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Saladman posted:Holy poo poo, thank you. I've had so many people be utterly baffled when I tell the that Portugal-Portuguese sounds exactly like Russian to me. It still takes me about a minute of listening to tell whether it's Portuguese or a Slavic language when I hear it. English is stress-timed too, while Mandarin Chinese is syllable-timed too. e: oops, linguistics snipe!
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Feb 13, 2020 20:17
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Ooh what about Argentine Spanish? My family/community calls the dialect Castellano but I think it's called Rio-platenese?
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Feb 13, 2020 20:23
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Retarded Goatee posted:So uh, Serbia. Probably Golubac fortress. I'm not sure what can Novi Sad offer to a complete stranger, that Belgrade can't. It's on Danube, so is Belgrade. It has the Petrovaradin fortress, and Belgrade has Kalemegdan fortress. I guess I might recommend Novi Sad for (fresh water) fish or for a day on a salash, which is a traditional farm. But my first choice would be Golubac.
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Feb 13, 2020 22:14
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I was determined to visit Japan this May but the cruise ships with Corona Virus have me wary. I'm thinking either Scotland and Ireland or Scotland and Switzerland. 4 days each in late May. Is the weather in Scotland decent that time of year? And I'd be wanting to base up in Edinburgh, see Isle of Sky and so forth.
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Feb 17, 2020 03:44
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Scotland or Ireland in 8 days is fine, don't do both and don't even think about Switzerland too, wtf as for weather in May every option is about as likely as every other one, on balance it's likely to rain a bit and be about 60F but it could rain all week and be 50 or be dry and sunny and 75
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Feb 17, 2020 04:19
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Yeah, only one of those countries in that timeframe if you actually want to do it any sort of justice and see more than a major city. Depending on the person, 4 days in each can be mostly occupied just by Dublin and Edinburgh, without even getting into the countryside. Even in just one of them, you're not going to see the whole country in a week or anything, unless you're crazy and never stopping. I've spent about 3 weeks in Ireland over two trips and still haven't seen lots of regions there (although admittedly, we revisited some places we really liked). I think this came up a bit somewhere on the last several pages, but those destinations really are best if you can take your time and not feel rushed all the time, especially if you're driving. You'll be less stressed and get a much better appreciation of the towns and people.
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Feb 17, 2020 05:01
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I'm thinking either Canada and US or Canada and Brazil, 4 days each. Is the weather in America good that time of year?
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Feb 17, 2020 05:41
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Gatts posted:I was determined to visit Japan this May but the cruise ships with Corona Virus have me wary. FWIW, unless the virus spreads a lot more than it has so far in Japan (which it may), this spring is likely to be one of the best times to visit that you could hope for. Not only is spring already a great time to go, but by far the biggest crowds at all tourist destinations are from China, which will probably be nonexistent for quite a while. Not to mention the cheaper prices due to others staying home. If it were me, I'd go during peak cherry blossoms and savor the relative emptiness, but I unfortunately went last year instead...
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Feb 17, 2020 08:57
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waffy posted:I've spent about 3 weeks in Ireland over two trips and still haven't seen lots of regions there (although admittedly, we revisited some places we really liked). what places? So far my 8 day trip to Ireland includes Dublin, Galway and a day trip to the Cliffs. Also let's say you were theoretically going to propose on this trip and were looking for a good spot that isn't the Cliffs since one of your friends already did that. Theoretically.
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Feb 17, 2020 18:47
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runawayturtles posted:FWIW, unless the virus spreads a lot more than it has so far in Japan (which it may), this spring is likely to be one of the best times to visit that you could hope for. Not only is spring already a great time to go, but by far the biggest crowds at all tourist destinations are from China, which will probably be nonexistent for quite a while. Not to mention the cheaper prices due to others staying home. Thanks man. Appreciate the suggestion. I only get 2 weeks a year for vacation, I’d like to make the most of 1 week, combine it with a long weekend, and I usually get a lot done. I could do the week in Scotland if I wanted though.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:55
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Gatts posted:I was determined to visit Japan this May but the cruise ships with Corona Virus have me wary. I'm going backpacking around S Asia and SE Asia for four months, don't let these things put you off. Japan is great that time of year As already said pick Scotland or Ireland or Switzerland. Can't do two let alone all three - you'd spend half the time in transit and really you'd just get to see three cities. Do one properly. Switzerland - Beautiful scenery, lots to see. Scotland - They have a road trip all around the north called the North Coast 500. I did it a few years ago with a rental and had a great time. Ireland - I'm not really qualified to suggest. I've been to cork about 30 times and Dublin a few times.
