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Saladman posted:Also just to double check since you said this is your first trip abroad: spend a minimum of 3 nights in every location. You effectively lose a day every time you travel, even if it's only from like Venice to Florence. Most people's first trip to Europe tends to follow horrific Rick Steve's style schedules where he tries to fit the entire country of France in like 15 days, a schedule which is only reasonable if you're on an arranged tour bus and only care about checklist traveling. Yeah, that's the plan, 3 days in each stop with a travel day in between. 3 days in Lisbon, 3 in Bordeaux, 3 in Venice, then 3 around Iceland with rented camper. Gone for 17 days. ...don't know why I didn't think of this until just now, but you guys probably have some great recommendations. I'm all ears.
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Jul 11, 2022 23:33
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How did you come to your selection of destinations?
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Jul 11, 2022 23:50
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My wife. I wanted to check out France/Italy, but she really wanted to see Lisbon because the girls on instagram said its so pretty. Then we decided to stop in Iceland on the way home. Kind of just fell together. Currently replaying Assassin's Creed 2.
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Jul 12, 2022 00:43
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Are all flights just one leg? If not, I'd plan that you won't be having your checked luggage with you for the duration of your vacation. Airports and airlines are at their limits because of staff shortages, and it probably won't get better until the main summer vacation season is done.
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Jul 12, 2022 06:19
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Spelling Mitsake posted:Yeah, that's the plan, 3 days in each stop with a travel day in between. 3 days in Lisbon, 3 in Bordeaux, 3 in Venice, then 3 around Iceland with rented camper. Gone for 17 days. Lisbon, Venice, Bordeaux are all super walkable - since you're only in each country for a few days (and it sounds like you have money to burn!) you might like to do a paid walking tour out of each one on your first day, you'll get a lot more out of the rest of your time there IMO. If you aren't sure you can try audio ones - Rick Steve has some free ones which are OK-ish* *I really think there's a gap in the market for some sort of app or service selling audio tours of different styles. Mum and dad get one, the kids get another, high quality stuff not the absolute dreck they shovel out for most museums.
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Jul 12, 2022 08:21
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Spelling Mitsake posted:Yeah, that's the plan, 3 days in each stop with a travel day in between. 3 days in Lisbon, 3 in Bordeaux, 3 in Venice, then 3 around Iceland with rented camper. Gone for 17 days. As others have said, 100% do not check luggage except perhaps on your final return flight home, it has a small probability of getting lost and a moderate probability of getting delayed significantly. Doubly so if you do not have direct flights between every destination. I've spent enough time in spent enough time in Lisbon and Venice but TBH I'd just go on Wikivoyage and see what interests you. You could spend 3 days in Lisbon without leaving the city, or you could prioritize a day to go to Pena Palace and Cascais, etc. Never been to Bordeaux. 3 days for Iceland isn't really enough to go "around" it, but presumably you didn't mean literally "around" the circle road. When/if you go to sites on the Golden Circle, either go as late in the day as possible to catch sunset and minimize crowds, or skip them entirely, as they are absurdly crowded during the height of day. I thought Thingvellir was an incredible lame site for idiots and even though it is free entry, I want my money back. "Here is the only non-beautiful site in all of Iceland, we will send tourists there, what a joke!" If you are a geologist I guess it is fine since it is where North America and Europe meet, but as a normal human, it is just a boring-rear end marshy field area with a small canyon that is invisible until you're right on top of it. If it were in any other country it might be OK, but since it's competing with the rest of Iceland, it is a shocking waste of time that should go on no one's itinerary. Seljalandsfoss was a highlight for me, and it's not too far away from the Golden Circle. Landmannalaugar is also great if you want to do a hike, there is a really lovely circle hike from that area, and the road to Landmannalaugar is accessible with any car. Thorsmork is also great, but it can be challenging to cross the river and I believe rental insurance is still void if you get stuck in the river on the F249 road, and only on that one specific road. OTOH you could get to the area and arrange transport to take you across as it's less out of the way than Landmannalaugar. Vik is a lovely little town, there's nothing there really but the church has an incredible setting. The