Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts

Tuscany, Cote d'Azur, Florence and Venice....the first part of our next trip.


I am in the middle of planning a trip that I will be going on next month so I thought I would share some of the photos I have found on the internet of the places I will be going.

Day 1:
First off, we land in Nice, France in the afternoon. I'm sure by the time we get to our hotel we will just have time to walk the 5 minutes to the beach, have a swim then go off looking for a drink.
We will have to have a dip in the azure blue water that gives the Cote d'Azur it's name
We will find a place to have a nice drink before dinner



That first evening we will stroll along this promenade back to the hotel and get a good night's rest
Day 2:
We will get up and walk the promenade to the Old Town where the Marche Aux Fleurs is. This will be a Monday for us so we will be there for when they have an antique market along with the usual food and flower one. We'll pick up some food for the trip here most likely. 
This market has been going on for over a century.
We will hop in a car and head to our next hotel. We may pop into the country of Monaco and it's famous Monte Carlo Casino. Although, neither of us gamble, it may be fun to see all the rich as hell people. 
The casino of the rich and famous.
Then we will drive up to Saint Paul de Vence where we are staying for the second night. This is a quiet little well-preserved medieval town with adorable ramparts that surround the whole city. 
St Paul de Vence.
There are a couple wineries in the area I would love to visit otherwise we will walk the little town that is mostly filled with art galleries then go back to the hotel and go for a swim in the pool that is situated on a hill with spectacular views. 
Hotel pool.
Day 3:
We will grab our fruits and cheeses that we bought in Nice to hit the road. We will have a big drive to the Cinque Terre. We are staying in the northern most town of Monterosso. We'll arrive in the mid to late afternoon so I want to immediately jump into the Mediterranean Sea to wash off the long drive. 
The beach at Monterosso al Mare, the northernmost terre in the 5 Terre. 
We will probably walk the town a little and find a place for an aperitivo and then dinner.  Then it's time to rest back at the hotel again.
A little street in Monterosso.
Day 4:
I hope to get up and have a nice dip in the ocean before beginning the hike of the Sentiero Azzurro, or the Blue Trail. Depending on how my health is, I hope to see all 5 of the villages in the Cinque Terre. We will hike from Monterosso to Vernazza.
The view you get of Vernazza if you make the hike on the Sentiero Azzurro. 
Again, health depending, we will continue on to Corniglia. If I am unable to make any of these hikes we can just take the train that connects all the towns for about $1.50. 
The views of Corniglia from above. This is the only town in the 5T that is not ON the water but it still has a train station!
From Corniglia I expect to take a train to the southernmost town of Riomaggiore. We may want to take another dip in the water at this point. We can walk the town looking for a nice place to eat lunch.
Riomaggiore, the southernmost town in the Cinque Terre.
After a visit to the town, we will take the "Love Street" to the next town over, Manarola. This is an easy, 15 minute walk. 
Love Street
Love Street leads to Manarola
We will have seen all the towns of the Cinque Terre at this point so I hope to take a boat ride back up north to the village we are staying in. 

Day 5:
We get up and have a good drive again. We head first to the town of Pisa to visit the famous leaning tower. I believe you can go up the tower so that is what I will do. I remember doing it as a child and loved the crooked feeling you get going round and round a leaning building.
The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

After Pisa we will drive on to Florence. Our hotel is right near a lot of great tourist sites but the first thing I want to do is get a gelato. After, we'll take our gelatos to the Boboli Gardens.
A view of the city of Florence behind a fountain in the Boboli Gardens.
After that treat and a rest, we will had over to the cafe where the Negroni was invented. The Negroni is one of my favorite drinks of all time so this is exciting for me.
Campari is the base for this gin drink and is deeeelishus!
From the cafe we will walk through the Piazza della Signoria and to the Ponte Vecchio where you are supposed to get the best sunset photos. 
Ponte Vecchio at night. Beautiful.
We will find a place to eat dinner on our way home.

