019 20:59
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Grape posted:What are American's experiences with EU airport lines? As an EU citizen, my experience is that the EU line is basically unguarded and as long as you look European enough they just let you walk in without question. If you do get picked for inspection you're probably in for a heap of trouble though. And this might not apply to all airports.
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Jan 3, 2019 21:47
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The last couple EU airports I've been to the EU passport line is just one that scans your smart passport and lets you through automatically. I don't know what would happen if you went through WITHOUT an EU passport (plus knowing how behind America is with technology I assume you guys don't have smart passports at all yet) but I assume it wouldn't let you do it, would call someone over and you'd get in trouble.
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Jan 3, 2019 21:57
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Mans posted:I started to quote you all and then i realized i would be making a megapost, thank you all so much for your help! HookShot posted:The last couple EU airports I've been to the EU passport line is just one that scans your smart passport and lets you through automatically. I don't know what would happen if you went through WITHOUT an EU passport (plus knowing how behind America is with technology I assume you guys don't have smart passports at all yet) but I assume it wouldn't let you do it, would call someone over and you'd get in trouble. Yep, this is what I'd think too.
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Jan 3, 2019 22:10
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Grape posted:What are American's experiences with EU airport lines? If you have a Schengen résidence permit it’s also easy to just go through the EU passports line IME, although you can’t use the automated machines like Hookshot mentioned. Norway and Switzerland are both in Schengen so that’s normal. Cyprus or UK / Ireland are probably fine but ymmv But no there’s no unwritten rule, it’s just that sending you back is not worth their trouble and it’s not like the computers or machines are at all different in any of the manned lines. With no residence permit or passport they might be more likely to hassle you for being in the wrong line, but no idea really.
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Jan 3, 2019 23:43
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Really depends on the airport. In some airports there's no real functional difference between the queues, other than being staffed with the expectation that the folks in the EU queue can be processed much faster (since they have the rights of free movement as EU citizens and aren't going to need additional checks or interviews or anything, unlike non-EU citizens trying to enter). If that's the case, it'd be up to the discretion of the officer you get; they might just roll their eyes at the silly American who can't read and process you anyway because it's less bother, or they might be stubborn and insist that you go straight back to the end of the non-EU queue where you belong. However, at other airports, the EU queue may have different capabilities, particularly in airports where they are now using automated passport scanning machines for EU citizens. If that's the case, you will likely be unable to proceed at all through the EU queue, since you won't have a valid EU passport to scan. No idea what actually happens if you try to scan a non-EU passport in those queues, but you certainly wouldn't be allowed through; I'd guess you'd get pulled aside by someone when you fail to get past the machine, and then possibly subjected to additional scrutiny by a border official who's now most likely annoyed at you for mucking things up by trying to sneak through the wrong queue.
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Jan 4, 2019 00:31
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Most European airports that I fly between have the automated smart passport readers that I assume wouldn't like it too much when presented with my American passport (dunno, never tried it). Our passports are smart though and have been for awhile. I usually go through the non-EU line (as you're supposed to) and have only ever had issues at one airport...Saladman posted:But no there’s no unwritten rule, it’s just that sending you back is not worth their trouble and it’s not like the computers or machines are at all different in any of the manned lines. With no residence permit or passport they might be more likely to hassle you for being in the wrong line, but no idea really. ...and that airport was Heathrow, recently. I flew to London from Frankfurt with my (German) husband, and he got through the EU lines in like 5 minutes... while I waited an hour and a half in the non-EU line, because for most of that time they only had like one person manning the kiosks (meanwhile like 20 kiosks were completely empty). Eventually I got to the front row in the line and one of the airport employees who walk in front to keep order or whatever saw my passport in my hand, asked me if I was American, and then pulled me out of the waiting line and sent me to the (now long-empty) EU area. Brexit is going to be an absolute clusterfuck.
