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I think most folks just post in the respective thread in LAN or, in the case of Germans, D&D.
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Mar 15, 2019 13:38
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I'm going to be traveling around Northern Greece for the first time next month and wanted some advice on the places to see. We will be arriving in Thessaloniki, renting a car, and have four days to travel around. We have looked in the Parga where we can rent a boat and go fishing, along with Vikos Gorge and Meteora. Activities we have looked into our wine tasting, hiking, boating etc. and we are open for any new and unique experience! Do you have any other recommendations on places to see or even a basic itinerary on how we can spend the three nights / four days? Where to spend the night, things to see - thank you!
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Mar 15, 2019 13:53
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SgtScruffy posted:Right - I'd imagine that I could get roundtrip flights and some sort of "all inclusive tour package" for <$1000, which is within my price range. I think my wife's main concern would be on the safety side of things more than the "you did WHAT without me?" side of things, but I'd definitely clear anything with her. If you have to get back to Brussels then I’d probably vote for Naples. The Como area will probably be nice, and I hope so since I’m soending 5 days at the beginning of April there, but I dunno if it’s really so fun by yourself and also without a car. There aren’t really any "must sees" it’s more about sitting around eating a pizza and gelato with your wife on the lake watching the sun move across the sky. If you can get back from anywhere then Lisbon, Seville, or Marrakech seem like good places to connect back towards Atlantic North America. I don’t think there are any safety concerns going to Petra but you should probably go back a different time with your wife, plus it’s pretty far out of the way.
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Mar 15, 2019 18:13
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A friend and I are planning to visit Germany for 9 days in late June. It's the first time either of us has been there. The itinerary is tentatively Munich (landing there) and Berlin. Included in Munich is Neuschwanstein castle and an overnight trip to Saltzberg. I take it airbnb is the way to go for lodging in Munich and Berlin. And we should maybe get rail passes? Other than wandering around these cities and going to palaces/historic locations is there anything we should really plan to see? Anything between the cities that I should stop by and view? Should I spend time in a hostel because they're cool or whatever?
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Mar 17, 2019 17:42
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Update on my situation: My wife effectively vetoed the Petra idea so I'm back to Europe - I'm leaning towards Lisbon at this point!
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Mar 17, 2019 19:28
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Amara posted:A friend and I are planning to visit Germany for 9 days in late June. It's the first time either of us has been there. Rail passes are usually not worth it unless you don't want to plan your train trips in advance, i.e. train tickets are like ±50% price if you buy them a few days in advance. The rail passes are pretty expensive and really not as good of a deal as they pretend to be. Or if you really want to save money, take a Flixbus. Airbnb is almost always the way to go if you're going to spend 3+ nights in a city. For shorter stays hotels/hostels are probably better. Hostels in big cities are usually not as great of a place to meet people as the stereotype; most people sitting in the common room are probably going to be on their phone or sending emails and not interested in talking to you, but YMMV and depends how much you and your friend like making smalltalk. Sometimes it works out but IME that's maybe 20-25% of the time that I actually enjoy the conversations I have. I'm maybe a 6/10 towards extrovert on the introvert<->extrovert scale. Re: what else to do, that depends on what you like doing. History? Modern indie stuff? Nightlife? etc. There's also a Germany thread where they might give better advice; I haven't been to Berlin in 10 years and I know it's changed a ton.
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Mar 17, 2019 20:58
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We're mostly interested in history and food. Ancient art over modern art. I also enjoy military history. Maybe a smattering of modern indy stuff. If there are natural beauty sites (rivers, mountains, lakes, etc) I'm into those too though since we don't have much time a day of hiking to reach them is probably too much. Thanks for the info on train tickets, I can certainly plan in advance.