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Feb 17, 2020 20:15
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kiimo posted:what places? So far my 8 day trip to Ireland includes Dublin, Galway and a day trip to the Cliffs. There's so much more to Ireland than Dublin and the Cliffs. poo poo, over the past few years I've spent several days in total just in Connemara and Mayo alone and still haven't seen everything in that region (definitely going back to Achill Island to spend more time there one of these days...). With eight days (seven nights?), you could do: - 1 night in Dublin to recover from jet lag. - 3 nights in Killarney or Kenmare, check out Killarney National Forest, the Ring of Kerry, Dingle, the Beara Peninsula. - 3 nights in Galway, explore Connemara and west Clare, maybe visit one of the Aran Islands. - Two hours driving back to the airport wishing you'd booked more time because there's still so much you didn't get to see. As for a spot to propose, hell, you're spoiled for choice. What did you have in mind? The shore of a lovely lake? A secluded beach? The peak of a mountain? The ruined nave of a centuries-old abbey in the middle of some farmer's field? How about in the centre of the largest Neolithic stone circle in Ireland? The options are positively endless.
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Feb 17, 2020 20:20
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That is a wealth of information I don't deserve
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Feb 17, 2020 20:42
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Also, if you want to find tons of cool spots to visit, check out Megalithic Ireland. I use it every time I plan a road trip, to see what interesting ruins and such are nearby,
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Feb 17, 2020 21:13
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Gatts posted:Thanks man. Appreciate the suggestion. "Making the most" of twelve days or so does not mean rushing through three different countries that are vast distances apart, wasting all of your time on travelling between places. You will have a much better time if you spend that whole time in Scotland. Of course, you won't be able to tell everyone back home you went to three different countries, but you will enjoy yourself a lot more. And I say this as someone else who gets a lot done when I travel and have completely packed itineraries.
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Feb 17, 2020 23:49
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Gatts posted:Thanks man. Appreciate the suggestion. This is a stupid way of looking at it and will not be enjoyable. Two weeks of doing nothing but rushing between places is not a holiday.
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Feb 18, 2020 00:25
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No one said 3 countries. I said 2. And to each their own interpretation of vacation I guess of how they prefer it. Besides I can always revisit later.
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Feb 18, 2020 04:47
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LOL yeah ok dude you are definitely the special snowflake that the laws of time and travel don't apply to but hey, you do you.
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Feb 18, 2020 05:28
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If you’re going to revisit why not do one country per trip instead?
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Feb 18, 2020 09:25
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Gatts posted:No one said 3 countries. I said 2. And to each their own interpretation of vacation I guess of how they prefer it. Besides I can always revisit later. People are kind of aggressive about it but it’s good advice. Even Scotland-Ireland in 9 days is way too much, especially with a transatlantic flight on both ends of that. Scotland or Switzerland in 9 days sounds nice, Ireland is a bit too big but you could cover like N Ireland or W Ireland pretty well in 9 days. Plus between Ireland and Scotland in 9 days including international flight days, then that’s two different car rentals, which is kind of a hassle to deal with in 7 real days, unless you can do one ways between Scotland and N Ireland (?). The density of "stuff to see and do" in Europe is much higher than it is in America, so yes you could do a tour of a similar US east coast state in less time.
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Feb 18, 2020 10:52
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I wouldn't call Scotland doable in 9 days, but then I'd spend weeks just walking/cycling/driving around the Scottish countryside. There's a lot to see aside from the big tourist attractions in the cities and various distilleries.
