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Last minute europe travel advice
Jebus314
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Hey all. Leaving for a longer (3-4 weeks) trip in some European countries (mainly Italy, France, and Ireland). The cities are Rome, Florence, Paris, and then sort of driving/meandering around Ireland. Being a dirty American traveler on my first trip outside of the americas I just thought I'd ask for any last minute tips from people who are more traveled or have lived in or around these places. I'll start with a few things I've been doing to give an idea of the type of hints I was hoping to get.
Sorry it's kind of vague, but if you have any travel stories/tips that you think would help me out I would appreciate it.
- Memorizing a few key sentences in the local language. Things like "I don't speak this language very well" or "I would like to buy a hamburger".
- Memorizing as many numbers as I can in the local language.
- Looking for a translation app for looking up phrases on the fly.
- Looking for an app that could translate things like signs and menus for me on the fly.
- Got a credit card that has no foreign transaction fees and an EMV chip in it. Although it's chip and sign rather than chip and pin, it will still hopefully be less stressful than trying to use my apparently outdated magnetic strip american credit cards.
- Got some tiny locks for locking up the zippers on my backpack when on crowded buses/trains or what not.
Sorry it's kind of vague, but if you have any travel stories/tips that you think would help me out I would appreciate it.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
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http://smile.amazon.com/Ceptics-Europe-Asia-Adapter-Quality/dp/B0084OPT8C/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1403647827&sr=1-1&keywords=plug+adapter
Note that they're relatively small.
Some devices, however, will work only for 100-120V. Examples are things like hair dryers and razors, and for whatever reason, most Nintendo devices I've ever had (haven't checked my 3DS, though). These require transformers, which are bulkier and more expensive. If you can manage it, though, you will need 0 or 1 transformers and probably several adapters.
No work, just backpacking it.
Edit- and by backpacking I mean I will be living out of a backpack but I have airbnb and hotels already booked. Transportation is sort of up in the air until I get to ireland where I will be renting a car (and driving on the left side of the road!). I think we have train tickets for between cities booked but for smaller getting around it will be public transportation. I read somewhere that it's easier to just go to a travel agent once you get into whatever city, tell them any day trips you want to take, and have them book whatever tickets you need there.
Also I say I a bunch, but my wife will be traveling with me and has done the bulk of the planning so far.
My main advice is to pack less, like only half fill your check in luggage, so that you can fill it up with souvenirs. Really, yes you can pack less. Hotels and B&Bs will do laundry for you. And you can shop for new clothes. I do both.
Other tips:
- Bring a Sea to Summit duffel bag (or similar), which packs down to baseball size, in case you need to check in a second item on the return flight.
- All your electronics chargers should be multi voltage/current compatible. If not, get ones that are. You don't want a transformer, as those are prone to blowing. You want actual chargers that can deal with worldwide voltage/currents.
- Bring a 3 to 1 outlet adapter (not a surge protector strip, but a simple 3 outlet to 1 plug adapter). Basically, assume you have exactly 1 free outlet in your room, as you never have enough in hotel rooms. Oh, and a plug adapter for whatever country you're in.
Finally, 3-4 nights per city. Any less, and you end up spending all your time in cars/planes.I do not know if Word Lens is available on other platforms however.
I think we were a little worried about traveling between cities with roller bags, especially since we will often have half a day or so to kill with our bags before we can check in.
On the laundry point, what's the deal with dryers in countries like Italy? I've read a few places that dryers are actually pretty uncommon so it's best to do laundry right when you get to a new place to give your stuff a few days to hang dry.
Good call though on taking a duffel or something that folds up small for the flight there but could be checked for the flight back.
Can recommend this app, it's very usefull.
Does Italian and French but won't be any help in Ireland.
In the land of the blind the one eyed man is a heretic.
In addition, unlike the USA, most countries overseas still have lockers/counters at the airport/train stations, to store your bags temporarily. Munich airport, for example, will hold onto your luggage for about €5/day, at their "left luggage" counter.
