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Barry Bluejeans
Feb 2, 2017

ATTENTHUN THITIZENTH
I've eaten well in Seville by mainly sticking to my neighborhood pizzeria and empanada spots (plus I got some kickass Peruvian chicken for takeaway once)

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Elysium
Aug 21, 2003
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Trip is coming up fast, here's our rough itinerary, not sure how to make the formatting work so gently caress it.

pre:
Thu, 9/1	       Travel Day (EWR/FCO) - Arrive 9/2 in the morning
Fri, 9/2	       Rome - Check in to hotel, Free day
Sat, 9/3	       Rome - Morning: Galleria Borghese, Afternoon: Colosseum
Sun, 9/4	       Rome - Explore (Pantheon/Fountains/Capuchin Crypt/etc)
Mon, 9/5               Rome - Vatican + St. Peters
Tue, 9/6	       Travel Day  - Train to Florence, check into AirBnB, Afternoon - Pitti Palace/Boboli Garden
Wed, 9/7       Florence - Morning: Uffizi Gallery + Galileo Museum, Afternoon: Duomo
Thu, 9/8        Florence - Train to Siena, explore all day
Fri, 9/9	       Florence - Rent a car for 1 day, explore Tuscan countryside / Winery (no cities)
Sat, 9/10	Florence - Bus to Winery tour/tasting
Sun, 9/11	Travel Day - Train to Riomaggiore (Cinque Terre), check in to AirBnb, Free Day
Mon, 9/12	Cinque Terre - Boat Tour
Tue, 9/13	Cinque Terre - Hike the towns (long way since partial closure)
Wed, 9/14	Travel Day - Train to Milan, check into Hotel, Free day
Thu, 9/15	Milan - Duomo, fashion shopping, end at Airport hotel
Fri, 9/16	        Travel Day - Early morning flight to Barcelona, Check into hotel, free day
Sat, 9/17	Barcelona - Explore Gothic Quarter (La Boqueria/Rambla/Cathedral), Beach.  Evening: FC Barcelona match
Sun, 9/18	Barcelona - La Sagrada + Park Guell
Mon, 9/19	Barcelona - Day trip to Montserrat (Hike up / Cable car down)
Tue, 9/20	Barcelona - Free day
Wed, 9/21	Travel Day - Flight to EWR
Some of this stuff is already booked, others are more up in the air. Free day just means nothing is officially planned and generally just finding good food to eat and a nice sight to see. Not sure how much of it is open to change but I welcome anyone to tell me how stupid I am and how I hosed up for one thing or another and should have planned it totally differently. Bit of a weird stopover in Milan but that's where we are flying out of so we figured check it out for a day and stay at the airport hotel because our flight to spain is very early in the morning.

greazeball
Feb 4, 2003



Check if you need to buy in advance for the Galleria Borghese! That was the case for us when we went last year, there were plenty of tickets but you couldn't just walk up, they were timed entrances.

Seems a pretty full itinerary by my laid-back standards but it's up to you. Personally, I prefer one scheduled thing per day so I never have to leave something I'm enjoying before I'm ready. We make a list of other things to do in afternoons if we're feeling it. This is your trip though.

If you haven't already booked the train ticket, you could do a one-way rental from Florence to Cinque Terra and do some exploring on the way. It's a short drive and there's lots of villages in the area to visit. One day car rental seems like kind of a PITA, I imagine you have to return it by 5pm or something, I don't know what their hours are though.

It's a good plan overall and you should have fun and you'll definitely see lots of cool poo poo and make people jealous so don't take any criticism you don't like! :cheers:

Elysium
Aug 21, 2003
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

greazeball posted:

Check if you need to buy in advance for the Galleria Borghese! That was the case for us when we went last year, there were plenty of tickets but you couldn't just walk up, they were timed entrances.

Seems a pretty full itinerary by my laid-back standards but it's up to you. Personally, I prefer one scheduled thing per day so I never have to leave something I'm enjoying before I'm ready. We make a list of other things to do in afternoons if we're feeling it.