Day 6:
Up, eat breakfast and head right to the Galleria dell'Academia and look at Michelangelo's David. That is the only thing we need to see there and there are better places to visit in our only full day in Florence so we will head immediately to the Duomo after David.
You gotta see David when in Florence.
We have only a 6 minute walk to the Santa Maria del Fiore where there is loads to see. One must see the Cathedral, the Dome, the Bell Tower, the Bapistry with the golden doors, and the Crypt. There is a museum as well but it will be closed when we will be there...boo.
Bell Tower

The dome

The golden doors of the Bapistry

Cathedral di Santa Maria del Fiore
Next we will have lunch at a pannini place where you pick out your own meats and cheeses after getting to taste everything they have. With full bellies we will make our way to the Uffizi Gallery where we will see super famous things by Botticelli, Caravaggio, Michalangelo, da Vinci and more. 
Caravaggio's Young Bacchus

Botticelli's Birth of Venus

da Vinci's Annunciation
I sure hope we will have the energy and time to make it to the Museo Galileo so we can see Galileo's actual astronomy instruments. What a treat that will be, specially for us as amature astronomists ourselves. 

Apparently, you can view Galileo's finger here.
After the Galileo Museum we will have our aperitivo. Then we will walk through the Palazzo Vecchio for more sunset photos. If we have any energy at all, we can climb the tower.
The tower at the Palazzo Vecchio.
After that tour, we'll eat at a nice vegetarian restaurant and go home for some sleep.

Day 7:
Another longish drive to Venice. Well, not to Venice, but to the parking structures near Venice. Then we will take a Vaporetto ride through the city to our hotel. 
A vaporetto ride through Venice is how you get to your hotel.
This is about half way through the trip and all I have planned so far. Once I have more planned I will post more photos of what we have planned. 
2015, Planning
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European Travel - New Itinerary for 2015: Cote D'Azur, Tuscany, and an Alpine Festival

Lake Lugano, Switzerland, where my family is from.

In less than two months I will be back in Europe again! This time I will be going to places I have not been to at all or not in 30 years. I have the bones of my itinerary and am now just filling in the time with the activities, food and drink. I bought a new tablet so I hope that this trip I can post pictures as I blog along the way. Some day, I promise, I will add those photos to my last big trip to Germany, France and Switzerland.
Charmey, Switzerland. One of the places to celebrate Desalpes.

But enough of that, let's talk about France, Italy and Switzerland. I formed this route by the following means. We had a couple things we both really wanted to do. I, having made wine for the past 15 years, have not been able to travel in the harvest months previously. There is a little festival in Switzerland that happens in late September that I have always wanted to attend. So I looked it up, found the town that has the most festivities and activities. I will go into more detail about the festival below but it is called Desalpes and happens every year around the third weekend in September. It happens because it is the beginning of the wintery season so the farmers bring their cows down from the upper hills where they have been grazing all summer but can no longer once the cold and snow set in. The town I found to have the most activities is called Charmey, Switzerland. I marked Charmey on the map and then we moved onto what my husband really wanted to do which was be in some tropical weather.

We have been going to Europe every year for the past few years and as such we have not been able to afford going to Hawaii, one of our very favorite places to go, for a little over a year now. We thought we could scratch that tropical itch by heading down to the Cote d'Azure in France and Tuscany in Italy. I picked out a couple towns I liked, Nice and Monte Carlo and then realized that I have never been to the Cinque Terre in Italy so I marked that down on the map too.
I first mapped the main sights we wanted to go to then I stepped back and tried to make a route that incorporated them.

I stepped back and looked at my two areas of the map that were circled and formed a little of the trip in my head. I figured we would have to do the Desalpes at the end of the trip because it would make our vacation happen too late in the Fall if we started in late September. This meant most likely flying into Geneva and driving to Nice or flying into Nice. I chose flying into Nice, looping around to the Cinque Terre and up through the Alps back to Geneva. Geneva, being a larger city will have cheaper flights going out than if I were to fly out a nearby, smaller town. I, again, stepped back and looked at my map. I saw how close the Cinque Terre is to Lugano and decided that I would REALLY love to see my family's roots again.
A bench to relax and take in Lake Lugano. I bet there is an ice cream stand not too far from here too!