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Mar 17, 2019 21:35
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Amara posted:A friend and I are planning to visit Germany for 9 days in late June. It's the first time either of us has been there. In my opinion, Munich is kinda lame. It's the perfect city to move to, I think, because it's a bland boring city thats clean and safe and has excellent public transport, but as a tourist, it's very basic. It's an extremely generic old European city. It's telling that all the most popular things about it are outside of the city. If I were you, I'd spend more time in Salzburg. While you're there, get on a train and go see the villages and towns south, go for a walk in the mountains, then do whatever you want to do in salzburg and get out. You can probably skip Neuschwanstein, what I'd do instead is go to the castle in Salzburg, then go and see the one in Nuremburg Both of those castles are "real" in that they were actual proper castels. Neuschwanstein is a holiday house with a bigger, half finished holiday house that the king was inspired to build by fairytales. Yeah, it's pretty, but its fake and unfinished, and I think your time is better spent elsewhere. Nurembergs castle is the seat of the Holy Roman Empire, and the entire old town is surrounded by the medieval walls, the buildings are all lovely, and there's the option to go and see the Nazi rally grounds, if you're at all interested in modern history. The Nazi Congress building is massive, and really interesting on its own, with a big museum inside. It's also on the way to Berlin from Munich. The hostels in Munich, Nuremberg and Berlin are all really good, I can recomend the ones I stayed at if you like.
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Mar 18, 2019 00:18
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But that fairytale castle is so pretty! But yeah I'm totally up for lodging recommendations as well. I'm all for Nuremberg, I'll have to check how much my friend really wants to do wwii history.
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Mar 18, 2019 02:30
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I dunno, I wouldn't skip Neuschwanstein entirely, but I wouldn't base a multi-day trip to Munich around it. It was designed to be impressive and perfect both inside and out, and I think it achieves that in a real high fantasy way. Sure it's not finished, it's overloaded with tourists, and the tours are way too regimented (I think when I was there the tours left at six minute intervals which is about the most German thing I can imagine) - but it's still pretty cool. You can also get there pretty cheaply with the local Bavaria train tickets: https://travelnuity.com/the-cheapest-way-to-see-neuschwanstein-castle/ Way better value than the crazy prices that tour operators in Munich will charge.
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Mar 18, 2019 03:49
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Amara posted:A friend and I are planning to visit Germany for 9 days in late June. It's the first time either of us has been there. Honestly, Neuschwanstein wasn't worth it imo. It's a long rear end hike uphill only to be in a giant group tour than never pauses long enough to really take anything in. Hohenschwangau was much better to visit. You can do both in a day easy, I know I did both in half a day. The tours only take like an hour each, a big chunk of your time will be walking uphill. If they have the carriages running it's well worth the €3 up, walking down is fine. JacksLibido posted:I’m in Rome right now and I have a question about the dudes roaming around selling stuff at the sights... why do they keep trying to make me look at my feet? They always open up by pointing at my very normal looking shoes, or by shining bright lights on the ground trying to get me to look down. I know in Brussels the Roma will move their coin cans into the sidewalk to try and get you to kick them over so you feel sorry for them, but I can’t figure out the scam here. I just got back from Rome and didn't notice this at all. Maybe a way to distract people so a partner could try to pickpocket them?
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Mar 18, 2019 04:14
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underage at the vape shop posted:In my opinion, Munich is kinda lame.  , at least if you plan on spending more than like 2 days there. It's definitely a very nice city (which is why it's so mind-boggling expensive to live there), but in my mind it doesn't stand out as much as the other major German cities in terms of having its own personality. drat good place to do some Day Drinking though (don't succumb to the tourist temptation to go to the Hofbräuhaus; it's awful).A Munich-Nuremberg-Berlin trip sounds pretty good though, 2-3 days in each. You'd get a decent enough cross-section of Germany that way (clean, modern city; pretty Old Town city; and... Berlin).
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Mar 18, 2019 08:18
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SgtScruffy posted:Update on my situation: My wife effectively vetoed the Petra idea so I'm back to Europe - I'm leaning towards Lisbon at this point! As an alfacinha, I highly recommend Lisbon. I have some posts in this thread about Lisbon, and some other posters have also talked about it. Let me know if you have any questions! Also a recommendation, if you like smoking weed find someone that looks trustworthy, buy hash and go smoke it at Ribeira das Naus on the lawn while looking at the river. It's p good. By trustworthy I mean don't buy it from people hassling you to buy, go to Bairro Alto and ask around.