Yeah, most other countries air dry their clothes. But if you give them the clothes in the morning, they are usually dry by evening. B&Bs are the best when it comes to laundry. You drop off dirty clothes at the desk, and clean clothes will be hanging in your room by evening. And B&Bs will barely charge you anything for this service too.
Also TripAdvisor has downloadable city guides for the major cities.
Actually, would it be better for the OP to get prepaid phones, since they're going to be gone a month?
Another thing you'll want to do is try to keep apprised of the local situation while you're there. for example, there was a strike of transit workers when my GF and I were visiting Rome. Stuff like that can have a big impact on your plans, so be aware.
You can easily walk to most of the tourist spots, but going from the Eiffel Tower to say the Moulin Rouge your going to want to take the subway.
I didn't notice how long your going to be in Paris, but if you have an extra day, I recommend you but a train ticket for an early train up to Normandy. It is a beautiful train ride and seeing that area is something every American should do in their life time. There are tours from Bessin out to the landing zones all day long and they usually take you to the American Cemetary too.
― John Quincy Adams
First thanks to everyone for the advice so far.
@wilting I do have a few Ireland questions if you have some time.
My wife has an unlocked sony phone which has GSM so we were probably going to just get a prepaid sim card for while we are there. Not 100% on that process, but from what I read it should be relatively straight forward.
It feels like you are assuming American scale here. Driving in Ireland isn't exactly long distance. You're never particularly far from civilization, even in quieter parts of the west. So you wouldn't need to carry a lot of cash to get where you need to go anyway. If you can't get served I'm sure they're will be a nearby atm(probably in the service station). But if you are worried by all means fill up before heading out to parts unknown.
I'm neither a frequent road user nor a frequent visitor to tourist sites in Ireland, and I prefer cash, so take all this with a giant mountain of salt. I'd read up on the specifics of the particular places you want to go, and ask your bank about using credit cards.
Really good idea to learn greetings, please and thank you in other languages to be polite, but other than that you can getb y fine with English. I try to speak the other languages when I can, but I've never got in trouble when I didn't know something, it's more for the fun of it than necessity.
In Italy and France avoid street-sellers for anything but food. There's a lot who prey on tourists to try and sell them rubbish for too much money. They're not very persistent or rude, just tell them no. If you want souvenirs go have a look round markets or little antique shops in shopping districts rather than next to the attractions.
This is more general holiday advice but wherever you go during the day take a backpack you can put stuff like a decent sized water bottle, raincoat/umbrella, sun-cream and some snacks in. It can be surprisingly hard to find cheap water in loads of places, even in Paris and Rome. I remember being very dehydrated in the Louvre a couple of years ago and it took us ages to find a water fountain.
Clearly the big draws for lots of tourists are the landmarks but I'd really, strongly suggest not worrying too much about whether you see them all. Things like the Eiffel Tower and Colloseum look very much like they do on postcards. You can easily tire yourself out andn ot have much fun if you're rushing around trying to tick them all of. Instead pick one or two you really like and then walk from place to place where possible, stop to get food (ea as much as you can) and chill out a little. Florence, Paris, Rome and Dublin are all beautiful cities jsut to be in and I've always had far more fun just relaxing in them and wandering about and eating than I have sightseeing.
One last note - go to restaurants where there seem to be a lot of locals eating, chances are they're not getting ripped off or served bad food so you won't either. In Italy there seems to be a lot of tourist-oriented restaurants that have menus a mile long and don't do anything well, but charge you a fortune because they have music playing or some rubbish like that. The places where the locals go to eat their lunches tend to have tiny menus but serve really good food with massive portions for not much money.
Edit: With regards to the Sony phone - it's incredibly easy to get cheap prepaid SIM cards pretty much everywhere in Europe. Every newsagent, supermarket or travel information building will be selling them, you literally just have to buy them, put them in your phone and you're good to go. They're not so good on data or anything like that, but for calls and texts they're fine. Free wi-fi is fairly widespread now so use that for your internet, go find a starbucks or macdonalds you can sit nearby and use theirs.
