So you wanna go to Europe

After Craig's school term finished in Freiburg, Germany, in spring 1990, he toured a great deal of Europe on a two-month rail pass. Eddie and Craig toured Europe together in 1995, visiting six world cities and having a marvelous time. They went back to four of the same cities in 1998, then to a few more in 2000, and most recently to a few more in 2001. It is with this experience that Craig and Eddie feel confident to share their advice for embarking on your own European tour.

click for our hotels

Homework So much of the groundwork can be laid by people in the comfort of their own homes. We call our travel agent once we're ready to book the plane tickets, order the rail passes, and reserve the sleeper cars. Everything else we do ourselves. Spring or fall is ideal. The peak season is July and August. Start saving money a year ahead, and don't wait much longer than that to plan.
You'll find so many hotel and pension sites on the Web, many with photographs. Some terrific sites are Fodor's, Microsoft's Expedia, and Rail Europe. Fodor's is the Web companion to the printed books. Expedia is a fascinating assortment of pictures, articles, hotel listings, maps, and airfare schedules. Rail Europe lets you enter "start" and "destination" cities to see how long a train trip takes, whether you have to change trains, and how much it costs (you'll probably have a rail pass so the prices won't matter to you).			The Brandenburg Gate, of course. Ride Berlin's doubledecker public bus #100 around the city, and you'll see this sight plus a dozen more. Get off anywhere to explore, then catch another #100. With a bus pass, this is a cheap, easy way to see Europe's largest metropolis.
Indispensable are the guide books Fodor’s Europe, Frommer's Europe, and even the college-student-oriented Let's Go: Europe. The Web has its advantages, but there's nothing like sitting back on the couch with a pencil and a few thick books and underlining whatever strikes your fancy. Wait until about October, when the new editions come out. Start with Fodor’s (it’s our favorite) and map out an itinerary.
In light of how many vacation weeks the common citizen of Europe gets, the standard American ration of two weeks is pitiful; nonetheless, 14 days minus two for the transatlantic crossings leaves you a dozen days, which is plenty of time to visit four or five cities. Opinions differ. Some people think you need to spend at least a week in a city to get the feeling of it. We say phooey. You could live somewhere a year and not quite get the "feeling" of it, and we think the point of touring is to see what distinguishes the city, in other words, the highlights. With some careful scheduling, you can take in the important sights and still experience some quite, less touristy things before moving on to the next town. Think of it this way: You aren't spending 12 hours in a plane each way just to see one or two cities. Once your ass is over there, get the lead out of it!			This photo of Notre-Dame was taken by Craig in June 1990. It's the sideview, Craig's favorite.
By reading a general Europe book like Fodor’s, you can figure out which places you want to see and in what order. (After you know where you'd like to go, look at books dedicated to those cities to give you more hotel and restaurant options.) Generally a triangle trip works best, where you fly into one city and fly out of another, but a circle trip could work if you start someplace central like Frankfurt.
On our most recent trip we flew into Paris and out of Berlin, just as we'd done in 1995. You pay about $125 extra to do a triangle trip, but that's a bargain when you consider that you don't have to double-back to the same airport. For instance, Paris is especially out of the way. It's in the middle of France with nothing nearby, and it would have been a waste of a day to go back to it. Visit Paris either first or last to take advantage of the numerous flights into and out of the city daily. Visit another big city at the opposite end of the trip for the same reason.
After three days in Paris you could take a train somewhere four or five hours away, such as Vienna or Venice. Go during the day so you can enjoy the scenery. The countryside in and around the Alps is spectacular! In 1990, I rode the Maria Theresa train (named after the queen of Hungary and Bohemia) from Zurich to Innsbruck, and I was astonished by the beauty of the mountains, the waterfalls, the tiny storybook villages nestled in the valleys. I can't wait until Eddie and I go back to Europe for a third time (in the year 2001?) and ride the Maria Theresa together.			The Hotel Kultur-Innov on Castle Hill in Budapest is the foreboding structure behind the fountain. Unbeatable location. St. Matthew's Cathedral and the Fisherman's Overlook are next door. The building once served as the Nazi administration headquarters during Budapest's occupation.
Rick Steves, travel writer and host of the PBS show Travels in Europe, recommends that Americans start a tour of Europe in a modern, western city like Paris, London, or Berlin in order to lessen the culture shock. Don't start in a small, eastern town where time has stood still for a hundred years and English is barely spoken. Save those places for later, after you've grown accustomed to being surrounded by a foreign culture.