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Mar 18, 2019 08:26
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Amara posted:We're mostly interested in history and food. Ancient art over modern art. I also enjoy military history. Maybe a smattering of modern indy stuff. If there are natural beauty sites (rivers, mountains, lakes, etc) I'm into those too though since we don't have much time a day of hiking to reach them is probably too much. Museum Island and the DDR Museum were both great sites to visit on my 3 day trip to Berlin. For ancient history, that's pretty much all on Museum Island, and can be a pretty long day in its own right. Good food is pretty much everywhere in Berlin. I wasn't disappointed by anything we went to.
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Mar 18, 2019 13:03
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Saladman posted:Airbnb is almost always the way to go if you're going to spend 3+ nights in a city. Does anyone have recent Airbnb experience in Amsterdam? Apparently they introduced new legislation that kicked in starting this year which places a hard limit of 30 days per year that a person can rent out their place on Airbnb, and with a maximum of 4 people for each stay. My group has been having a lot of trouble trying to book a place for much later this year and seemingly it's due to this new law. Places are "available" but when you go to book it, the reservation request isn't being accepted at all. We're concerned that even finding one that we can reserve now will get canceled later on down the line.
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Mar 18, 2019 15:02
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I am doing a long backpacking trip later this year and I still can't get a hold on what stuff I should book in advance, and what can be left to ad lib exploring. I would prefer to not book things in advance to give flexibility. However we will be traveling for 2-3 weeks in western Europe starting in mid-July. I feel like a lot of stuff would book up. I also don't want to get reamed on cost because we waited to the last minute. I know trains tend to get expensive if you don't book in advance, and I am sure hotels/hostels are a similar concept. Anyone have any experience from their trip in July/August with last minute bookings? Also, if the trains are all booked/expensive, is there a bus option that is fairly prevalent? I guess what I am asking is how much flexibility can you have for cheaper independent backpacking in Europe in the summer. Cheesemaster200 fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 16:31
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Cheesemaster200 posted:I am doing a long backpacking trip later this year and I still can't get a hold on what stuff I should book in advance, and what can be left to ad lib exploring. I would prefer to not book things in advance to give flexibility. However we will be traveling for 2-3 weeks in western Europe starting in mid-July. I feel like a lot of stuff would book up. I also don't want to get reamed on cost because we waited to the last minute. I know trains tend to get expensive if you don't book in advance, and I am sure hotels/hostels are a similar concept. There's buses for pretty much every route that there's trains for the exact reason you're thinking of, because they're cheaper. Hotels don't necessarily get more expensive, but availability might be a problem in smaller cities during the holiday season, same with airbnb. Basically to get flexibility you will be trading off travel time when you end up sitting in buses instead of trains. Buses sell out too, but many companies will just hire extra ones for popular routes.
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Mar 18, 2019 16:52
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Ras Het posted:There's buses for pretty much every route that there's trains for the exact reason you're thinking of, because they're cheaper. Hotels don't necessarily get more expensive, but availability might be a problem in smaller cities during the holiday season, same with airbnb. Basically to get flexibility you will be trading off travel time when you end up sitting in buses instead of trains. Buses sell out too, but many companies will just hire extra ones for popular routes. The majority of our time in Europe will be spent in Romania and Bulgaria. I am less concerned about trains and/or hotels selling out there from what I have read. My concern is really the trip from Paris-Budapest.
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Mar 18, 2019 17:34
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Sand Monster posted:Does anyone have recent Airbnb experience in Amsterdam? Apparently they introduced new legislation that kicked in starting this year which places a hard limit of 30 days per year that a person can rent out their place on Airbnb, and with a maximum of 4 people for each stay. My group has been having a lot of trouble trying to book a place for much later this year and seemingly it's due to this new law. Places are "available" but when you go to book it, the reservation request isn't being accepted at all. We're concerned that even finding one that we can reserve now will get canceled later on down the line. Does anyone in your group have a good profile on Airbnb? Several good reviews, etc. Maybe try having them book? Or maybe tell slight fibs about your situation, eg it's two couples instead of four college dudes ready to party hard. Another thing to consider is looking slightly outside the city centre. The rail network is pretty good and inexpensive. My last visit to Amsterdam was in mid-2017; we stayed on a houseboat in a satellite town called Abcoude. It was a few minutes past the fields to the station, then about 20 minutes on the train to Amsterdam Centraal. Much cheaper than staying in the centre, and pretty idyllic too.