Yeah most of the museums and big sites are all timed tickets now (each with their own pain in the rear end website you have to make an account for to buy tickets) and that is kind of the reason why they are stacked up on a few days, because then we know the timings and don't feel like we are forced into doing something on the other days that are more free. We know we only get two hours in Borghese and we know we had to have a timed ticket for the Colosseum (or otherwise risk standing in a huge queue when we get there) so same day made sense to me. I tried to make basically every travel day a free day, plus a few other days where nothing is really booked, just seeing "the sights."

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

Elysium posted:

Trip is coming up fast, here's our rough itinerary, not sure how to make the formatting work so gently caress it.

pre:
Thu, 9/1	       Travel Day (EWR/FCO) - Arrive 9/2 in the morning
[snip]
Wed, 9/21	Travel Day - Flight to EWR

Looks like a good itinerary, enjoy! One day rentals are OK, a bit of a hassle but not too bad if you can just drop off whenever, and not necessarily during office hours. That's also about the only time I get the extra insurance for a rental (the other is if I'm driving a lot off of paved roads), since then I don't have to worry about someone checking over the car and either finding or 'finding' new damage.

Balkan chat update since I asked a couple months ago and it doesn't come up here so much: we ended up doing the now-super-mainstream Kotor 3N, Zabljak 3N, Split 3N, 7N sailing around Split, Zagreb 2N circuit instead of Albania, which I think in the end was not the right choice for a trip in Jul-Aug. We did it like that mainly because we wanted to get our next sailing permit with RYA, and RYA does not have any sailing schools between Budva and Corfu.

The Balkans don't come up so often here, but it's about as crowded as anywhere I've been in Italy in high season; Kotor might as well have been the 6th town in Cinque Terre. I guess I'm about 15 years late for it being a hidden gem. The whole coast was lovely although for I guess obvious reasons very Italian feeling, except that English was much more widely spoken than in Italy. We took the train to Zagreb from Split, and the interior of the country still bears tons of scars of ethnic cleansing and depopulation; nearly every podunk train station from Knin to Plitvice is surrounded by blown-out factories and half-ruined station buildings.

We actually liked Zagreb. I wouldn't go out of my way to visit it, but I wouldn't avoid it either if I was passing through again by train or plane. It also has the highest density of unique museums I've seen anywhere in the world, from the Museum of Broken Relationships (surprisingly good), to the small but good Naive Art Museum, to the hangover museum and illusion museum and fifty other museums I passed but didn't go in. The north of the city is also quite lovely and mountainous, although we didn't get more than a couple hundred meters up.

Doll House Ghost
Jun 18, 2011



Elysium posted:

Trip is coming up fast, here's our rough itinerary, not sure how to make the formatting work so gently caress it.

pre:
Thu, 9/1	       Travel Day (EWR/FCO) - Arrive 9/2 in the morning
Fri, 9/2	       Rome - Check in to hotel, Free day
Sat, 9/3	       Rome - Morning: Galleria Borghese, Afternoon: Colosseum
Sun, 9/4	       Rome - Explore (Pantheon/Fountains/Capuchin Crypt/etc)
Mon, 9/5               Rome - Vatican + St. Peters
Tue, 9/6	       Travel Day  - Train to Florence, check into AirBnB, Afternoon - Pitti Palace/Boboli Garden
Wed, 9/7       Florence - Morning: Uffizi Gallery + Galileo Museum, Afternoon: Duomo
Thu, 9/8        Florence - Train to Siena, explore all day
Fri, 9/9	       Florence - Rent a car for 1 day, explore Tuscan countryside / Winery (no cities)
Sat, 9/10	Florence - Bus to Winery tour/tasting
Sun, 9/11	Travel Day - Train to Riomaggiore (Cinque Terre), check in to AirBnb, Free Day
Mon, 9/12	Cinque Terre - Boat Tour
Tue, 9/13	Cinque Terre - Hike the towns (long way since partial closure)
Wed, 9/14	Travel Day - Train to Milan, check into Hotel, Free day
Thu, 9/15	Milan - Duomo, fashion shopping, end at Airport hotel
Fri, 9/16	        Travel Day - Early morning flight to Barcelona, Check into hotel, free day
Sat, 9/17	Barcelona - Explore Gothic Quarter (La Boqueria/Rambla/Cathedral), Beach.  Evening: FC Barcelona match
Sun, 9/18	Barcelona - La Sagrada + Park Guell
Mon, 9/19	Barcelona - Day trip to Montserrat (Hike up / Cable car down)
Tue, 9/20	Barcelona - Free day
Wed, 9/21	Travel Day - Flight to EWR
Some of this stuff is already booked, others are more up in the air. Free day just means nothing is officially planned and generally just finding good food to eat and a nice sight to see. Not sure how much of it is open to change but I welcome anyone to tell me how stupid I am and how I hosed up for one thing or another and should have planned it totally differently. Bit of a weird stopover in Milan but that's where we are flying out of so we figured check it out for a day and stay at the airport hotel because our flight to spain is very early in the morning.