Trains We heartily recommend rail passes if you're going to be taking three or more long-distance train trips. We've found them to be economical and convenient. You can get passes that cover anything from two months of unlimited travel to five trips within two weeks. Some passes are discounted for two or more people traveling together. In the off season these passes can be used by two people; in the summer three travelers are required. These group passes are a real bargain. Read about the various passes at the Rail Europe site.	Wie Viel? When comparing hotels, you'll often need to convert foreign currency into U.S. dollars. Make an index card that shows what twenty- dollar increments become in all the currencies of the countries you're going to visit. It's quick and easy to look up the amounts. Use the Universal Currency Converter online. You'll then know at a glance whether you can swing that 250,000-Lire pensione in Venice or that 140-Mark Gasthaus in Munich. Once you're in Europe, the chart comes in handy for shopping.
A rail pass pays for itself if you're taking three or more long-distance train trips. Look up a few trips at the Rail Europe site to see what they'd cost in cash. A trip in First Class from Paris to Venice costs something like $250 (traveling First Class is the only way to get a two-person sleeper cabin). That's half the cost of the rail pass right there. If you're only going to be taking two or three short trips during the daytime, it'll probably be cheaper to buy Second Class tickets once you arrive in Europe. You can take advantage of specials and discounts only when you buy the tickets in Europe; you pay full price if you buy them in the States.
Second Class is perfectly fine. That's the way most Europeans travel, just as most Americans fly coach. Adult rail passes are all for First Class, so that's how Eddie and I travel.
Upgrading to a private cabin is essential on a night train, in my opinion. When I was a student in 1990, riding the rails all over the continent, it was fine by me to sleep on the ordinary coach benches with three strangers. But, buddy, give me a private cabin today! For about $110, Eddie and I reserved a First Class sleeper when we rode from Paris to Venice in 1995. Sure, it's sorta expensive, but the comfort and privacy are worth it. We didn't have a private bathroom like we've had on Amtrak here in the States, but at least we had a sink. And what's $110 when you've been saving for months?
There's a Second Class sleeper option with six beds, called a couchette, but Eddie and I tried that when we rode from Venice to Vienna in 1995, and we'd rather not repeat the experience. In Second Class you can reserve the bunks but not the whole cabin. Last time, we got crowded in with two strangers before the train even left the Venice station. The window opened only a few inches. Our bunk numbers were on the top, about a foot from the ceiling. It was like lying in a coffin. It was so cramped and stuffy that Eddie was about ready to call the embassy. I had to plead with the conductor in my rusty German to let us change to an empty cabin a few doors down.