My heritage is almost completely Swiss with some Belgian splashed in. My family from Switzerland all originated in the canton of Ticino in the Lugano area...towns like Dino and Cimadra. They have since mostly spread out across Switzerland but my memories of family remain in the Lugano area. My first time to visit my Swiss family I was two years old. I have been many, many times since but then stopped coming for the last 25 years. Things get in the way like college, marriage, divorce, more marriage and illness. I have the most warm, happy memories of the area still in my head to this day though. I remember late nights with my grandpa in the tavern of the family hotel. I remember the smell of strong red wine and strong coffee and cigar smoke as I sat on my grandpa's lap while he socialized with his friends and family. I remember my aunt, Anna, making WAY more gnocchi than anyone could ever eat. I remember "You don't like? You no hungry?" when I pushed the last bowl away, too stuffed to even look at it. I remember my uncle, Pepin, having his tea in the living room surrounded by his bocci ball trophies. I remember throwing onions from the windows above at the poor arriving guests at Lydia's hotel. Poor Lydia. I also drew all over the hotel's hand painted wallpaper. Sorry, Lydia. I remember the stories my grandfather used to tell me...about the man who holds up the mountain or the giant who peed in the lake. Oh, Grandpa! I love all of Switzerland but I visit the Alpine region the most often, so going back to my roots will be spectacular. Ticino is the tropical canton so it will fit perfectly into this trip. I circled it on the map.
It is beginning to look like an actual route! Piazzale Roma is the place you park your car to take the boat to Venice. Google Maps does not have a way to drive to Venice because there are no cars IN Venice! Kinda hard driving on the water.

Another glance at the map and I decided to make a tough decision. The husband has never been to Italy and I thought it might be super romantic, specially since we just got married a few weeks ago, to visit Venice. Going to Venice would stretch our route far to the East. This means we will have to skip something in the Cote d'Azur and we will be having longer driving days than I normally have. Since we were now planning on going from the Cinque Terre to Venice, I see on the map that we will pass right through Pisa and not too far from Florence. I decided to make Pisa a drive through stop and to stay in Florence. My husband, being an artist himself, must see David and the other incredible art and architecture that is in the medieval town of Florence.

I take a look at the map as it stands and I see that we will be driving about 3 hours between towns. That is a LOT of driving for me normally but it is a bit of a compromise trip so it will work. I have one little problem...although it looks on the mat like the distance between Lugano and Charmey are about the same as all the other stops, I know it is much, much further. This is because that area is the middle of the Alps. The driving is a bit crazy and very windy. I need to put a stop in the middle somewhere between the two cities. I look at the route and see it goes through the area of my favorite town in all of Switzerland, Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen is a tiny, tiny town nestled in the valley between two steep hills. There is a beautiful waterfall, called Stubbach Falls that runs the length of one of these steep hills in a free-fall to the valley floor. I have stayed here many times. In fact, we were there just a year ago.
A little pic I snapped of the town of Lauterbrunnen.