I would recommend getting a phrase book over relying on an app, because phrase books don't run out of battery.. One of the tiny pocket-sized ones will be fine, but it is an enormous help to know how to say things like "can I have the bill, please", or "which platform does the train leave from", and having them in a book will also give you a better chance of picking up other relevant phrases by accidentally seeing them on the same page.
It's also useful to be able to point to phrases in the book if you don't want to have to try and wrestle with pronunciation; in a small-ish town in Germany I was browsing for toys for my kids in a toyshop, the owner came over and said -something- to me in rapid-fire German, so I just said "bitte", flipped through the pages, and showed her the "I'm just looking, thankyou" phrase. You could do this with an app, but then you'd still want to say "just a second, I'm looking it up on my phone" -- whereas everyone knows what it means if you're looking through a phrasebook, you didn't just ignore someone and start looking at your phone. Even at the visitor's desk in the touristiest bit of Saarbrucken, her level of English was about equal to my level of German, ie very minimal and we had to look some words up in a dictionary to get stuff done.
It also will give you a better sense of "how the language works" than relying on instant translation, which can be very helpful if you're trying to make a quick guess about what something generally says. Oh, and I'd recommend trying to listen to some audio in those languages, to get a sense of what they sound like; I'm sure youtube has some sort of introductory language videos which will help with getting a grasp of what things sound like in a given part of the world, or duolingo is another good way to get used to hearing that language.
(I'd also recommend a paper map over an electronic map, but that may just be me)
Also, yes, definitely carry a backpack, and carry a bigger bottle of water than you think you'll need.
Location-specific tips; in Paris, walk along the Seine, you can get to an awful lot of places that way. If it's a hot day, do _not_ get the Batobus along the river, no matter how much cheaper it may seem than the other options -- it is basically a greenhouse that floats.
When I went there with my folks, we took the ferry to Rosslaire(southeast corner of the isle), rented a car, drove to Dublin and back over the course of 3 days or so, spending one night in a hotel and one in a BnB which was essentially this one old guy's house with some spare rooms. You can see and do a good number of things in Ireland in that time.
There will be pubs everywhere, and they will all have similar menus, but they will all taste very good. The Blarney Stone is cool(although minor heights trigger- you do have to essentially lean over a castle wall, there's guys there that hold you so you can reach it), but they also have a very nice grove you can walk around right next to it also.
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- Has distances/speed limits in miles, and signs only in English
- Drives on the same side as the Republic, i.e. not on the American Side
- Uses £ Sterling. Some places in Belfast, Newry and Derry accept Euro, but at a poor rate.
- Has very few self-service only pumps: Mostly supermarkets have self service pumps, but you can choose to go into the shop to pay. You should always have the option of paying a person rather than a machine.
I can't speak for camping access as that's not a thing I'm interested in, and I'll hold off on touristy things to do in case you're just meandering in the Republic.
Here is few more things to consider.
Repeat.
General advice-
Do you know any Spanish? If you know decent Spanish, you should be able to read some basic Italian. Basic Junior High Spanish allowed me to read probably 75% of menus. And, you'd be surprised at the number of people in France who speak Spanish. When I went there two years ago, I kept accidentally answering people in Spanish instead of French, and it frequently worked better than trying to communicate in French or English.
Memorize your passport number. It'll help you get back home if your passport gets stolen. (My mom's was at one point.)
If you hate sparkling water, learn how to how to request it in French and Italian. Europe loves sparkling water.
You'll probably have to pay for water in restaurants everywhere. Just keep that in mind when ordering.
For Paris-
Are you planning on going to any museums? There's a pass you can buy, I forget what it's called but it looks like a small leaflet, that will get you into basically every museum for a specified amount of time. BUY THAT PASS. Otherwise you'll be waiting in line for a good 2-3 hours just to see things.
Nothing is open prior to 9 am. And by nothing, I mean nothing. You'll probably want to stop by a bakery for food in the afternoon & save it for breakfast.
Notre Dame has pickpockets. And really long lines. But it's worth it. There's also some amazing hot chocolate for sale nearby.