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Feb 18, 2020 13:43
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Dance Officer posted:I wouldn't call Scotland doable in 9 days, but then I'd spend weeks just walking/cycling/driving around the Scottish countryside. There's a lot to see aside from the big tourist attractions in the cities and various distilleries. "Doable" doesn't mean "saw everything, no need to go back". Doable means "did something besides rushing from hotel to train station to airport to landmark while furiously checking off lists of stuff that you might have briefly glimpsed." Saladman fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Feb 18, 2020 |
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Feb 18, 2020 16:35
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Saladman posted:People are kind of aggressive about it this is because people keep on coming in with completely ridiculous schedules despite the fact that "don't go everywhere" is literally the first sentence in the loving OP
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Feb 18, 2020 17:20
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We need more Europeans who are more familiar with this type of trip to post their travel plans and schedules itt and give a good example. It may seem like you won't get much out of it but there are a lot of people here who can give local advice for certain places, even if you have been there before. I'll try to do it from now on.
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Feb 18, 2020 18:06
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From a Brit's perspective (albeit as one who has not been to Scotland in ages; would love to go again!) I can't imagine doing a day trip to somewhere like Skye from Edinburgh. Glasgow and Edinburgh alone have more than enough for a single trip, and you could still spice things up with a day trip to somewhere like Arran, Stirling, or St Andrews, depending on what you were looking for. For a Highlands/islands trip I'd much prefer to be based in Inverness or somewhere, depending on where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. I don't drive though, and if you're used to driving long-distance in the US then maybe it's not a big deal. I just wouldn't be able to enjoy a 5-6 hour journey (on progressively smaller roads) with myself at the wheel. Ireland is, in my view, significantly easier to get around, at least without driving. Again, there's plenty to do just in Dublin. The only "international" day trip from Ireland that I would consider would be, like, Belfast.
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Feb 18, 2020 18:42
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Okay so I just found out that I arrive in Dublin on a Wednesday and can't actually leave that city until Sunday so I'm just sticking to Dublin / Galway as my two destinations. I was wondering about train travel? Or is it better to rent a car? Because I'm gonna be honest the driving on the left side sounds like it would be an adjustment and I don't know how to prepare for it.
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Feb 18, 2020 18:51
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There's another option, long-distance buses, which I used between Dublin and Galway and they were quite cheap. I usually prefer trains so I guess I did this because there were no good train options directly to the airport. Renting a car should usually be a nope in Europe, unless you want to visit rural destinations that require it. Admittedly, that is quite likely in Ireland, but if you just stick to the main attractions you can get there either via local buses or tour buses. It doesn't seem easy to drive on the roads there. You'll also have to be able to drive a manual. I haven't tried it, only in the UK. Although I am used to European roads it was still an adjustment, both to drive on the other side, get used to the way the roads are designed, and get used to the rather narrow roads that they often have there.
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Feb 18, 2020 18:59
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I rented a drat near bus sized gigantic Mercedes SUV in Austria that was manual and drove it from Innsbruck up the Zugspitz and on to Munich without having a clue what most of the signs on the road meant and I'm fairly confident that that was a dangerous mistake that I lucked into not being a problem. I almost got it stuck in snow and I got smoked by BMWs scorching by me on the Autobahn. I think I'll take the train this time.
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Feb 18, 2020 19:09
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kiimo posted:I rented a drat near bus sized gigantic Mercedes SUV in Austria that was manual and drove it from Innsbruck up the Zugspitz and on to Munich without having a clue what most of the signs on the road meant and I'm fairly confident that that was a dangerous mistake that I lucked into not being a problem. I almost got it stuck in snow and I got smoked by BMWs scorching by me on the Autobahn. I think I'll take the train this time. Nah man, rent a car. Driving on the left really isn't bad; takes some getting used to, but once you get it, it sticks with you for good. First time I visited Ireland, it felt weird for a few days, but after that it was fine. Visited the UK a couple years later and it only took a few minutes to readjust. Moved to Ireland a couple years after that and it felt like I'd been doing it all my life, and both ways feel perfectly "normal" to me now. And if you can drive manual, a car hire can be very cheap here (provided you don't mind shifting with your left hand), especially since you'll generally want the smallest car possible in any case. Public transit here sucks, to be honest. If you just want to stay in the cities, it's fine (though I'd consider buses rather than trains between cities, unless you really need a bathroom; journey times are about as fast as the trains and they're much cheaper). If you want to get out in the countryside and actually visit any of the lovely scenic areas, though, that's extremely difficult to do via transit; rural buses run very infrequently (we're talking a couple times a day, or even a couple times a week in the more remote areas) and often don't go where you want to go. If you want to see anything outside the cities without driving, you'll basically be stuck with group bus tours, which are, well, group bus tours *shudder*.