Piazzale Michelangelo near(ish) Boboli Gardens has lovely sunset views to Florence. If you have extra energy, the route through Viale Machiavelli and Viale Galileo past Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte was very nice.

runawayturtles
Aug 2, 2004
Despite my best efforts to actually do this in advance for once, my wife and I are planning another last-minute trip, this time to Spain in about a month. Here's the rough plan:

Overnight: Fly to Madrid
Day 1: Madrid
Day 2: Madrid
Day 3: Day trip to Toledo
Day 4: Train to Seville
Day 5: Seville
Day 6: Seville
Day 7: Train to Cordoba
Day 8: Train to Granada
Day 9: Granada
Day 10: Train to Madrid
Day 11: Fly home

We'll mostly be doing the typical touristy things (cathedrals, churches, museums, parks). Seem reasonable enough?

We thought about removing a day in Seville and adding two more days at the end for a total of three days in Barcelona (flying there from Granada), but probably going to pass on that idea and visit Barcelona another time.

runawayturtles fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Sep 6, 2022

mmkay
Oct 21, 2010

It seems like you'll be spending half of your vacation days moving between places, checking in and out; which doesn't seem ideal??

Dance Officer
May 4, 2017

It would be awesome if we could dance!
You're spending 40% of your time on the train. Maybe consider spending more time in 2-3 cities?

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010
Toledo is probably better as a day trip from Madrid rather than doing a checkin checkout, even though the train to Cordoba stops there so you’ll be retracing your steps.

I think your itinerary is reasonable though. I guess you could cut out Seville and add a day to Granada and two to Madrid but I don’t think it’s necessary. Anyway your train rides are short, albeit expensive.


vvv: that trip is way further in trains than this one and has one more city stop than this one, if Toledo is cut out as an overnight trip which it should be since it’s basically a suburb of Madrid - 33 min by train, apparently.

Saladman fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Sep 6, 2022

Judgy Fucker
Mar 24, 2006

runawayturtles posted:

Despite my best efforts to actually do this in advance for once, my wife and I are planning another last-minute trip, this time to Spain in about a month. Here's the rough plan:

Overnight: Fly to Madrid
Day 1: Madrid
Day 2: Madrid
Day 3: Toledo
Day 4: Train to Seville
Day 5: Seville
Day 6: Seville
Day 7: Train to Cordoba
Day 8: Train to Granada
Day 9: Granada
Day 10: Train to Madrid
Day 11: Fly home

We'll mostly be doing the typical touristy things (cathedrals, churches, museums, parks). Seem reasonable enough?

We thought about removing a day in Seville and adding two more days at the end for a total of three days in Barcelona (flying there from Granada), but probably going to pass on that idea and visit Barcelona another time.