The Eiffel Tower is NOT worth it. And the food they sell in the Tower is crappy compared to what you can get a couple blocks away.
Don't buy food in museum cafes. It's overpriced and, while better than museum food in America, still crappy compared to what's offered elsewhere.
Italy-
There are a lot of panhandlers and street vendors that prey on tourists. If somebody offers you a flower, don't take it. If somebody asks you to hold something for them, don't. They'll try to charge you an obscene amount of money for it and then shout for the police if you refuse. Try not to make direct eye contact with them, or look at them in general, actually. That's a tourist thing, and if you do it, they're way more likely to bother you.
Keep your valuables inside your clothing. Like under a shirt while you're wearing it. There are lots of pick pockets. Don't leave your purse/wallet/bag out, ever. Also, carry purses and small bags football style. Sometimes people slit the bottom of your bag & try to make off with the contents.
Get Gelato. Get a lot of Gelato.
Florence has some really awesome Artesan shops, where you can actually arrange to see how they make the things they sell. I forget the name of the place that did pietra dura (really awesome stone mosaics,) but it's worth looking into. Enrico Giannini has an awesome shop for leather bound books and marbled paper, which was amazing.
The art is beautiful. Visit as many museums as you can.
The Colosseum and the Mausoleum of Augustus are NOT worth it. If you have to pick one, do the Colosseum. The Mausoleum of Augustus is really just an old stone building with bare walls. (And, when I visited, a homeless person hiding in a bush attempting to sell broken umbrellas and bags of lawn grass.)
The Vatican is its own separate country. If you're planning on visiting, you'll need your passports. Also, dress conservatively (pants for men, skirt or nice pants for women, shoulders must be covered.)
In crowds, make yourself bigger, not smaller. Stick your elbows out, and stand your ground if you get jostled. Otherwise you won't get to see anything.
As in France, buy passes to everything ahead of time.
Ireland-
I visited Ireland years ago, but to my memory, the IRA doesn't have the horrible reputation one might expect.
Irish museums will not seem anywhere near as good as the ones in Paris & Italy. But you won't need to buy your passes ahead of time because they get far less foot traffic.
This may be a matter of personal taste, but Irish food isn't that great. Look for French and Italian restaurants.
Irish bar food isn't that bad. And I've been told Guinness is far better in Ireland, so you should have at least one. (I was 12 when I went there, so I cannot verify this.)
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Indeed. Although the Dublin science museum does interesting/unusual things. Art galleries can do good things too. Lots of small scale arts/crafts around the country. You get the usual world travelling types like Bodies in Dublin. Might be an interesting WW1 exhibition on somewhere. Whatever you do don't go to the wax museum. There's an arts festival in my hometown in August.
Lots of great restaurants of all types, been a big explosion in the last couple of decades. Big point of pride in the country.
Lots of great gastro pubs. There are special Guinness quality inspectors that travel around the country that don't exist elsewhere, so yes, it is better. More and more independent/craft beer pubs have cropped in the past few years as well if you are into that sort of thing.
If you can, check the route/map before you go somewhere. On the large highways (and most national roads we were on) the signage is pretty good...but on other roads (and some national) every road is not clearly labeled, or the sign may be a bit hidden from view, or it just doesn't exist. So! Having a map or Google maps or a GPS will help you tons.
- Internet says that the European plug standard fits Italian outlets. This is not always true. A couple of older hotels had power slots too thin to allow the thicker pins of the Euro power plug in.
- In Florence, if someone asks you for the time, walk away quickly if they start asking further questions and feign a passing interest in your country, as it's a scam to try and hock some overpriced knicknacks (they they initially offer them to you for free as thanks). Nearly got caught out, and saw another tourist nearly get caught too.
- Lonely Planet Italian Phrasebook. Good stuff.
- Try to visit outside of the big cities. even if just for a day trip. While Rome was okay and Florence was nice, I found Bracchiano and Montepulciano to both be wonderful, full of character, and with people friendlier and more relaxed than those in the major cities. You don't really get a 'tourist script' feeling in your interactions as much, and they really exemplify the idyllic relaxed Italian lifestyle you see in some media.