Stay The general Europe guide books all have a dozen or so accommodation options for each city, with helpful descriptions and price ranges. In the dedicated city books, you get several more. (To jump to our favorite hotels, click here.) The top guide books are reliable and concise, but they seldom feature photos. A Web site, on the other hand, is likely to feature photos but is also likely to be promotional in nature. You have to take everything it says with a grain of salt. Here's what you do: Find a hotel with a good description, location, and price in one of the guide books, then see if it has pictures on the Web.
We stayed up until midnight one night to call the Accademia Hotel in Venice for a reservation, allowing for the time difference. From a phrase book, we copied down on a piece of scratch paper the Italian versions of "Good morning," "Do you speak English?" "Thank you," "Yes," "No," and so on. Many hotel phones are answered by people who speak some basic English, and thank God the Accademia was one of them. The next day we had Thomas Cook Travel Services cut a check for a few hundred thousand Lire for the first night's deposit.
We followed the same procedure for our other hotels: Write down the phrases, wait until midnight, and call. Some hotels didn't require a deposit; we just faxed a follow-up to the phone call and the hotel faxed us back a confirmation.
I noticed that when you ask, "Do you speak English?" in a foreign language, the clerk usually replies in the foreign language, even if the answer is "Yes." For example, I called the Betlem Club in Prague and said in Czech, "Hello. Do you speak English?" (Phonetically, it goes something like "Do-bree-den. Mlu-vee-tay Ahn-glits-ki?") The clerk answered, "Ah-no." That's the word for "yes," but it confused me for a second because my ear registered "Ah, no," as in "Ah, no, I don't." After a little confusion we worked things out.			The blue building is the Betlem Club in Prague, which dates from the 13th century and is right in the heart of Old Town. A buffet breakfast is served in a cellar complete with stone walls and low archways.
Besides hotels, accommodation options in Europe include pensions (pronounced pen-see-OWNS) and hostels. Pensions are smaller than hotels, about as small as the Bed & Breakfasts we have here in the States. Usually the bathroom is in the hall. Some pension rooms have a sink so you can shave or put on makeup in private. That was the case at the pensions we stayed at in Vienna and Berlin (Pension Knesebeck). Hostels are for students and student-aged travelers, and membership in the Int'l Youth Hostel Federation is required. Amenities are few. You sleep and shower among the other guests (a sure-fire way to make friends). The rates are low, often under $15 a day, and the average hostel is spotlessly clean.
I stayed at numerous hostels in 1990 and had only one bad experience. In Amsterdam I had to sleep on an ancient, sagging bunk in a room full of 30 snoring guys. All the other hostels I'd been to booked two to six guys per room. Anything more is uncivilized. To this day I wonder if I would have enjoyed Amsterdam more had I gotten a decent night's sleep there.
Some travel agents can help with hotels, but Eddie and I would rather do it ourselves. Unless we were staying at a giant chain like Sheraton or Hilton, our travel agent said there was no point in going through him. Besides, it's fun seeking out and comparing places.

Our Hotels
Paris	Venice	Venice
Michelet-Odeon 6 place de l'Odeon, 6th Arr. Tiny modern rooms in a 300- year-old building. Excellent location, between the Theater de l'Europe and the Luxembourg Garden.	Hotel All'Angelo Go Calle Larga, San Marco 403 A stone's throw from St. Mark's Square. Huge rooms down curvy, bumpy hallways. Ours had an immense bathroom with two pedestal sinks.	Accademia Fond. Bollani, Dorsoduro1058 This is where we stayed in 1998, a charming inn at the juncture of two canals. The Katherine Hepburn picture Summertime was filled here. Fodor's star pick.
Prague	Berlin	Budapest
Betlem Club Jump to pic Betlemske namesti 9 Superb. In the heart of Old Town, these renovated Romanesque and Gothic parlors date from the 13th century.	Pension Knesebeck Go Knesebeckstr. 86 Comfortable, Old Berlin rooms half a block from Savignyplatz. Five-minute walk to the Ku'damm. Some rooms have private showers; toilets are off the hall.	Hotel Kultur-Innov Jump to pic Szentharomsag 6, Castle Hill Spacious, high-ceilinged rooms in the city's best district. The lobby, which is shared by a theater, is jaw-droppingly grand.

Fly
The airfares we saw on such Web sites at Expedia were around $1,250 for a direct Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin roundtrip. That's pretty high. In 1995 we paid closer to $1,000 on Delta for the same cities, although we had to change planes at JFK both ways. That's the most hideous airport in America! Our stopover from Berlin was supposed to be 90 minutes, but we cooled our heals in the cavernous, ugly JFK for five and a half hours while a replacement engine part was on a truck stuck in traffic. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I go through JFK again.

Take the airfares on the Web for ballpark figures only. They're generally high. Certainly it's worth a call to a real live travel agent to compare prices. We asked our travel agent to work his magic on the airfares, and he did. In 1998 we flew nonstop into Paris and out of Berlin on Air France for $100 less than the lowest price we had seen on the Web.

Book early, or you might as well forget it. We reserved the flights on Air France seven months in advance, and there were only eight seats free on the plane.