My wife and I did Rome->Bologna->Ravenna->Salzburg->Munich over 11 days by train and while we had the time of our lives we were loving exhausted and agreed to never do anything like that again. Wished we’d had more time at every stop. Definitely recommending cutting 2-3 stops out and staying longer at the ones you do visit.

runawayturtles
Aug 2, 2004

Saladman posted:

Toledo is probably better as a day trip from Madrid rather than doing a checkin checkout, even though the train to Cordoba stops there so you’ll be retracing your steps.

I think your itinerary is reasonable though. I guess you could cut out Seville and add a day to Granada and two to Madrid but I don’t think it’s necessary. Anyway your train rides are short, albeit expensive.


vvv: that trip is way further in trains than this one and has one more city stop than this one, if Toledo is cut out as an overnight trip which it should be since it’s basically a suburb of Madrid - 33 min by train, apparently.

Thanks, updated for clarity, Toledo was indeed intended to be a day trip.

And yeah, the train rides are pretty short, so I don't know, it doesn't seem that exhausting to me. Maybe writing "Train to x" for a day is unclear that it's only a couple hours at most and we have the rest of the day to spend in the destination city. But yeah, it does seem expensive... do people not usually take trains visiting these cities? It looks like certain flights can be slightly cheaper and obviously shorter, but with added time at airports it probably doesn't save much. I guess a rental car is an option, but then we have to deal with parking everywhere.

Do these cities/train stations have luggage storage lockers available, like I recall from trips to other countries? We would be arriving in each city too early to check in to any hotels, although now that I think about it, in the past we've typically just checked luggage at hotels upon arrival in the morning, so I guess that works too.

edit: Oh yeah, are credit cards (mostly Visa) widely accepted?

runawayturtles fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Sep 6, 2022

Julio Cruz
May 19, 2006
5 cities in 10 days is definitely too many even if they are relatively close together

personally I'd cut Toledo and Seville and make Cordoba a stopover on the way back from Granada, something like this:

d1-4 Madrid
d5 train to Granada
d6-7 Granada
d8 train to Cordoba
d9 Cordoba
d10 train to Madrid
d11 fly home

Judgy Fucker
Mar 24, 2006

runawayturtles posted:

And yeah, the train rides are pretty short, so I don't know, it doesn't seem that exhausting to me. Maybe writing "Train to x" for a day is unclear that it's only a couple hours at most and we have the rest of the day to spend in the destination city. But yeah, it does seem expensive... do people not usually take trains visiting these cities? It looks like certain flights can be slightly cheaper and obviously shorter, but with added time at airports it probably doesn't save much. I guess a rental car is an option, but then we have to deal with parking everywhere.

All the trains we took in the itinerary I posted except for Ravenna to Salzburg (it was actually Bologna to Salzburg) were only a few hours each, it just adds up. Sightseeing trips are already kinda exerting, think about having to repack everything and lugging around your...luggage so much. And it does eat up a lot of time.

Trust me, we thought the same thing: "Oh, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump away, no biggie!" Yeah, once or twice. Not as often as we did.

Almost all train stations will have luggage lockers, but you should Google each station individually just to be sure. Oftentimes they're not literal lockers and more like cloakrooms with open hours, so if you want to drop off or (heaven forbid) pick up your luggage after hours, you're possibly gonna be poo poo outta luck.

distortion park
Apr 25, 2011


The thing about staying longer in cities is that you get to spend your extra time doing one of two things:
* Chilling out
* Doing smaller more local touristy things or even non tourist activités

If I reflect in the things I remember from my trips, it's often one of them. E.g. going to a small park in tokyo and eating really nice doughnuts from a specialist shop, doing a walk in the local countryside, visiting a shopping centre.

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

runawayturtles posted:

Thanks, updated for clarity, Toledo was indeed intended to be a day trip.

And yeah, the train rides are pretty short, so I don't know, it doesn't seem that exhausting to me. Maybe writing "Train to x" for a day is unclear that it's only a couple hours at most and we have the rest of the day to spend in the destination city. But yeah, it does seem expensive... do people not usually take trains visiting these cities? It looks like certain flights can be slightly cheaper and obviously shorter, but with added time at airports it probably doesn't save much. I guess a rental car is an option, but then we have to deal with parking everywhere.