Sólheimasandur plane crash in the area is neat too, it's about a half hour walk off the road (NB old guides will tell you you can drive all the way to the crash site - this is no longer the case since like 2015). Blue Lagoon is touristy but it's pretty nice, I went in a hot pot like every day in Iceland and that was my second favorite, after Myvatn Nature Baths, which is too far for your time. Jokulsarlon is incredible but it'd really be pushing your itinerary. Possible if you do that instead of Landmannalaugar, but it's quite a ways. However it's a lovely drive the whole time. My favorite campsite in Iceland, and my favorite public campsite ever, was at Thakgil which is about a half hour drive up the hills north of Vik. I think you can wild camp also basically anywhere in Iceland, or at least we did a couple times. The Thakgil campsite isn't really anything too amazing, but the drive to get to it is stunning, e.g. https://www.google.com/maps/@63.464...0!7i5660!8i2830 VVV: I think he means he has 4 nights -> 3 full days in each, of which one day is going to be eaten by travel. Since he's never been to Europe before, it sounds like a decent "variety pack", and then next time they can spend more time in whatever type of locale they liked best. I guess it would be realistic to do a similar tour of the US like that, basically like 4 nights in Boston, 4 nights in NYC, 4 nights in Miami, 4 nights touring the countryside around Vegas. Saladman fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Jul 12, 2022 |
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Jul 12, 2022 13:04
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Spelling Mitsake posted:Yeah, that's the plan, 3 days in each stop with a travel day in between. 3 days in Lisbon, 3 in Bordeaux, 3 in Venice, then 3 around Iceland with rented camper. Gone for 17 days. this sounds nightmarish
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Jul 12, 2022 14:14
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I know someone who has booked a European tour for two weeks - each day a different major city, I think covering France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. It’s basically going to be two weeks on a coach. We are both in the UK so it’s not like it’s far to Europe either, in case he’s afraid of not ‘seeing’ something. I tried to dissuade him but it’s apparently what he wants to do!
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Jul 12, 2022 16:23
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Julio Cruz posted:this sounds nightmarish Yeah, the wife and I did 3 days in Rome -> 2 days in Bologna (side trip to Ravenna) -> 2 days in Salzburg -> 3 days in Munich and we were wiped the gently caress out before the end, and that itinerary is nowhere near as ambitious as Spelling Mistake's. But I hope SM has fun anyway!
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Jul 12, 2022 16:27
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I did Paris (6 days) -> Munich (5 days) -> Salzburg (2 days) -> Innsbruck (2 days) -> Florence (5 days) -> Rome (3 days) with my mom once, her itinerary. Never, never again.
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Jul 12, 2022 16:41
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I think what you have to look at is the ratio of travel days. Five travel days in a 17 day vacation is too much for me but maybe not everyone. If it's 5/19 (because the 17 didn't include the arrival and departure) that's a little better, but I do think it's one destination too many for the average tourist. Depends on the type of person though, if you're someone who wakes up at 6am and doesn't spend the whole afternoon in the first nice plaza you come across, then you can probably do more in 3 days than I would do in 7.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:08
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Yeah to be honest I usually target 3 days / 4 nights when I organize city trips. I did a trip with friends in April that was 5D/6N in Valencia, 4N/3D in Palermo, 4N/3D in Rome, which was about 2 days too much in Valencia, 1 day too much for Palermo (we rented a car and did a daytrip so it was fine) and Rome could be weeks, but 4D/3N was fine too. I like churches and museums and that kind of stuff, but to a maximum of like ... 2/week. I could also spend an entire week in a village of 1000 people in a dead-end mountain valley, weather permitting, so there's definitely a lot of personal preference thrown in there for trip planning. I can't believe anyone genuinely enjoys those "Paris (2N) -> Brussels (1N) -> Amsterdam (1N) -> Berlin (1N) -> Vienna (1N) -> Venice (1N) -> Rome (2N)" type trips though. Those people should just buy a VR headset and set up a controller to do Google Street View through the big monuments in those cities and get an ethnic-cuisine-appropriate delivery service, it'll save them thousands of dollars and a lot of sleep issues.
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Jul 12, 2022 17:14
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I go to the gym 6x a week and I don't want to stop for 7 weeks. Would the gyms in the area be welcoming to foreigners? I know I am going to be in Italy and Romania so far.