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Mar 19, 2019 03:42
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Sand Monster posted:Does anyone have recent Airbnb experience in Amsterdam? Apparently they introduced new legislation that kicked in starting this year which places a hard limit of 30 days per year that a person can rent out their place on Airbnb, and with a maximum of 4 people for each stay. My group has been having a lot of trouble trying to book a place for much later this year and seemingly it's due to this new law. Places are "available" but when you go to book it, the reservation request isn't being accepted at all. We're concerned that even finding one that we can reserve now will get canceled later on down the line. I got cancelled there myself back in October, one day before my stay was supposed to start. I have probably 60 to 100 good reviews on AirBnB and my registration date is like 2010. No idea but it's only the second time I've ever been cancelled and the only other cancellation was several days in advance. I was just renting for myself and just for 3 days. AirBnB gives you a 10%-of-that-rental-cost coupon if someone cancels on you with less than... 72 hours? of notice. I ended up camping in my friend's apartment; she'd just moved there and only had an air mattress, like literally not even a spoon or fork or lamp, so it was actually pretty fun and although kind of annoying not a big deal.
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Mar 19, 2019 10:08
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Amsterdam is one of those cities where the tourist population hugely outweighs the number of people actually living there, and the folks in Amsterdam run into problems because of that: the airbnb stuff caused house prices to increase even more than they usually would and the Amsterdam housing market is already very unhealthy. And it's also causing traffic jams in the city center and stuff like that. so the city government is now actively working to try and bring down the number of tourists. Meanwhile, many other cities in the Netherlands want all the tourists they can get and often have just as much cool stuff to see. So, go anywhere else and you'll have a much easier time. You could even get an airbnb in a nearby city and just take a 30 min train into the heart of Amsterdam.
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Mar 19, 2019 19:11
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Stay in an airbnb in Haarlem or Utrecht.
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Mar 19, 2019 19:22
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Carbon dioxide posted:the airbnb stuff [...] it's also causing traffic jams in the city center and stuff like that That makes...no sense at all. People in AirBnBs should cause far, far less issues with traffic than any local resident ever would, since they'll almost never have a car, and they will rarely be going out and about during morning rush hour, and probably not during afternoon rush hour either. Certainly tourist rentals can cause problems, but I think a lot of cities (hi Paris, San Francisco) are trying to blame every single failure of their own on a convenient scapegoat.
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Mar 19, 2019 21:23
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Saladman posted:That makes...no sense at all. People in AirBnBs should cause far, far less issues with traffic than any local resident ever would, since they'll almost never have a car, and they will rarely be going out and about during morning rush hour, and probably not during afternoon rush hour either. they are, however, much much more likely to blindly walk into the middle of the road so they can take a photo of a church/canal/tree/bicycle
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Mar 19, 2019 22:28
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Julio Cruz posted:they are, however, much much more likely to blindly walk into the middle of the road so they can take a photo of a church/canal/tree/bicycle Maybe so, but they're going to do that whether they stay in an AirBnB or a hostel, making the complaint related to AirBnBs nonsensical. (I'm not digging at Carbon Dioxide--I'm sure some city council person has, in fact, tried to blame everything from the weather to local traffic on AirBnBs.) VVV: Oh yeah, absolutely it has some negative effects. It's just that it is also a scapegoat for a bunch of nonsense, just like everyone loves to blame everything from the destruction of unions to the rise of Donald Trump on Uber and Amazon. Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 22:33
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Airbnbs having a bad effect on house prices makes a lot of sense though
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Mar 19, 2019 22:36
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Saladman posted:Maybe so, but they're going to do that whether they stay in an AirBnB or a hostel, making the complaint related to AirBnBs nonsensical. (I'm not digging at Carbon Dioxide--I'm sure some city council person has, in fact, tried to blame everything from the weather to local traffic on AirBnBs.) AirBnB caused a massive increase in the availability of tourist accommodation.
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Mar 19, 2019 22:36
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Julio Cruz posted:AirBnB caused a massive increase in the availability of tourist accommodation. [citation needed] To be less snarky: this seems unlikely to me. There are really not that many AirBnBs, especially compared to hotel capacity and hostel capacity. Not to mention that many hotels are bitching about AirBnB killing their business, which would mean... relatively constant room numbers.
