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This is an attempt at a travel blog from my seven-week sabbatical through Europe in the fall of 2005. Mainly I'm writing it so that I have some way to remember my Grand Tour (at 32, senility is setting in), but possibly it will also be useful to others in planning trips — there were several spots where I wasn't completely sure if my itinerary was even feasible, or that I'd allowed enough time even to hit the most essential sights. But in the end it all worked out very well; I would say the only two places where I really wish I had spent more time were (to my surprise) Vienna and Munich, although of course there are countless other great places I'd have loved to go which don't even show up here at all (the French Mediterranean, the Rhine, Budapest, Sicily, much more time in Spain, anything off the beaten track). There aren't any rest breaks in my schedule, so it takes a lot of stamina. I did stop moving very much when I got to Greece (partly by design, thinking I could use some relaxation on the beach, a vacation from my vacation), but this proved to be something of a mistake because the islands had already gotten quite chilly and deserted in late October, and you need to keep moving to keep warm.

Before this trip, I had never traveled through Europe, with the exceptions of the UK, Ireland, and Paris (which you won't find on this itinerary at all since I had already been there and wanted to explore new places). So I took a sort of tapas approach — sampling little short bites of lots of different places, with the idea that I can always come back later and spend more time in the ones I like. With at most two or three days in each place, you might not really get to know the culture, but you do get to see a lot in seven weeks. Of course, there are endless possibilities for getting off the beaten track, which I haven't even attempted here.

I started in Amsterdam and worked my way generally south, ending up on the Greek islands and flying back from Athens. Until I hit the Bay of Naples, I planned the itinerary quite rigidly a long time in advance (two or three months). This is because I didn't want to waste lots of time poring over train schedules or looking for places to stay after arriving in each place (and ending up who knows how far from the center, or paying what price — and of course the good cheap places in the guide books will all fill up very early). A few of the places were still very much in "high" season when I visited: Prague, Venice, Florence, and Rome, all of which would have been pretty miserable without advance planning. Once I hit the Naples area, things were so far off season that it was really unnecessary to book (and it's also more difficult to book, if you're like me and you like to do things online, because the level of technology decreases). This was also the case in the Cinque Terre and the Greek Islands, where I was able to just turn up and easily find great rooms. The Alps are also rather quiet and nice in late September. The only mistake I made was not booking Athens for the last two nights (wasn't sure how long I would be there); the several Plaka hotels listed in the Lonely Planet were all full when I arrived.

I mostly used the Rough Guide to Europe, which I found very reliable; not as many people seem to have it as the other guides, and so you're not always surrounded by tourists quite as much. Its weakness is that it covers so much ground that it can sometimes lack detail — the worst problem being that they don't show their listings on their maps, which means you often need a very good street map with street index in order to find anything. I also used a Frommers guide, which focused only on some major cities, and was rather more hit-and-miss in its recommendations (it was also two years out of date). In Italy, where I spent the most time, I opted for the detail of Rick Steves, which was usually helpful, but if I had to do it again I'd probably go for the Italian Rough Guide. On the Greek Islands, just for variety I went with the Lonely Planet, which also has a section on Athens; it has helpful maps but again I'd definitely go with the Rough Guide if I had to do it again. I also downloaded and stored some guides from the Web onto my Zaurus PDA (and I'm a little pissed at the Rough Guides for not making their Directions guides in a format which I could use this way).

It's easy to plan rail trips using the German rail site, which seems to be the most comprehensive site for trains throughout Europe. I only found it lacking on very small trains like the Mont Blanc Express. The Rail Pass can only be bought while you're outside Europe. I got a two-month pass for $1300 from Rick Steves (the included "extras" however did not seem terribly useful, and in fact they did not include the big Thomas Cook schedule book, which I think you get from other places. Of course you wouldn't want to lug that around, anyway, and good schedules throughout most of Europe are on the German rail site). If you're under 26 you can buy a cheaper second-class pass, but as I'm 32 I could only get the first-pass version. This is nice in that the first-class cars are much more spacious and less crowded (to the point of being empty, in the north), but on the other hand you're typically only going to be meeting boring businessmen, if anyone at all. I actually only used the pass for six weeks, as it's useless for island hopping in Greece (and even on the Greek mainland the buses generally seem a better bet). The pass probably saved me a lot compared with buying first-class tickets, but I'm not sure how much individual second-class tickets would have added up to. Of course, one of the best features of the pass is that you can avoid waiting in the horrible, soul-sucking lines of the train stations to buy tickets (though this is less of an advantage in Italy, where Eurostars are prevalent and require you to make annoying €12 additional reservations).

Cheap flights seemed to be relatively hard to find when I booked two or three months in advance, so you might want to try even earlier. The flight I eventually found on KLM for $1000 using Yahoo was less than half the price of all its competitors. Another reason to plan ahead carefully is that some museums require reservations a very long time in advance. Without reservations, you stand in line for many hours. In Florence, this is true of the Uffizi and Accademia, and in Milan, the Last Supper — a month in advance. For the Borghese in Rome, it seems a few days in advance is enough.

One of the nice things about traveling alone in Europe is that the hotels usually discount their rates for singles vs. doubles, even for the same room with two beds, which is something you don't see in the US. They usually include breakfast in the rate as well, but sometimes it is possible to opt out. The breakfast is often just bread with jam and coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, but the bread is usually pretty good. In the north there is also usually a choice of muesli or corn flakes. I averaged slightly over €50 per night, with a pretty high variance — as little as €28 in Innsbruck and as much as €104 in Siena.

Eating out is quite a different experience in Europe compared with the US. It's not uncommon to get the menu, order, and receive your food pretty quickly — in fact sometimes so quickly that you suspect microwaves are prominent in the kitchen. But then, you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. When you finally get tired of waiting and ask for the check you wait some more — once I waited up to twenty minutes from this point! This is very nice, when you want to have a leisurely, unhurried meal and linger afterwards. It's unheard of to have the feeling that you're being rushed out the door so that the restaurant can make more money (probably partly because tips are a much smaller fraction of the salary). On the other hand, eating alone I was often crammed into the densest possible table arrangement, as if they were trying to make lots of money by packing the place. Hours are reasonably similar to the US in the north, but in southern Europe you need to plan your meals carefully. Places are often only open roughly from 12:00 to 14:00 and again from 20:00 to 23:00. Shops in the south tend to be open 10:00 to 13:00 and again from 17:00 to 20:00. Service charges are often included, and 10% apparently is a gracious tip (but I never quite worked out whether tipping differs in the various countries I visited, so I usually erred on the side of generosity).

Since I'm in Europe, I use their date-month-year date format, and you'll find all the temperatures in Celsius and heights in meters. For each day I give the number of the day counting from the start, the date, the day of the week, and the locations I visited during that day (including everything but the briefest of train transfers). Special events I hit were the first night of Oktoberfest in Munich and a wonderful Saturday night street party in Siena. Places like the Cinque Terre might be more crowded and less pleasant on weekends, while places like Barcelona are said to be a lot more fun on the weekend. Venice would best be avoided on the weekend, so that at least you don't have to deal with the extra tourists who have come in on cheap weekend flights from the north.

Jonathan's Travel Blog :: Europe

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