- My phone's GPS saved my bacon almost every day. Save Offline Maps in the Google Maps app to make sure you have detailed maps when you have no internet. Wifi is common, but I found it rather unreliable (but I also seem to be unlucky with wifi in general). In Italy there is public wifi, but you require an account, which usually means an Italian signup page using Italiam SIM details. I ended up not bothering and just using the hotel connections.
- Bilingual can have a wibbly-wobbly meaning sometimes. For example, Italian train ticket machines are bilingual, but the tickets are only Italian and so are many train station signs. That said, the details are pretty obvious from context (train number, departure/arrival times, etc).
- Validate your ticket. Bus and train tickets must be validated using a yellow box inside the bus or a green and silver box at the train station near the platforms respectively. You can be fined if you don't have a validated ticket. It'll just put a little chad in the ticket and a timestamp when you push the ticket into the black slot.
- Money was easy, ATMs are bilingual and accepted my (Australian, PIN-based) credit card and debit card as easily as back home.
- The Colosseum has a bunch of scaffolding up right now. Trevi Fountain also has fencing around it and is dry. I didn't mind, but I thought Rome was kind of meh anyway.
- The Pantheon is amazing, though. Like, seriously. The engineering of the dome almost moved me to tears.
- Look into the Firenze Card. Expensive, but gets you priority access to a huge amount of museums in the city for 72 hours, and a great map that includes opening times for all the attractions.
- The Uffizi Gallery is around a 2 hour line without a prebooked ticket or Firenze Card. If you get in very early in the morning it's about 1 hour.
- Italy wakes at 9:00, tourists fill the streets at 11:00, and everyone wraps things up at midnight. If you want to see Florence without a bunch of cars and tourists around, leave the hotel at 7:00. It's really quite nice, almost a totally different place. Very few shops and museums will be open until 9:00, mind, but Florence is a great city for just wandering around on foot.
- The best gelato is from stores where the gelato is flat in the tub. If it looks like a gigantic mountain of icecream, that's because it's aerated to look big.
- While the restaurant food was okay (maybe I had too high expectations), I personally liked the simple food from tiny little cafes by far the best. A little cheeseburger, pizza, roll, whatever, from a friendly guy behind a little easily-missed counter can be a real treat. You can tell when a shop takes care in making food, instead of throwing out pasta dishes for tourists as quickly as possible.
- Nobile di Montepulciano 2009 vintage. That is all.
- Papal Address is Wednesday, so if you want to see the dude in person (I saw him about 4 feet away as he passed right by), go early and try and get near one of the lanes. Be aware that this will mean lots of people around, and that means longer lines for the museum (including the Sistene Chapel). Seriously, the museum is a total crush of people on a Wednesday.
- At Vatican City there will be hawkers for tours of the museum and chapel that skip the line and pay for your ticket. These are, surprisingly, actually quite good. I went with Maya Tours, and ended up passing a 3 hour line, getting an okay guide, and seeing a couple of areas not otherwise accessible. It's about a 1-1.5 hour walking tour through Vatican City.
- My experience with language was that the main people who reliably know good English are: hotel receptionists and concierges, taxi drivers, western takeaway stores (McDonalds, Hungry Jack's/Burger King), food stall owners and waiters in big tourist locations, almost everyone I met in Montepulciano. Random storeowners in tourist cities usually knew enough for transactions. Others were hit or miss. Even without a common language, finger numbers, pointing, and gestures can communicate a hell of a lot even without words.
- Memorise the word for ticket. It's seriously incredibly useful.
- Saying this again for emphasis, keep your phone charged and make sure GPS works. Also keep a taxi number in your contact list. Taxi drivers don't give out business card like they did when I was in America, but the number is usually written on their door. Also, some smaller towns have a taxi. As in, a single taxi. Hailing won't work there.
- Mainly in smaller towns, taxi drivers won't wait inside their car for a passenger, but sit around nearby to talk with friends. Be prepared to walk around a bit and gingerly ask if someone sitting or chatting vaguely near the car is the taxi driver.