I recall our last visit to the area of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland and I have fond memories of a side trip we took. We visited the town of Meiringen where a lovely Sherlock Holmes museum is and where the meringue was invented. After having a meringue in the cafe it was first created, we headed up a funicular to the top of the Reichenbach Falls, also of Sherlock fame. It is the top of these falls where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that Sherlock and Moriarty had a struggle before supposedly both falling to their deaths. You can see more about my travels to this area here and here. At the top of this waterfall you can hike a bit further onto the mountainside. My most favorite hike in all the world just might be this one. After getting off the funicular (buy a one way ticket) you climb up the path following along the waterfall until it flattens out at the very top of the falls. There is a road and a hotel there and nothing else. To go on the full hike, which will take at least a couple hours, you follow the road to your right. The road is paved but very narrow and is only there to get supplies to the little hotel perched on the mountainside. Once you move away from the hotel, the road narrows and becomes less paved. The path takes you through farmland as you descend the mountain. There are cows and chalets. You pass lazy cats and beautifully maintained vegetable gardens. You pass little town markers like the town of Falcher, keep heading down. After an hour or so you follow the now all dirt path into some tunnels bored through the rocks. Water cascades over your head into the valley below. Your shoes will get dirty here as the caves are always wet and muddy inside. After the series of caves you come out to a section where the funicular runs, you pretty  much follow those tracks down and you end up in the parking lot where you presumably parked your car in the first place. I did this hike in May, 2010 for the first time. When I returned in 2013 I wanted to repeat the walk but the weather was not as kind in June so we took some refuge at the little hotel at the top of the falls. Hotel Zwirgi. We were cold and wet, tired and starving. There was no one else who bothered to hike this far up so we had the whole restaurant of the hotel to ourselves. The waitress was so sweet. We described to her how hungry we are and that one of us is a vegetarian and she recommended we try a Kaseschnitte. This, was our first of MANY kaseschnittes.
Holy Kaseschnitte!! This is my half of the sandwich we had at Hotel Zwirgi after our wet hike.

A kaseschnitte is a thick slice of white bread loaf that is quickly soaked in white wine then it is fried in a deep dish with cheese covering it. There are many variations you can have after that, tomatoes, ham, usually a fried egg and more. We had all of the above, only the ham only on one half. I think there were also fried onions on the top. Yum. I want one now.

Why am I telling you all this? Because it had a great affect on us. We even named our GPS system after the dog that was there who liked no one but was very sweet nonetheless, Abby. I called the hotel and explained that we loved our little lunch there and would they have us for a couple day stay this trip. They were happy to welcome us so there was the last piece of the puzzle on the map...Meiringen and Hotel Zwirgi.
Hotel Zwirgi at the top of Reichenbach Falls, see you soon!

And there it was, the trip's bones are all in place. I put Geneva as the exit city both because it is near Charmey and it is a bigger city so cheaper flights as well as a better chance of getting a non-stop flight. Now that we have our path, I just needed to plug in Charmey on the 26th of September and let all the other dates fall into place. Because we have so much driving between cities, we chose to stay at least two days in each town so we can get a rest and a good amount of time to be tourists.

The final route! Time to purchase plane tickets and look at hotels.

I will post a mostly picture blog next so you can see the photos of these beautiful towns.
2015, Planning
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Planning a Trip to Europe - London and Paris Part Deux, Hotels and Activities.

Paris as seen from the top of Notre Dame Cathedral

Once you know where you are going, in my case right now, a quick getaway to London and Paris for my 40th birthday, and you know when you are going, as in what days you are flying then you get to do what I consider the most enjoyable part of the trip planning, the activities and hotel finding.

Oh you know, just opening a TARDIS with my own key.

Finding a hotel can actually be tedious after a while but it is also exciting because it is looking for what will be your home for a few days and that is important. It will have a big impact on how your trip goes, how it feels. If you have a hotel in a bad area, you might be afraid of leaving and venturing out. If you have a hotel that is way over your budget, you might be afraid, or worse, UNABLE to spend any money on fun things and attractions. If your hotel is funky, then you might not sleep well and that ruins your day ahead. I have a great way to find out what a hotel is really like. I will share that in a moment. First you need to know WHERE in the city or town you would like to stay. London is massive and I almost had a panic attack when I looked at it trying to find where I would want to stay. Then I calmed down a little and thought it through. I actually asked my good friend who lives in the area where was best to stay and he told me...BUT...normally I do what I did to find where to get our hotel in Paris which is first to plot on a map the most popular attractions I want to see. Once you do that, you can -hopefully- see a grouping. When you see a cluster you can know that is might be best to stay in a hotel in the middle of that area. This will save you time and money getting to the majority of the attractions. It is even more paramount for me to be in the center of the activities I want to do because of my illness that prevents me from being able to walk for long periods of time without exhaustion and extreme pain.