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Feb 18, 2020 19:51
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Huh. I was with you up until "shifting with your left hand" which I hadn't even considered. Assuming the clutch is still on the left side I think I can figure it out though.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:01
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I've never driven in the UK but I've done it multiple times in New Zealand, including in Auckland immediately after getting off a 15 hour flight. It's instinctive. Are you going to gently caress up? Yeah. But you're only going to gently caress up when there's no traffic on the road, because if you see a car coming towards you you're not just going to barrel head-on into it because that's what you're used to doing. Either you're going to be around other cars and traffic in which case you're just going to follow them and not drive into them, and so you will be on the right side of the road, or you're going to be on a country lane without any traffic anyway and so it doesn't really matter what side of the road you're on until you reach a blind corner. The easiest way to remember, that I always use, is that your steering wheel is supposed to be towards the middle of the road, not the edge. If your steering wheel is on the edge of the road, you're in the wrong lane.
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Feb 18, 2020 22:20
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HookShot pretty much perfectly summed up my thoughts on the driving. For me, it requires a bit more focus and care than driving at home, but is not unpleasant at all. Also, in case it's not clear, you can definitely rent automatic cars in Ireland. You have to make sure you choose it specifically when you book, and you will pay more, but you're not stuck with manual if you don't want to be.
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Feb 19, 2020 04:44
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I drove in the UK with my Europe mainland car. It was fine. I had to buy some sort of reflective stickers ahead of time to put on the headlights in order to not blind people on the road because they're always set up to point slightly towards your edge of the road (some fancier cars just have a switch where you can turn them the other way). The hardest part, really, was merging into a highway from a ramp with an incredibly short merge lane. The way the angles turn out, all the cars behind you on the highway are right in your blind spot. Also make sure you take roundabouts the right way round, which is the left way round in the UK.
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Feb 19, 2020 07:54
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To be honest — and I know I'll get the pitchforks for this — a couple years ago I had room for a short 5 day trip (even less with travel), and found a really cheap flight to Ireland, so I just went for it and had a great time. It wasn't leisurely of course, but I saw the main tourist sites in Dublin, drove through Wicklow and visited Kilkenny and Cashel, spent time at a bunch of spots on the Dingle peninsula, and hiked for a few hours all along the Cliffs of Moher. It was abbreviated, sure, and I would have stayed longer if I could, but it was enjoyable and not even all that rushed. That said, there's no way in hell I would then go to Scotland for only 4 days... I'd just travel at a slower pace and maybe visit Northern Ireland too. Regarding driving, I had no trouble on the left side of the road at all, it was very easy to get used to. It's definitely weirder to be on the right side of the car, especially using the stick I'd imagine, but I can't drive manual so I just had to pay 10 times more instead.