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Jul 12, 2022 20:10
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WaryWarren posted:I did Paris (6 days) -> Munich (5 days) -> Salzburg (2 days) -> Innsbruck (2 days) -> Florence (5 days) -> Rome (3 days) with my mom once, her itinerary. Never, never again. If you start on the right and go in reverse but stop at Munich that's exactly the trip I took. With a brief stop in Trento. It wasn't bad at all? Paris must have done you in
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Jul 12, 2022 21:35
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I just got back for Europe, Due to high energy prices, Germany is offering a $9 Euro ticket for the entire Country for July and August. That's right, for just freaking $9 euros you can take the train literally anywhere in Germany for a whole month. I will admit the Deutsche Bahn isn't perfectly reliable, crowded during commute times but it's so freaking cheap and can take you to all the major areas. Also, download the DB app. Google Maps and Apple Maps aren't that update to date for the smaller terminals. And always check the terminals.
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Jul 12, 2022 21:44
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:I just got back for Europe, Only on local trains though. And that's only the local trains that stop at every station, not even intercities, nevermind high speed trains. So it doesn't really help you if you are doing a Cologne-Munich-Berlin kinda trip. But if you just want to explore a specific region or take two weeks to make your way through the German countryside or are really not in a hurry then yeah, it is great!
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Jul 12, 2022 22:59
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I don't want to be a massive downer, I know people in the US usually get lovely holidays and it's a long way to travel over to Europe and a big expense, but...5 days of a 17 day trip spent in airports and on planes is an awfully big proportion. From my own experience, the day after a day spent in airports/planes I'm still pretty drained, so if you are anything at all like me, you're going to spend the majority of the trip feeling really tired. It's not the most exciting advice, but the best trips I've spent anywhere have included a few days of just mooching around, enjoying the feel of the place without any pressure to be doing something touristy. I spent a week in Rome, and at least half of that was just spent walking around looking at the neighbourhoods within 5-10 miles of the hotel. If you can strip a couple of destinations out of your itinerary, you'll almost certainly enjoy the ones you have left a lot more. Leave some time to just be in places, without trying to 'do' them as efficiently as possible.
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Jul 12, 2022 23:12
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Yeah, I expect to be wiped by the end of the trip. We totally fell into the "we'll be so close" way of thinking, could have probably cut a stop. Oh well, 3 days in each is nice, we'll have fun regardless. (My vacation last summer was driving for 8 days by myself to Saskatchewan and back, so this should still be relatively better travel-wise.)
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Jul 13, 2022 00:22
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You can sleep when you're home! I always advocate against rushed schedules in this thread but I do find myself having more tolerance for sleep deprivation and weird scheduling while travelling - everything is different and exciting anyway. My trip won't be ruined by barely being able to sleep in a mosquito-infested room one night or by waking up at 6am to see a sunrise or by having to take a late night/early morning bus somewhere. I do sleep a lot when I come back from trips. I guess everyone's tolerance for chaos is different. Non-negotiable hard deadlines such as having to catch flights do stress me out in the hours before so I guess that's the part of such multi-stop trips that wouldn't work for me.
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Jul 13, 2022 02:02
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I have a guidebook for Luxembourg that suggests 3, 5, 7, and … 14 day itineraries for the country. And it doesn’t include nearby sights outside of Luxembourg like the middle Moselle or Belgian Ardennes or whatever - it’s really just within the boundaries of modern Luxembourg. So I guess there are some people who like really slow travel. To me I’m ready to go anywhere after about 5 days, even Rome, Paris, etc. I’m be happy to go back to all of those mega cities for another 5 days, but after 5 days I usually get antsy and want to go elsewhere. I also don’t mind a direct flight in Europe depending on the airport proximity, it only costs about half a day and (at least for me) definitely doesn’t tire me out into the following day. I guess give it a shot with this itinerary and see if you want to adapt for the future.
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Jul 13, 2022 10:03
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I like my vacations to be relaxing so the idea of rushing around Europe with a maximum of 3 days per city is absolutely baffling to meSpelling Mitsake posted:Yeah, I expect to be wiped by the end of the trip. We totally fell into the "we'll be so close" way of thinking, could have probably cut a stop. Oh well, 3 days in each is nice, we'll have fun regardless. I guess this is the US definition of "so close" because Venice and Iceland are kinda on opposite sides of the continent
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Jul 13, 2022 15:00
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Julio Cruz posted:I guess this is the US definition of "so close" because Venice and Iceland are kinda on opposite sides of the continent Reykjavik through Icelandair is a super common (and often one of the lowest priced) connection for NA flights to Europe and vice-versa. I’ve done it several times from and to Toronto for extremely low prices. And recently Lisbon through TAP has been dirt cheap for Canadian-Europe connections. As a Canadian traveller, I can completely understand the beginning and end of the itinerary.