I thought to ask my friend in London where to stay because I recall him visiting me in San Francisco and I knew right where to tell him to stay. If you are wondering, I always suggest the Fisherman's Wharf area for lots of reasons that I won't get into in this blog posting. He immediately suggested I stay in West London. I looked at the map of London on Google and I could see the attractions I wanted to see all grouping in that area so I knew it was sound advice. I would recommend anyone visiting London to stay in the same area as well because of all there is to do there. Their Underground/Subway system is simple and effective so getting to any out of the area places is easy to do as well on those days you want to check something out not in West London like Abbey Road for example.



To find a hotel, I next zoomed in on the whole of West London and again pinpointed the attractions I knew I would want to experience like the National Gallery, Buckingham Palace, The British Museum etc. As I noted the locations of these places I naturally zeroed in on the Piccadilly Circus area. Next I went to a booking website and made a narrow search that kept me in the general area. I noted the prices of hotels in the region and decided on a price range that I was willing to spend to stay there. It will always be that the better the location, the higher the prices, but there are things you can do to balance out the costs. You certainly can choose an out of the way hotel but I can't do that. You can give up amenities like a spa or even internet. You can skip breakfast as well but I like to include it usually because I have found that I can save money if I stuff my face at breakfast and skip lunch. This does not always work as I found out on my recent trip to London this year where the breakfast was skimpy for the huge price. I asked at the desk to have the breakfasts removed from my bill and they obliged because they agreed that there were too many people and food was too scarce. In fact, not only was food scarce but plates, bowls and utensils were also unavailable so in this case we were able to cut loose. It became more cost effective to find an outside cafe to eat at. Then we still stuffed our bellies and skipped lunch. In London, and really in the area we stayed in, there was an abundance and variety of places to have breakfast so it made sense.

Full English Breakfast at one of the cafes we visited for breakfast.

Once you have figured out a price range you are happy with for the area you are willing to stay in, and the amenities you are willing to keep and/or give up, do a search on the booking site with your parameters and see what comes up. I have trouble believing the "star system". I don't really know who is giving these hotels their stars. Is it a 5 star hotel? Out of how many stars? What is the criteria for the stars? I use the star system as a guide knowing just that I don't want one star and I don't need 5+ stars. After that, I go from hotel to hotel looking at how cute they look and their exact location. Once I find one or hopefully several that I am interested in I go to another website to get the REAL info on the hotel quality and appearance. We all know that most hotels use professionals to market themselves. I belong to several travel blogs and have read many horror stories about people seeing these great photos of massive pools, quiet rooms and clean streets only to find out it was all a trick of the camera lens.

Unexpected Dalek attacks can ruin a trip

Hotels will also hire people (or I guess do it themselves) to write great reviews so they look better on sites like Yelp. This might be a bit more difficult to discern between the lies and the reality but there is a website you probably have heard of called TripAdvisor that is like a Yelp for hotels. TripAdvisor offers lots of information on travel beyond just hotels but it is by far most useful at ferreting out good and bad hotels. The asset it has is the photos from the travelers themselves. You first find the hotel you are interested in on TripAdvisor by Googling the hotel name and using the word tripadvisor or you can go to the TripAdvisor website and do a search. Once there, you can do a little reading about the people's experience and more importantly, check out the photos. When you see the page of your hotel you will see the photos separated out by "Hotel Photos" and "Traveler Photos". It is the latter that you need to look at. These are the photos that you can trust to have no trickery in them. Sure, sometimes you find a hotel dominated by one person's horrible experience but despite their bias, the photos still don't lie. The Traveler Photo section is further divided into several categories like Room/suite, Bathroom, View from room, and more. I recommend you have a good look around at the photos to make your decision on where to stay. If you still are having trouble deciding between a couple, then it's time to read the comments on TripAdvisor. Here, again, I don't much care about the star ratings unless it is extreme. If one person complains about the cleanliness or something I also don't care. People are all different and all have different tastes. What I am looking for in a hotel might not be what you find ideal in a hotel. It is time to worry when everyone starts complaining about the same thing. Then you know that there is an ongoing problem. Things like hidden charges, ripoffs and bugs are things I run from.