Transit Getting around in all the major cities is no problem. Public transit is fast, clean, and efficient everywhere. Even Budapest has a subway, a remarkably clean one with three lines. Of course the Metro in Paris is legendary, and the U-Bahn in Berlin is equally amazing, with more stations than any other system in the world. You're going to be spending much of your time in the city centers, and short subway rides and bus rides are all you'll need besides your own two feet.
We like to buy transportation passes the moment we get into town so that we won't have to hassle with tickets. In Paris and Berlin, for instance, we purchased three-day cards for about $15, which gave us unlimited access to subways and buses. Maybe it was a little more expensive than if we bought individual tickets for each jaunt, but the convenience is worth it. Who wants to bother counting up foreign coins at a busy subway turnstile? Also, you can put the card in your album as a souvenir.			Getting around in Venice means taking a boat or walking. There are no roads, just countless narrow, labyrinthine paths between the buildings and along the canals. The photo shows a waterbus making its way along the Grand Canal.

Wear
They say it in all the guide books, and they ain't kidding: Pack light! One suitcase per person. For two weeks, you should bring one week's worth of clothing and plan to spend a couple of hours at a Laundromat halfway through the trip. It's actually fun. Prague was in the middle of our recent trip, and, as we did in 1995, we went to Laundry Kings one afternoon and washed everything while knocking back terrific 17¢ bottles of beer. Yes, just 17¢! The prices in Prague are amazing. Let's Go lists laundry facilities for cities that have them, and most do.

To avoid wrinkles, roll, don't fold. Starting at the cuffs, roll your pants up around something soft like underwear or socks. Roll your T-shirts up and stack them like firewood in the suitcase. For button-down shirts (blouses for women), figure you're going to have to iron them anyway, so just pack them any which way. Martha Stewart insists that if you roll properly, you won't have to iron anything, but that's never worked for us when it comes to dress shirts.

We've got a little travel iron that's also a blow drier, and it converts to European voltage. Converting the electrical voltage is half the job; you also have to account for the different plug styles in Europe. The countries we're visiting have the same outlets, so we only had to buy one adapter ($6), which has two round prongs. Use the undressed edge of a bed as an ironing board.

I can only think of one other tip to add about clothing. It doesn't make sense to practice the usual custom of putting on new clothes in the morning and taking them off before bed. We go-go-go all day long and return to the hotel in the late afternoon to shower and rest up for the evening. We don't want to put on the day's clothes again. If we actually brought two outfits for every day, however, we'd need to hire some Gypsy children to carry our steamer trunks. So instead of packing two outfits per day, we put on the evening outfit the next morning. You're only wearing the evening clothes for two or three hours, over underclothes, and you're not running a marathon in them, so they're perfectly fine to wear the next day.

Suitcase
Choosing the right luggage is essential. Eddie and I each have 25x17 pullmans, plenty big enough. We also take along our Jansport rucksacks (the sadly discontinued Innsbruck models, which close by a flap-and-clasp rather than a zipper). They're great for carrying the camera, maps, water, sunglasses, wine, chocolate, and all the other things you need on the town.

If you'd like to test a suitcase you own to see how it would be in Europe, stuff it full of clothes from the hamper and try walking around with it. Rick Steves says you should be able to window-shop comfortably with your luggage in tow. He recommends a teeny, 22x14 overnight bag with a shoulder strap. I think that's too severe, but whatever suitcase you choose, you should be able to pick it up and carry it from room to room with little trouble. It may have wheels, but with all the cobblestones, tight corners, staircases, and curbs in Europe, you'll have to carry it more than you think.

When we went to Europe in 1995, we used real fullsize backpacks instead of suitcases. It's great to have both hands free, but you end up looking like a camper instead of a cosmopolitan traveler. On later trips, we've each taken medium-sized pullmans.

A money belt is essential. You wear one under your clothes, either around your waist or like a pendant around your neck. It feels strange at first, but then you get so used to it you don't even realize it's there. You probably won't have to wear it all the time; many hotels have safes you can rent or use freely. The money belt is where you'll keep all your travelers checks, your passport, your rail pass, a credit card, and your return plane ticket. If all your bags are lost or stolen, you'll still have the essentials.

That's our advice. Bon voyage!