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Jul 13, 2022 19:13
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Saladman posted:So I guess there are some people who like really slow travel. Yeah, I spent 2 weeks on Malta and I still missed out a couple of things on Gozo. I'd usually have a general destination picked for a day and just walk around/spend time there without having to worry about rushing to catch a bus to the next POI.
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Jul 14, 2022 15:45
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My wife and I just did 2 nights in Venice -> train -> 2 nights in one part of Milan -> move to next hotel and spend 2 nights elsewhere in Milan -> train -> one night in Venice and it was fine. We did a direct trans-Atlantic overnight flight so that we arrived in the morning and had a full day to use in Venice, and that's really clutch on short trips. There was plenty of time for slow lunches or an Aperol Spritz between churches and museums. To return to trainchat from last page, there are train strikes happening in Italy right now and there were lots of panicked people at the stations scrambling to pick up the pieces of their shattered itineraries. Frecciarossa/frecciargento seemed unaffected, but that may have been our dumb luck.
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Jul 15, 2022 03:03
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In all my time commuting in Italy, the strikes only affected the crappy Regionale trains. So we would hop on a Freccia train and ride it between Bolzano and Trento and never have to pay. Italian inefficiency for the win.
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Jul 15, 2022 03:26
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We once got hit with a strike mid journey, like they literally just pulled into this tiny station in the middle of nowhere en route, parked the train and ordered everyone off. Trainload of passengers spent a nervous hour figuring out wtf to do, when suddenly they turned the train back on and told everyone to reboard. Good times
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Jul 15, 2022 11:39
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How are the other Europeans (temporary or otherwise) in the thread dealing with the heat? It's been absolutely blistering in Seville for the past week with highs floating around 44 for the past four days. My strategy has mainly been to just not be outside in the afternoon/early evening if at all possible, but I have no idea how people who are only here for a week or so (and don't have the time to hang around in their hotel if they want to see everything) are managing.
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Jul 15, 2022 20:57
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They went to Spain in July, they probably just think it’s normal.
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Jul 15, 2022 21:03
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What heat? Greetings from the Netherlands! Just kidding, we'll get ours in a few days. Last year I went to southern France in a heatwave (36-38C) and I struggled the first few days. I guess in part it was just acclimatization, in part it was drinking enough (even when not thirsty, and no alcohol) to avoid dehydration. Wearing a hat supposedly helps, and indeed, have a siesta in the afternoon. I also walked less than I normally would have.
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Jul 15, 2022 22:15
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It hasn't gotten super hot here in Ireland yet, but its expected to hit high 20s, possibly over 30 in the next 4 days. We're (immediate family) alright when at home, since we live right on the east coast, so sea breezes will probably bring temperatures right down, but we've been planning how to take our extremely hairy dog for walks without him dying of heatstroke. Once you get more that a street or two away from the sea it gets really loving stuffy. Wetting him down with big bottles of water usually does the trick. It's a pain in the rear end at night, Irish people are not acclimatised to nighttime temperatures over like, 14 degrees celcius, so we're all absolutely boiled when it's 18-20 degrees at night. I've been sleeping with wet hair and no bedclothes for the last week because it's too drat hot otherwise.
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Jul 15, 2022 22:32
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Supposed to hit 37 here in central Germany in a few days. The "best" tactic I've found is airing out the apartment really early in the morning, then closing all the windows and roller shutters and turtling up until the sun goes down. It sounds counterintuitive but in a house as well-insulated as ours, it keeps the overall temperature cooler than outside on superhot days. That being said it's also miserable because it's still *uncomfortably warm* and then you add to it the fact that there is no fresh air in the place. Just a different kind of miserable I guess. We have a mobile AC unit in the bedroom that helps in the evenings, but the power consumption is lolhuge and running it for more than a couple hours at a time feels really bad.
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Jul 16, 2022 08:02
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Drone posted:Supposed to hit 37 here in central Germany in a few days. The "best" tactic I've found is airing out the apartment really early in the morning, then closing all the windows and roller shutters and turtling up until the sun goes down. It sounds counterintuitive but in a house as well-insulated as ours, it keeps the overall temperature cooler than outside on superhot days.