Do these cities/train stations have luggage storage lockers available, like I recall from trips to other countries? We would be arriving in each city too early to check in to any hotels, although now that I think about it, in the past we've typically just checked luggage at hotels upon arrival in the morning, so I guess that works too.

edit: Oh yeah, are credit cards (mostly Visa) widely accepted?

Definitely 100% do not take planes for this itinerary, it'll take way longer than the trains and it won't save you much money really since you have to get to and from the airports. Planes only really start to make sense when the train trip would be longer than about 7 hours. A 5 hour train ride is usually more or less equivalent to the time it would take to get to that place by a ~45 minute flight, considering door-to-door.

You could do a rental car but then I'd make it a very different trip and it'd be quite a bit of driving compared to the extremely-fast trains, and with parking and etc probably will come to more than half the cost of the trains. If you wanted to spend less, then I'd save the money by not eating in restaurants rather than trying to figure out cheaper transport, which is usually buses (e.g. Flixbus).

Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever stayed in a hotel where they wouldn't let you leave your luggage even if they don't have early check-in. I'd do that instead of dealing with luggage lockers in train stations, which in Spain have airport security levels of hassle due to terrorist history.

I did a Madrid 3N-Cordoba 2N-Granada 2N trip, then later in the following year 4N in Seville fly in-fly outand it was at the upper-limit of too rushed for me for Granada, it was a day too much time for Cordoba, and it was perfect for Seville including time to stop and smell the roses. I've been to Madrid a few times, maybe 12 days in total, and there's still more I haven't been to there. I don't think you really have to consider "cutting" Toledo since it's just a daytrip. You can just see if you're feeling up to it or not. I did Toledo as a daytrip from Madrid and it was also more than enough time to walk around the town and inspect every back alley.

Anyway presumably you know how much you like in terms of spending time in places. Madrid could easily get more days (and cut out Seville) if you like smelling roses, but I think your itinerary is fine if you just want to walk around cities all day every and take photos around town. If I had had 11 nights to do it over again I'd probably do your itinerary of 4N Madrid - 1N Cordoba - 3 N Granada - 3N Seville. I really didn't like Cordoba at all, but the cathedral is incredible and unique.

I spent 5 days in Cordoba Argentina a few years ago which was 5 days too much – I literally don't remember even one single thing about the town or our 5 days there except making empanadas with our AirBnB owner back at her house, so at least for me if I spend too much time smelling the roses that's just as bad as an overly rushed itinerary.

runawayturtles
Aug 2, 2004

Saladman posted:

Definitely 100% do not take planes for this itinerary, it'll take way longer than the trains and it won't save you much money really since you have to get to and from the airports. Planes only really start to make sense when the train trip would be longer than about 7 hours. A 5 hour train ride is usually more or less equivalent to the time it would take to get to that place by a ~45 minute flight, considering door-to-door.

You could do a rental car but then I'd make it a very different trip and it'd be quite a bit of driving compared to the extremely-fast trains, and with parking and etc probably will come to more than half the cost of the trains. If you wanted to spend less, then I'd save the money by not eating in restaurants rather than trying to figure out cheaper transport, which is usually buses (e.g. Flixbus).

Thinking about it, I'm not sure I've ever stayed in a hotel where they wouldn't let you leave your luggage even if they don't have early check-in. I'd do that instead of dealing with luggage lockers in train stations, which in Spain have airport security levels of hassle due to terrorist history.

I did a Madrid 3N-Cordoba 2N-Granada 2N trip, then later in the following year 4N in Seville fly in-fly outand it was at the upper-limit of too rushed for me for Granada, it was a day too much time for Cordoba, and it was perfect for Seville including time to stop and smell the roses. I've been to Madrid a few times, maybe 12 days in total, and there's still more I haven't been to there. I don't think you really have to consider "cutting" Toledo since it's just a daytrip. You can just see if you're feeling up to it or not. I did Toledo as a daytrip from Madrid and it was also more than enough time to walk around the town and inspect every back alley.