It's tough work being the Doctor's companion

After plenty of research of this nature, I choose a hotel and book it, either through Booking.com or sometimes through the hotel website. Sometimes I can find a coupon or I find that one site has a lower price than the other. Spend a little time googling the hotel, using sites like booking.com and even priceline.com or kayak or hipmonk to find the lowest price. If upon checkout you see a place to put a coupon code, do a bit more googling to find one that might be posted somewhere. Don't forget about AAA discounts and AARP or any other discount you might qualify for.

I like to get insurance if it is affordable. Sometimes it costs half the price of the hotel itself rendering it pretty much moot. For an extra $25 or so I am happy to pay for the security of having insurance. Insurance on a hotel means that you can get your money back if you have to cancel for unforeseen reasons like if you get sick. This almost happened to us on this very trip which would have been unfortunate because, as an unemployed person, I could not really afford the insurance so I did not buy any for the London hotel. Then a couple weeks before we are supposed to leave for our lovely trip, I get a little indigestion. That turned into an emergency room visit. That turned into surgery to remove my appendix! If it had happened any days later than it did, I would not have made the trip and would have lost a LOT of money.

Me, a couple weeks before our trip with an emergency Laparoscopic Appendectomy! 

Now you have done all the hardest of the work, the REAL fun begins. You get to figure out what you are going to be doing all day and night. My method is to make a plan of everything I want to do for each day of the trip but I don't follow it to the last detail. It is more of a suggestion. We always stray from the original plan. Sometimes we find a new thing to do entirely and often we skip an activity or two. Either way, I like to know what all the options are so I can decide when I get there what is best. This is where google and travel books come in. The best travel books, in my opinion, are the EyeWitness books. I downloaded the London and Paris ones. I used google for searches like "Paris for Vegetarians" or "London on a budget", "Secret London", "Most Romantic Places in Paris" etc. I make a google document with copy and pasting of anything that interests me. I make a list of all museums in the area. I love museums. Then I research each one, making a written list of the things in each museum and why I might visit it, the significance of each one, the cost, hours and restrictions. I use YouTube to do walkthroughs. For massive museums like the Louvre or the British Museum I used these tools to make a plan of attack because we don't have the time and I don't have the energy to see every piece of art in it. There are things one MUST see like the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo and more then there are the things we are interested in, personally, like Flemish paintings and Egyptian artifacts.

The Ravens at the Tower of London are an important part of it's history

Once I have a huge list of all the things I want to do, I mark it all on a map. This way I can look at the map and group nearby things together. I break the groups up into days and make the quickest route. Doing this, I also have to take into consideration the days some attractions are closed or a certain event is happening. Once I put that all together, including the way I will get from one place to another I make a play by play itinerary. I include what we will be doing, the time it takes to do it, the cost, perhaps things I should be ordering to eat or drink, and more.

I pretty much gave you the light version of how to plan a trip but I hope that it helps at least a few people who are on the fence about going to Europe from the US or Canada. If there are any specific questions I would be happy to answer them in the comments section. I am hoping to blog my most recent trip in the following month or so.
2014, Planning
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Planning a Trip to Europe - London and Paris Part One, The "Bones", When, where and for how long


Have you always wanted to visit Europe? Are you like me and are terrified to do it wrong? I have to know every little detail before I do something that "BIG". There are so, so, so many questions that need answering. How much will it cost? Where should I go? How do I get there? When should I go? What do I need to bring? What, if any, languages do I need to speak? What kind of food will I have to eat? What if I get lost? I am having a panic attack just writing this.

I am lucky, VERY lucky. I have been to Europe several times because a portion of my family is in Switzerland. The first time I went I was two years old. If you are reading this then you probably also know I just went last Spring. That trip was the first time I went on my own, without family. Over the years I have had a bigger and bigger hand in planning the trips but the next trip I am taking I will have done absolutely everything all on my own. And I will tell you, it is still scary.

I managed to figure out the Underground system and get around relatively easily using it.