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Jul 16, 2022 08:31
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Barry Bluejeans posted:How are the other Europeans (temporary or otherwise) in the thread dealing with the heat? It's been absolutely blistering in Seville for the past week with highs floating around 44 for the past four days. My strategy has mainly been to just not be outside in the afternoon/early evening if at all possible, but I have no idea how people who are only here for a week or so (and don't have the time to hang around in their hotel if they want to see everything) are managing. Séville is the hottest city in Europe so it’s pretty typical for temperatures in the low 40s in summer for at least a few days or a couple weeks. Consequently everyone there has A/C so normally, as like in the south of the US, you just go from AC to AC and minimize your outside time between 11 and 4. It’s not so bad; either take a siesta so you can go out later (and even normal shops are often open until like 9pm), or spend your days in air conditioned museums. You’ll just want to avoid places like the Game of Thrones city of dragons (Italica) and other outdoor open air sites. What gets much harder is in places like Germany, central/northern France when it gets hot, since there even many hotels do lot have A/C which can make it hard to sleep. It’s especially bad for hotel rooms since they very rarely have windows on opposite sides of the building, meaning you can’t open windows on both sides to get a draft running through to cool off quickly at night. In apartments it’s less of a problem except for people living in gabled roofed apartments - they are just hosed.
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Jul 16, 2022 10:10
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Thanks for the information on air conditioning/ventilation in other parts of Europe, I'll keep that in mind for future travels. I have noticed how lively Seville is at night, went out for a walk at 10 PM the other evening and there were still kids on the playgrounds (to say nothing of the sidewalks bursting with diners and drinkers). I'm utterly thankful for the prevalence of AC here, it's good to know that I can duck into a grocery store or whatever if I need to cool down for a few minutes. It's just been a bit of an adjustment for me as the main thing I like to do when traveling anywhere is to wander around and go down whatever streets seem the most interesting - never been someplace so hot (or cold) that that's not really a viable option for large swathes of the day.
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Jul 16, 2022 11:29
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Bourricot posted:How is that counterintuitive? Get as much cool air as you can, and prevent heat from getting in, sounds logical. I do the same in my badly insulated apartment. But if the house is well insulated, OP's thing totally works better. I have external blinds too so basically I get it as cold as possible during the night and then seal everything up in the morning. It's never gotten more than mildly unpleasant even during the hottest days. This year I want to try logging the inside/outside temperatures with different approaches and also building one of those bucket swamp coolers.
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Jul 16, 2022 12:15
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mobby_6kl posted:I think it could be counterintuitive to some because people usually try to get as much ventilation going as possible when it's hot, opening windows to get a draft, running fans, etc. My apartment has digital thermometers in every room and last week when it got to 32 it never got above 25 in the east-facing rooms and 26.5 in the west-facing rooms, which are also smaller than the east side rooms. First time I’ve ever lived somewhere with room-specific digital thermometers so it was impressive to see the numerical difference. It’ll really be put to the test next week with temperatures of like 36… 5-7 degrees cooler than outside is still going to be pretty hot. One of my friends lives in a gabled roof and even though she’s from Catalonia I guess she will melt next week. I’ve never seen a thermometer in one of those but I’d guess it’s easily 3 degrees hotter than outside air temperature by late afternoon. Her apartment is only on one side of the building too so no chance to open windows and catch a draft to cool down quickly at night either.
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Jul 16, 2022 13:06
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Going to Italy in September, assuming my flight isn't cancelled. I typically wait and take out money from a bank ATM when I'm in that country, but I'm wondering if this time I should take out some Euros right now since it's so low?
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Jul 16, 2022 14:05
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It's probably not gonna get any higher any time soon.
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Jul 16, 2022 17:06
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kuddles posted:Going to Italy in September, assuming my flight isn't cancelled. I typically wait and take out money from a bank ATM when I'm in that country, but I'm wondering if this time I should take out some Euros right now since it's so low? Just hit up the ATM when you arrive, though use a proper bank machine and not one of those blue & yellow Euronet machines which give you a terrible rate plus a hefty usage fee on top of whatever your bank charges.
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Jul 16, 2022 18:24
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Or if you can get a card that doesn't charge foreign currency transaction fees, they accept cards pretty much everywhere in Italy now. Covid got contactless payment adoption rates up to like 99%
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Jul 16, 2022 18:32
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