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Jan 4, 2019 09:32
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I did hear some stuff last year about the automated password scanners just scanning the codes printed on it and doing nothing with the NFC chips that store biometric stuff or whatever, because it's complicated and expensive to install the software and decryption codes for that. Basically the NFC chips are 'secretly' unused by most password checking points around the world including in Europe.
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Jan 4, 2019 11:15
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Drone posted:Most European airports that I fly between have the automated smart passport readers that I assume wouldn't like it too much when presented with my American passport (dunno, never tried it). Our passports are smart though and have been for awhile. I usually go through the non-EU line (as you're supposed to) and have only ever had issues at one airport... In addition to the non-EU line and the automated passport scanners, most airports in Europe that I've been through recently also have the traditional "EU only" lines that are still manned by normal people and are functionally identical to the non-EU lines. Under-18s are not allowed to use the automated passport scanners — I'm not sure if that's universal or on a country-by-country basis but for sure in Switzerland they cannot. IME airports always still have a special EU line so that EU citizens with children don't have to brush shoulders with the masses in the line for unwashed foreigners. US passports have also been smart for well over a decade, not sure where Hookshot thought that the US is slow in implementing technology. The first biometric passports I ever saw were American ones; many years before Switzerland and many other countries still don't have them. E: Looks like they came out in the US at the same time as most other wealthy industrialized countries, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport#United_States. The US has fancy scanners and quick access too ... you just have to pay $100/5 years to access it, and it's only available for an incredibly random grab-bag of nationalities: UK, NL, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, India, Panama, Singapore, Colombia, Argentina, Canada, and Mexico (plus all permanent residents of the US regardless of nationality). Saladman fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jan 4, 2019 |
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Jan 4, 2019 11:31
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For what it's worth, my wife (AU passport) and I (UK passport) used the EU resident queue at every airport we visited and never had a problem. Though we had to stick together through immigration channels since she was overstaying an Australian Schengen allowance (but as the wife of an EU national she can stay as long as she wants, provided we are together).
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Jan 4, 2019 11:46
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You can also always pretend you're a moron and chose the wrong line because you can't read. The EU will not deport you for being stupid as poo poo and the immigrations officer will most likely just look at your passport and wave you through if you're not a terrorist. Worst case they send you to the back of the other line.
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Jan 4, 2019 12:03
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EricBauman posted:You can also always pretend you're a moron and chose the wrong line because you can't read. My mom did this travelling back to the US from Frankfurt a few years ago (she didn't bother actually reading the signs). They still sent her to stand in the correct line when she got up to the counter.
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Jan 4, 2019 16:45
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Saladman posted:not sure where Hookshot thought that the US is slow in implementing technology. You guys got chip and pin technology for your credit cards like last year.
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Jan 4, 2019 18:21
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HookShot posted:You guys got chip and pin technology for your credit cards like last year. Oh, yeah that was weird and annoying. They’re usually cutting edge for security theater tech like backscatter scanners and digital fingerprinting though.
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Jan 4, 2019 20:02
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Saladman posted:In addition to the non-EU line and the automated passport scanners, most airports in Europe that I've been through recently also have the traditional "EU only" lines that are still manned by normal people and are functionally identical to the non-EU lines. Under-18s are not allowed to use the automated passport scanners — I'm not sure if that's universal or on a country-by-country basis but for sure in Switzerland they cannot. IME airports always still have a special EU line so that EU citizens with children don't have to brush shoulders with the masses in the line for unwashed foreigners. this is also because some EU countries have national ID cards that are valid travel documentation in the EU and Schengen zone, so for example a Belgian travelling to Spain wouldn't necessarily have a passport to scan.
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Jan 4, 2019 20:56
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I didn't think there was passport control of any kind between Schengen countries, only when entering or leaving the Schengen zone.
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Jan 4, 2019 21:59
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PT6A posted:I didn't think there was passport control of any kind between Schengen countries, only when entering or leaving the Schengen zone. You're required to have an ID though, even if it's never checked
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Jan 4, 2019 22:11
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And the ID cards are still valid for some non-Schengen places, such as the UK (for now), Serbia or Turkey.