Anyway presumably you know how much you like in terms of spending time in places. Madrid could easily get more days (and cut out Seville) if you like smelling roses, but I think your itinerary is fine if you just want to walk around cities all day every and take photos around town. If I had had 11 nights to do it over again I'd probably do your itinerary of 4N Madrid - 1N Cordoba - 3 N Granada - 3N Seville. I really didn't like Cordoba at all, but the cathedral is incredible and unique.

I spent 5 days in Cordoba Argentina a few years ago which was 5 days too much – I literally don't remember even one single thing about the town or our 5 days there except making empanadas with our AirBnB owner back at her house, so at least for me if I spend too much time smelling the roses that's just as bad as an overly rushed itinerary.

Thanks for all this feedback. We're not too concerned about the budget so we'll stick with the trains, just didn't want to overspend unnecessarily. And yeah, we've frequently left luggage at hotels in the morning, I just kind of forgot... I'm a bit rusty on international travel.

We still have a few hours to change/cancel the flight, and I just noticed a better flight returning a day later, so we might just add one more day to the trip. I'll be pretty tired the first day since I don't sleep well on planes, so I definitely wouldn't mind one more day in Madrid. It sounds like one more day in Granada would also be a solid choice.

runawayturtles
Aug 2, 2004

distortion park posted:

The thing about staying longer in cities is that you get to spend your extra time doing one of two things:
* Chilling out
* Doing smaller more local touristy things or even non tourist activités

If I reflect in the things I remember from my trips, it's often one of them. E.g. going to a small park in tokyo and eating really nice doughnuts from a specialist shop, doing a walk in the local countryside, visiting a shopping centre.

This is a very fair point, and to some extent I agree that time off the beaten path can be more memorable.

We do like to keep pretty busy while traveling though, just not so busy that we're rushed. Wish we had the vacation time to really chill out and still see all the places we want to see...

greazeball
Feb 4, 2003



Quoting myself from a few months ago because I'm the boring guy who always says to book tickets in advance for the big sights. We were in Grenada and we had to do late night F5ing like we were buying concert tickets to get into the Nasrid Palace in the Alhambra. At the moment, it's booked out until Saturday. It's incredible, don't miss it and don't end up with a ticket that doesn't include it. Agreeing again with Saladman that Cordoba is ok for a one-nighter too.

greazeball posted:

Agreed that Cordoba is worth a day, the cathedral is fantastic but there wasn't anything else that was unmissable. Granada was very cool and the Alhambra is incredible but be advised that you absolutely must get tickets for the Nasrid Palace in advance and they are typically sold out weeks in advance year round. Although I'm checking now and there seem to be plenty of tickets available which is surprising. When I visited pre-covid, everything was booked out for 6 weeks and I had to refresh the page at midnight on Sunday when they released extra tickets back into the wild or something like that. You can also book a tour with getyourguide and they'll have the tickets for you. The Nasrid Palace was stunning though so don't miss it. Here's the info from Alhambra and here's the ticket agent they use.

webmeister
Jan 31, 2007

The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.
Personally I wouldn't cut out Seville, I prefer it over most of those other cities :v:

Granada you need a full day for the Alhambra (and yes do all the extras), but I don't remember much else about the city. Likewise with Cordoba, La Mezquita is a pretty special place but aside from that and maybe the Roman bridge (??) I don't remember being super enamoured with the place. FWIW I'm not a big fan of Madrid either.

Saladman posted:

I spent 5 days in Cordoba Argentina a few years ago which was 5 days too much – I literally don't remember even one single thing about the town or our 5 days there except making empanadas with our AirBnB owner back at her house, so at least for me if I spend too much time smelling the roses that's just as bad as an overly rushed itinerary.