I thought I would post a bit of the process of planning a trip like this for those of you out there who are as afraid if the unknown as I am. I will start by saying I am turning 40 this October (2014). I am sick with many illnesses but it can be summed up by saying I have Chronic Lyme Disease. This means that I am too sick to work because I am too sick to walk, run, jump, clean, dress, or any other normal daily activity for any extended period of time. I was getting an income from disability but that ran out. That ran out the DAY AFTER I decided to go to Europe for my birthday. THE DAY AFTER I purchased non-refundable plane tickets and hotel reservations! But that is not YOUR problem, it is mine and I want to turn it into something that might help someone else who is on....a budget...which I am now on....SERIOUSLY.

 London and Paris is Easy:
The trip I am planning is a simple one. A great first timer. I am going for only 10 days but anyone reading this and using it as a guide can extend it out to at least a couple weeks and I recommend you do so because if you are paying a couple thousand per person on plane tickets, you want to spend as much time over there as possible.

Paris on my birthday

Why do I say London and Paris is easy? First of all, you do not have to rent a car, so it is easy and cheaper too. When you are not driving you do not have to worry about driving laws, reading another language, reading maps, accidents and more. London and Paris have so much to do that you can spend a lot of time without traveling from one town to the other to the other. You can get a feel for two whole countries by only staying in two different hotels. Staying in the same hotel for a few days in a row is helpful because you can have a home base of somewhere you can become familiar with. You can hang your clothes up. You can make friends with the staff who will speak English to you without being rude. They can get to know you and give you suggestions too. Another reason London and Paris are a great starter pair is that they are close to one another yet they are worlds apart. They are an inexpensive, few hour train ride apart but they are two COMPLETELY different countries. You say, duh Steph, we all know they are different countries. But they really, REALLY are. I have friends in London who were born and raised there and have never, ever been to France, let alone Paris. The English and the French are not what you would call, BFFs. This will give you, the tourist, the experience of two very different countries with very different cultures, very close to one another but not affected by the other at all. So it's like you went much, much further.

I chose a quick trip to London and Paris for my 40th birthday!

Another reason London and Paris is easy is because they are big cities and as such, you have a lot of modern amenities. I love staying in small, European villages because they are off the beaten path and often full of charm but there are downsides to them as well. Many small towns will not have many English speakers so communicating is very difficult and often people will get frustrated or even mad at you for not understanding them. If there is any sort of emergency or even if you need something simple like toothpaste or a Band Aid, it can prove very difficult to get what you need. In a big city, you will find enough things similar to home that you can be comfortable but of course you still get the vibe, look and feel of being in another country. People usually speak and understand English, there are pharmacies and large grocery stores. You can find restaurants that have food you are familiar with too. My boyfriend is a vegetarian and he has loads of trouble finding food to eat in small towns. France has a hard time understanding vegetarians. In this case, despite being a big city, Paris has trouble providing a variety of food beyond salad for vegetarians. If you have any other food allergies or diet restrictions, or if you just don't want to eat weird, foreign to you food every single day, this is a great option.

Among many other reasons London and Paris is easy is the fact that everything is basically at your fingertips. Sure, both London and Paris are massive. They are even bigger to me, coming from San Francisco which is a tiny city comparatively. I am sure to people who only know small, rural towns it is totally massive. But still, the museums, attractions and sights are all compacted into one general area so you won't end up driving 3 hours the wrong way on a country road with no help in sight. I have never been to a city that didn't have nice people to help when you are lost too. I have been in small towns where they will ignore you when you try to get help but in a city, you can always find someone who can be understanding, and in most cases, they will find YOU. I have had many expereinces where I am totally lost and it shows on my face or by my gestures and someone will come up to me and offer help without my asking. This includes cities famous for being rude like Paris and New York. Of course, practice caution in those situations as well. Don't get out your map and look like a lost tourist in a bad neighborhood. Research what the bad places are before you go and make sure you avoid them if at all possible. Don't go out at night to places that are not heavily populated. These are common sense things to do. If you are in broad daylight and aren't flinging your purse or money around, you are perfectly safe telling someone you are lost and asking for help. In New York I found so many helpful people I was totally shocked. Most of the help I got was using the Subway which I had heard was dangerous and rough. I had heard New Yorkers are in their own world and don't have time to stop for a dumb tourist. Not true in my experience at ALL.