Edit:
- The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence is 233 steps, but worth it. Great view. The building in general is a nice example of renaissance government buildings, though it doesn't have much art inside if you're ore interested in that. It's more about the state of the building at the time.
- Piazzale di Michaelangelo is the prototypical viewpoint of the city. There's another, hidden place - Chiesa di San Miniato al Monte, situated a small walk up the road. If the main metal gates are closed at the front, there's a dirt path leading from the road a bit to the left of it that will curve around and get you in the side. Watched an amazing fireworks show from there a few nights ago. It's a nice church and a very peaceful place, with few people around compared to the tourist bonanza of the Piazzale di Michaelangelo.
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unless you have a very specific reason to spend time in Paris, IMO there are far far better places to spend your time in France. OR if you were coming to America for the first time would you really want to go hang out in New York city, or would you rather see New England, or the Northern California Coast, or the Grand Canyon etc.
Southern france, French alps, the mediteranian, (avoid the Riviera IMO), etc.
I have had three separate trips that involved a stay in France for a total of about 2 months overall. I have been all over the place and really Paris is not all that IMO. There are some great museums, some cool things to do and all... but I honestly think you could spend maybe 2 days in Paris, and then head out to another part of the country .. meh I am totally rambling on my lunch break :P
have a great time!
*edit*
Wasn't able to figure out where you are starting.. but it sounds like you are ending up in Ireland. If you can swing it, try hitting up Scotland as well, really Scotland is just amazing.
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Given some of the things that went on, I would have expected the IRA to be viewed as undeniably awful in every respect. (But my great uncle was involved with the peace talks on the Northern side of things. So maybe I only heard bad things?)
If you ask if you can get your food boxed-up to go at a restaurant, you will get weird looks and the staff will not know what to do. I guess this is not a thing that Parisians normally do. :P
So, make sure you only order quantities of food that you can eat right at the restaurant.
That was honestly the only thing that was different enough that it caught me off guard (as a Canadian who speaks zero french). People in Paris typically understand enough English that you can totally get by without the need for a translation book (but they do really appreciate it most of the time if you can use a bit of the local language), and all of the locals I interacted with there were super friendly.
Hells yes.
I would really strongly disagree with this. I went to Paris as a kid and I still remember seeing the Eiffel Tower really vividly, I think it's a super impressive building. I can't speak for actually going up it, since I never did, but seeing it is highly recommended.
Paris is packed with stuff to see, it's one of the world's great cities. I'd recommend seeing Notre Dame and the Arch de Triomphe too, although be prepared for a long walk if you decide to walk from one to the other along the Champs-Elysees. You should also absolutely go to the Louvre, I seem to recall that it's costly, but well worth it, walking around there is fantastic, you just casually pass great works of art like it ain't no thing. The Venus De Milo was just in the middle of a fairly small room when I went, and you just see it and go "Oh hey, there's one of the most famous statues in the world."
You should also see the Place De Concorde if you want a taste of history, and the obelisk there is super impressive. I'm torn on whether or not to recommend Versailles. On one hand, it's very impressive, and extraordinarily pretty in places. On the other, it's also goddamn impractically huge, and walking around it on a hot day is not a fun experience.
I've also heard excellent things about Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur, but never been myself, I'd really love to one day.
Oh, and while you're in France? Drink absinthe, it's fantastic.
I can't speak for Italy or Ireland, but if you're thinking of coming to Spain at all, or anywhere else in France (like Brittany, Brittany is fucking gorgeous) I'll give some more recommendations/advice.
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Good one. I'd say this actually goes for the whole of Europe.
Also I forgot. When in Paris go to the Sacré Cœur as it's an amazing location and of course Montmartre as well.
A note on pricing also. Some cafe's will charge more when serving outside than inside - I'd say it is worth it when doing the tourist thing, but if you just really need a place to sit an plan the next day it is something to keep in mind.
But you should totally see it in person. And watch the light show they do at midnight, if you can. The light show is pretty cool.