We stayed 4 days in the Argentine Cordoba about six weeks back and yeah that was definitely too much. There's a few interesting bits around the old city core, but not much else! Ironically I had Covid at the time and spent most of it isolating in our room.

runawayturtles
Aug 2, 2004
Heh, given all the Cordoba comments, I feel like we may as well just stop at the cathedral on the way from Seville to Granada and not even stay the night there...

distortion park
Apr 25, 2011


webmeister posted:

Personally I wouldn't cut out Seville, I prefer it over most of those other cities :v:

Granada you need a full day for the Alhambra (and yes do all the extras), but I don't remember much else about the city.

You could stay an extra day or so and get the bus to the Sierra Nevada ski resort if you're into that. Idk if there's anyway to get public transport to a good hiking spot in those mountains. Spain has the most gorgeous countryside but I think it gets missed a bit on trips there.

Jerry Manderbilt
May 31, 2012

No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.
if I have a week in Munich is it worth earmarking a day to go to Neuschwanstein? I'd bet getting a guided tour since I wouldn't have a car.

Judgy Fucker
Mar 24, 2006

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

if I have a week in Munich is it worth earmarking a day to go to Neuschwanstein? I'd bet getting a guided tour since I wouldn't have a car.

It's pretty cool, but if it means bumping something else you're interested in I'd pass just to spare the cost and travel time.

Not at all the same thing but if you're looking for an excursion Dachau was incredible.

Ferdinand Bardamu
Apr 30, 2013

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

if I have a week in Munich is it worth earmarking a day to go to Neuschwanstein? I'd bet getting a guided tour since I wouldn't have a car.

No. Munich is great for wandering around, going to biergartens and riding their excellent public transit.

Hollow Talk
Feb 2, 2014
Any recommendations for Aarhus and/or Aalborg in terms of food or other things that one shouldn’t miss (and that perhaps aren’t overly touristy)? We’re staying in the middle of nowhere but will probably do a day trip to each city.

webmeister
Jan 31, 2007

The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

if I have a week in Munich is it worth earmarking a day to go to Neuschwanstein? I'd bet getting a guided tour since I wouldn't have a car.

You can just get public transport there, it's way cheaper and not much slower: https://www.travelnuity.com/the-cheapest-way-to-see-neuschwanstein-castle/

And yeah I'd definitely say it's worth visiting if you've got an entire week in Munich.

Jerry Manderbilt
May 31, 2012

No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

webmeister posted:

You can just get public transport there, it's way cheaper and not much slower: https://www.travelnuity.com/the-cheapest-way-to-see-neuschwanstein-castle/

And yeah I'd definitely say it's worth visiting if you've got an entire week in Munich.

hm, I've also got a meeting with a friend slated in Nuremberg; that Bayern rail pass seems like it'd be worth getting multiple days for me. Thank you!

kiimo
Jul 24, 2003

Nuremberg is really cool. At least I enjoyed it. And I like their solution (no jokes please) to handle the Nazi artifacts. They don't tear them down to bury the past and they don't maintain them to appear as if glorifying them. They just let them fall into disrepair. Weeds, cracks, graffiti.

It's also a fun college town beyond the history

Molten Llama
Sep 20, 2006

Judgy Fucker posted:

Almost all train stations will have luggage lockers, but you should Google each station individually just to be sure. Oftentimes they're not literal lockers and more like cloakrooms with open hours, so if you want to drop off or (heaven forbid) pick up your luggage after hours, you're possibly gonna be poo poo outta luck.

To add to this, also note that even when the lockers are lockers, they're often filthy loving liars and don't include things like hinges or the inside depth of the door in their advertised dimensions. The usable dimensions may be less than the advertised dimensions. And even when true extra-large lockers exist, they are few and far between and probably already in use. Do not expect to store anything larger than a carry-on-sized roller bag.

Sand Monster
Apr 13, 2008

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

if I have a week in Munich is it worth earmarking a day to go to Neuschwanstein? I'd bet getting a guided tour since I wouldn't have a car.