Right off the airplane I managed to figure out the tube system and get to our hotel via public transportation. I was very proud of myself for that.

Which brings me to another point, yes, research where you are going and understand the customs and where the good and bad neighborhoods are and all that...but also don't necessarily believe all the rumors and stereotypes. Before visiting Paris for the first time, my boyfriend had preconceptions that it was full of rude people. This came from first, we were in France for one day last year and the people were very rude to him because he said the dreaded, taboo phrase that you should avoid at all costs if you can: "Do you speak English?". Most Europeans and in my experience, all the French, dislike it when you don't even TRY. When you act like a privileged American who owns the place and you are owed communication on your terms. If you just try a little bit, if you stumble through just a couple words, again, the French especially, will either get tired of hearing you butcher their language or be happy you gave it a shot and speak English to you. So the boyfriend had a bad experience in our one day in France from a server whom he asked the question to. The other way he got is misconceptions was from his coworkers and friends. They were all telling him how rude the French are and that they smell because they never shower. He was told that the whole of Paris has a bad odor because of bad hygiene. This, of course, is ridiculous and not true. Once he arrived in the City of Lights he realized it was not true and it became one of his favorite cities despite his horrible trepidation before visiting. I mean I had to force the guy to go. Now he can't wait to go back. He realized that his problem from our last trip was not The French but a disgruntled waitress. We had a few encounters with unhappy people in the service industry. I imagine they are not paid enough to put up with so many bumbling tourists from not just the US but all over and it shows in the way they treat patrons sometimes.

I did some research and found a Doctor Who Museum. This costume is from one of the best episodes involving Vincent Van Gogh

OK, back to planning a trip. Once you have decided you want to go to London and Paris you have to decide when and how long you want to go for. This usually will depend on when you get time off work or when a special occasion is. In my recent case, I went to celebrate my 40th birthday so I wanted to make sure I went in the time surrounding October 8th. Once I decided that, I began checking various flight options to see what was cheapest. I learned that, in my case, flying into London and out Paris was FAR cheaper than the opposite. I learned that by using Kayak and several airline websites and typing in scenario after scenario of flight options. I kept in mind where weekends fell and what was closed when. For example, when traveling to Europe, many places are closed on Sundays. This is most obvious in smaller towns but also rings true in the bigger cities so you don't really want to land or take off on a Sunday because you may need things that aren't available to you. I also wanted to maximize the boyfriend's vacation hours so he was missing minimal days of work. I decided on leaving on a Thursday, spending four full days in London, split a travel day between London and Paris then four full days in Paris. I made sure we flew home on a Saturday.

There are many fun things to discover when you are walking around Paris.

That is something I learned the very hard way. Always give yourself a day of rest when coming home from a European vacation. Traveling East is always more difficult than traveling West but that doesn't mean that you will adjust right away coming home. The worst jet lag you will experience is when you arrive in Europe because you traveled East. I don't know the science behind it but it knocks me on my butt every. single. time. I am a blithering idiot for at least 24 hours after traveling East. Coming home is also difficult but not so much for the jet lag as the acclimation back into the real world. One time, I went to Ireland for two weeks and didn't give myself the proper resting time of at least a day. I flew home on Sunday and was working that Monday. I worked at a company that provided a database to winemakers and the first thing I did was erase the entire database from the records because my mind was groggy and still in another time zone 9 hours away from where I was. If you were worried, we were able to reset the database to the last time the computers were backed up but we lost a few days and my boss was livid. I never heard a man's voice make that sound before when I made the dreaded call to tell him. So, for you, your sanity and your job, make sure you plan a buffer day before you go back to work or responsibilities. That may mean taking an extra day off despite being back in your home town. Trust me, it is worth it for everyone involved.

Once you have the where, how and when of your trip, you have the bones. The next step is finding a hotel and planning your activities. That is when the real fun of trip planning begins. I will share that in another blog.
2014, Planning
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