Entropist fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 4, 2019 |
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Jan 4, 2019 22:34
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PT6A posted:I didn't think there was passport control of any kind between Schengen countries, only when entering or leaving the Schengen zone. they still check your identity when flying "to combat terrorism"
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Jan 4, 2019 22:50
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France checks IDs on entry these days, even on internal Schengen flights. Or at least they did the last couple of times we entered (from Greece and from Spain).
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Jan 5, 2019 01:46
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webmeister posted:For what it's worth, my wife (AU passport) and I (UK passport) used the EU resident queue at every airport we visited and never had a problem. Though we had to stick together through immigration channels since she was overstaying an Australian Schengen allowance (but as the wife of an EU national she can stay as long as she wants, provided we are together). If she uses up her 90 days and then stays another 90 with you, does she get another 90 on her allowance?
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Jan 5, 2019 14:50
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underage at the vape shop posted:If she uses up her 90 days and then stays another 90 with you, does she get another 90 on her allowance? I don’t think so, she can just stay indefinitely as long as she’s with me. We had to keep our (original) marriage certificate handy as well since we have different surnames.
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Jan 5, 2019 23:12
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webmeister posted:I don’t think so, she can just stay indefinitely as long as she’s with me. We had to keep our (original) marriage certificate handy as well since we have different surnames. It all sounds like a massive pain, you'd reckon they'd have another stamp or something. It's not an issue when you're inside the Schenghen zone right, just going in and out? Is there a time of year where the historic sites in Rome aren't overcrowded? Obviously the Vatican and things like the Colloseum are always going to be popular but I'm not very interested in going inside the vatican, I mostly want to see stuff from the Empire.
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Jan 13, 2019 00:59
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Thinking about doing Crete and another city in the summer or early fall with a friend for about 8-10 days total. We're mostly looking for hiking, partying, typical young backpacker bullshit but also a chance to get away from that for a bit when we need to. I get that's an oxymoron. For the second city, considering somewhere in Italy or Athens. Crete Where should we stay in terms of city in Crete and the actual hostel we pick? We'll generally be choosing party hostels to stay at, or something similar in providing that social atmosphere should we need to pick a resort in Greece instead. Should we go to Ios? How long? What is there to do in Ios besides party? Are there specific dates we should aim for or avoid? Are the general party times Fri/Sat nights? Italy Is there a city that has a good balance of nightlife and poo poo to do? Not super interested in going through the Colliseum with a centurion cosplayer. I mostly like chill cities like Valparaiso and Amsterdam as opposed to ones with monuments that feels like a questline that I have to complete. But I still respect going somewhere that has a lot of history, which is why Athens is on the list. Athens What kind of city is Athens like? On a final note, I get that we're kinda in the wrong part of Europe for this, but my buddy and I both like punk, hardcore, post punk, new wave, etc... so any clubs that feature that poo poo would be perfect. Blinkman987 fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jan 13, 2019 |
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Jan 13, 2019 07:24
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Blinkman987 posted:Italy Bologna is probably your best bet.
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Jan 13, 2019 09:37
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Blinkman987 posted:I still respect going somewhere that has a lot of history, which is why Athens is on the list. Go to Athens. Save your travel time and stay in the same country. Athens is young and fairly 'hip' with lots of great places to eat and drink. You will not be disappointed if you want history - there are free mini museums in metro stations and you'll turn a corner on a modern street and be confronted with ancient ruins. It's quite something. I don't know personally but it feels like you'd be able to find a punk/hardcore club there too if you do a bit of research. Eat at Akordeon, drink at Six d.o.g.s, skip the archaeological museum but hit up the one at the bottom of the Acropolis. The Panatheneic Stadium is also a cool bit of history and I think I actually shed a tear at the Temple of Olympian Zeus because its REALLY FUCKIN' OLD and just standing in the middle of this bustling city! Athens really captured my imagination and I think it's definitely worth a visit if you're at all able.
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Jan 13, 2019 09:41
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