Echoing the other poster that if you have a week in Munich then you should absolutely go. Yes, you can get there on your own, but I used this tour and recommend it, as they handle all of the logistics: https://www.neweuropetours.eu/sandemans-tours/munich/neuschwanstein-castle-tour/

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

by Fluffdaddy
If you do go to Neuschwanstein by yourself, keep in mind that you might need to buy tickets in advance. Guess how I found that out :)

Ras Het
May 23, 2007

when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.
You can only enter Neuschwanstein as part of a guided group, but I don't really see why you'd need one for the train ride from Munich to Füssen

kiimo
Jul 24, 2003

After spending two days in Munich I am not super sure what you'd do for a whole week but maybe I just didn't do enough research and explore things that don't have to do with drinking.

Judgy Fucker
Mar 24, 2006

kiimo posted:

After spending two days in Munich I am not super sure what you'd do for a whole week but maybe I just didn't do enough research and explore things that don't have to do with drinking.

The Glyptothek has the best collection of Greco-Roman antiquities north of the Alps, if you're into that kind of thing.

But yeah, Munich is definitely a city where you go to just vibe for a while. Which means hanging out in biergartens.

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

Ras Het posted:

You can only enter Neuschwanstein as part of a guided group, but I don't really see why you'd need one for the train ride from Munich to Füssen

You can do it with an audioguide too, but yeah you will get shuffled through the same way as with a guided group. You can get tickets here:

https://shop.ticket-center-hohenschwangau.de/Shop/Index/en/39901

buy them a couple weeks in advance.

Lovely to see Germany modernizing; I wish all the major sites would do that. Burg Eltz still doesn't do online ticketing, so you wait like 60-90 minutes in line to get a goddamn ticket still, even post-COVID - I went last year. (It's the only original castle in the middle Rhine-lower Moselle region.)

Ferdinand Bardamu
Apr 30, 2013

kiimo posted:

Nuremberg is really cool. At least I enjoyed it. And I like their solution (no jokes please) to handle the Nazi artifacts. They don't tear them down to bury the past and they don't maintain them to appear as if glorifying them. They just let them fall into disrepair. Weeds, cracks, graffiti.

It's also a fun college town beyond the history

I remember they repurposed a small power station that the Nazis built into a Burger King. You could still see the outline of the Nazi eagle on the building where it once hung. lol

runawayturtles
Aug 2, 2004

runawayturtles posted:

We still have a few hours to change/cancel the flight, and I just noticed a better flight returning a day later, so we might just add one more day to the trip. I'll be pretty tired the first day since I don't sleep well on planes, so I definitely wouldn't mind one more day in Madrid. It sounds like one more day in Granada would also be a solid choice.

I ended up switching to the better flight, and we're gonna just add the extra day to Madrid. If we've seen enough of Madrid to be satisfied at that point, maybe we'll take a day trip to Segovia.

And now back to buying train tickets, as I read that buying them in advance is cheaper...

Drone
Aug 22, 2003

Incredible machine
:smug:


Hollow Talk posted:

Any recommendations for Aarhus and/or Aalborg in terms of food or other things that one shouldn’t miss (and that perhaps aren’t overly touristy)? We’re staying in the middle of nowhere but will probably do a day trip to each city.

You might wanna check in the Scandinavia thread, they gave me a few recos when I visited Aarhus a few months ago.

All depends on what you're looking for but tbh in the five days we stayed in Aarhus back in May, we ate at Street Food near the train station on like three of them. :v:

Edit: also not a food recommendation or anything but Aalborg Zoo was really cool and good imo, if that's your kind of thing.

Drone fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Sep 11, 2022

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Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

runawayturtles posted:

I ended up switching to the better flight, and we're gonna just add the extra day to Madrid. If we've seen enough of Madrid to be satisfied at that point, maybe we'll take a day trip to Segovia.

And now back to buying train tickets, as I read that buying them in advance is cheaper...

Sounds like fun, enjoy. That one extra day should help a lot on your itinerary, at least imo a 3 day city stay is way more comfortable than a 2 day stay.

Yeah buying train tickets in advance for long-distance trains is cheaper basically everywhere in Western Europe, like buying flights. I think Switzerland was one of the last holdouts, and even here we added finally cheaper tickets if bought > 24 hours in advance like five years ago.

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