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Mar 19, 2019 22:39
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Saladman posted:[citation needed] A casual look on AirBnB shows more than 9000 listings in Amsterdam, and that's just counting whole flats. There's your citation. e: a slightly less casual look works out to roughly 25000 whole-home listings, but sure that's not a massive increase 
Julio Cruz fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Mar 19, 2019 |
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Mar 19, 2019 22:52
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Saladman posted:That makes...no sense at all. People in AirBnBs should cause far, far less issues with traffic than any local resident ever would, since they'll almost never have a car, and they will rarely be going out and about during morning rush hour, and probably not during afternoon rush hour either. I meant to say the huge number of tourists (outweighing the local population by far) is causing congestion, not airBnBs in particular.
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Mar 19, 2019 23:21
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Saladman posted:[citation needed] But house priced go up because you're still making money and have 0 employees to pay U dum
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Mar 19, 2019 23:58
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The worst impact of Airbnb is on long-term rental accommodation. If you can rent your place in Venice or Amsterdam or Byron Bay or whatever for 300/night, it makes zero financial sense to rent it long-term to a local for 600/week, even with the additional overheads that come with an Airbnb like cleaning or (lol) maintenance. So all the people needed to pour beers, make coffees, and scrub toilets can't afford to live there. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Airbnb and our two years of constant travel around Europe wouldn't have been possible without it. But I think a lot of authorities have a lot of catching up to do.
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Mar 20, 2019 00:37
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Just stay in hostels and be social and half the time the room wont have anyone booked anyway
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Mar 20, 2019 00:40
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underage at the vape shop posted:Just stay in hostels and be social and half the time the room wont have anyone booked anyway Find me a hostel that accepts a dog and then sure
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Mar 20, 2019 00:46
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Amsterdam's population has increased rather dramatically in the last 20 years (~150k people, or +15%). That is a lot of people to absorb in a city whose layout originates from the 16th century and much of its housing stock before year 1900. Airbnb is likely not helping the housing problems they are having, but I also don't think it is the root cause either. This is not a situation unique to Amsterdam, and Airbnb tends to make an easy target for politicians everywhere to mask their inaction on housing policy.
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Mar 20, 2019 04:19
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Anyone know what the UK is planning (lol) to do about traveling after Brexit? Would it still still be visa free for EU citizens going on vacation there? Will they need to do an ESTA type thing? I get the feeling the answer is "lol who knows" but I'm hoping I'm just being pessimistic
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Mar 20, 2019 04:30
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Xun posted:Anyone know what the UK is planning (lol) to do about traveling after Brexit? Would it still still be visa free for EU citizens going on vacation there? Will they need to do an ESTA type thing? I’ve read the UK citizens will be subject to Schengen rules, but as for the reverse I have no idea. At a guess I’d say it’ll be like other first-world countries arriving in the UK, given a free 30 day tourist visa on arrival, but since poisonous immigration rhetoric was such a key part of the Leave campaign it’s hard to really know. Edit; there’s actually detail here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/visiting-the-uk-after-brexit Basically no change until 2021, deal or no deal webmeister fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 05:34
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uli2000 posted:I just got back from Rome and didn't notice this at all. Maybe a way to distract people so a partner could try to pickpocket them? Weird, it happened A LOT near the Trevi. I asked some other vacationers I met in a pub and they didn’t notice it either, but they also didn’t know the “handshake scam”, where the dudes come up to shake your hand then slip a bracelet on your arm that’s near impossible to get off, like a finger trap thing. Dudes ended up paying the guy off because they couldn’t get the bracelet off fast enough and kinda freaked.
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Mar 20, 2019 06:05
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The bracelet one is pretty common in most European tourist spots. I got done by it on my first European trip as a naïve 22 year old, but the guy was dumb enough to ask for 50 euro within shouting distance of a policeman 🤦🏻♂️
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Mar 20, 2019 07:11
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webmeister posted:I’ve read the UK citizens will be subject to Schengen rules Please note that this would mean more-open-than-current border controls, which will almost certainly not be the case regardless of whether anything actually changes. Waci fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 07:13
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