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Feb 19, 2020 08:59
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Entropist posted:We need more Europeans who are more familiar with this type of trip to post their travel plans and schedules itt and give a good example. It may seem like you won't get much out of it but there are a lot of people here who can give local advice for certain places, even if you have been there before. I'll try to do it from now on. Yeah it is kind of too bad that there are almost never any trip reports here, but on the other hand, everywhere in Europe has been touristed to death, so I'm not sure there's much need for it -- you can find a pretty in-depth report for basically anywhere in Europe if you look on enough travel blogs and forums. runawayturtles posted:To be honest — and I know I'll get the pitchforks for this — a couple years ago I had room for a short 5 day trip (even less with travel), and found a really cheap flight to Ireland, so I just went for it and had a great time. It wasn't leisurely of course, but I saw the main tourist sites in Dublin, drove through Wicklow and visited Kilkenny and Cashel, spent time at a bunch of spots on the Dingle peninsula, and hiked for a few hours all along the Cliffs of Moher. It was abbreviated, sure, and I would have stayed longer if I could, but it was enjoyable and not even all that rushed. It kinda depends on where you're travelling from, but also going to one place for a short time seems less crazy to me than trying to go two places in a slightly-less-short time. With 5 days, you have no option to do it any other way, but with 9 days, you at least can design a less rushed / less checklisty vacation if you choose to. I mean, in Europe it's definitely common to go somewhere for a weekend, even though 36 hours in Milan or Rome is nowhere near enough to do more than scratch the surface of a city like that. NYTimes's "36 hours in" articles always bother me, both because they're overwhelmingly focused on high-end dining and $600-a-night hotels, but also because 90% of their destinations are so far from NYC so as to be utterly insane to discuss in terms of a "leave Friday night, return Sunday afternoon" type itinerary. I do like their 52 Places articles, but hate the '36 Hours In' ones, even though I think they're typically by the same author (?). Also agree that driving on the left is not hard, you just follow traffic. If you have a passenger in the car with you, just ask them to be alert for the first few hours that you're driving and make sure you do left turns and roundabouts properly. If you can drive manual, then the switch to lefthand shifting is trivial; the gear shift pattern is identical (i.e. not mirrored) and the pedals are in the same order.
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Feb 19, 2020 11:57
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Saladman posted:
This. I think 99% of the issues are when you first get in the car - not first GET the car, as that is when you are quite switched on - but rather when you first get in the car after stopping off. My 'oh poo poo' moments have always been within a few minutes of getting int he car after seeing a sight, or getting petrol, etc.
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Feb 19, 2020 12:03
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Entropist posted:We need more Europeans who are more familiar with this type of trip to post their travel plans and schedules itt and give a good example. It may seem like you won't get much out of it but there are a lot of people here who can give local advice for certain places, even if you have been there before. I'll try to do it from now on. It's quite person dependent I think. E.g. my partner and I almost always do either weekends to somewhere near where we're living (we move every few months) or do 9-11 day trips, often road trips to places we couldn't go if weren't renting a car. A couple of years ago we did 10 days in Scotland, I think it was train to Glasgow, 1 night in Glasgow then a couple of nights taking our time getting to Skye. We did lots of short walks and stuff on the way. Then we did 2 nights in the south of Skye in some hut thing, and two further north in a normal BnB (that felt about right, if you're a very keen walker you could do more). Then a long drive to the Cairngorms and two nights there. The key thing to think about is how much time, after travel and admin, are you going to have in one place? One night when you arrive late and leave early is almost none, but one night when you do the opposite is almost two days if the travel is short.
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Feb 19, 2020 12:51
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Heading to London and Edinburgh in May, what is the best way to handle phone coverage? I have a samsung phone, through Boost mobile. Do I go looking for a UK SIM card that I can pop into my phone? Probably not going to make a lot of calls locally while I'm there, but want to be available in case of emergency.
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Feb 19, 2020 18:49
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CzarChasm posted:Heading to London and Edinburgh in May, what is the best way to handle phone coverage? I have a samsung phone, through Boost mobile. Do I go looking for a UK SIM card that I can pop into my phone? Probably not going to make a lot of calls locally while I'm there, but want to be available in case of emergency. I mean, if it's emergency use only, doesn't your own provider have roaming? For internet you can just use hotel wifi or the public wifi at any cafe.
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Feb 19, 2020 19:02
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CzarChasm posted:Heading to London and Edinburgh in May, what is the best way to handle phone coverage? I have a samsung phone, through Boost mobile. Do I go looking for a UK SIM card that I can pop into my phone? Probably not going to make a lot of calls locally while I'm there, but want to be available in case of emergency. Emergency calls (999 in the UK) aren't subject to roaming fees and are always free.
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Feb 19, 2020 19:02
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