Well, I didn't end up blogging much during Europe. Seems like everytime I got to a computer I was busy booking a room, or researching flights, or looking up train schedules. It felt like a job at times. If nothing else, travelling makes you appreciate the Firefox browser and American-style keyboards.
Some statistics on the trip:
Weather: sunny everywhere but the three westernmost cities (Reykjavik, Bergen, and Dublin)...the best weather was in Italy
Cities visited: Reykjavik, Oslo, Bergen (Norway), Flam (fjords), Oslo (again), Copenhagen, Aelmhult (Sweden, slight backtrack, home of IKEA), Hamburg, Amsterdam, Cologne, Munich, Florence, Palaia (near Pisa), Bratislava, Vienna, Dublin
Elevation: I managed to make a very, very flat tour of Europe. Except for airplanes, clock towers, and parts of Italy and Norway, it was mostly at sea level. The countryside had lots of windmills, cows, and soccer fields. Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Northern Germany were particularly flat.
Travel days within Europe: 1 by car (Hamburg to Amsterdam), 1 by bus (Oslo to Copenhagen), 2 by boat (Sognefjord and Danube), 3 by plane, 8 by train, or 15 total out of 30 days
Distance from Bergen, Norway to Florence, Italy: I did this all on the ground or by sea. 1300 miles in 15 days. It is approximately the same distance (and direction) from Seattle to San Diego, but the terrain was more like going through the Midwest.
Lodging: couchsurfing 1, friends 2, family 3, hotel 5, hostel 17
Most $$$$$ place: Norway
Countries with their own currency: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark
Countries with the Euro: Germany, Holland, Italy, Slovakia (!), Austria, Ireland
Places where it was easiest to meet the locals: Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Italy (but this was largely driven by the circumstances of my trip and my inability to speak Slovakian, Dutch, Swedish, etc.)
Friendly tourists: American, Russian, English, Canadian, Belgian, Australian, German
Water:
Canals: Amsterdam, Dublin
Lakes: Hamburg
Rivers: Cologne, Florence, Vienna, Bratislava
Fjords and waterfalls: Flam
Hot springs: Blue Lagoon, Iceland
Private swimming pool overlooking beautiful Tuscany countryside: Palaia, Italy
Sailboats: Bergen, Oslo, Copenhagen
Manmade things:
Churches: Florence, Vienna, Dublin
Museums: Amsterdam, Vienna (did not have time in Florence)
Clocktowers: Amsterdam, Hamburg, Munich
Nightlife: Reykjavik, Oslo, Munich, Dublin
Urban parks: Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Dublin
Italian restaurants: Palaia, Florence, Vienna
Pedestrian streets: Munich, Dublin
Medievally spiral staircases: Amsterdam
Soccer fanatics: Hamburg, Florence
Late-night hamburger joint: Rick's in Dublin
Undergrounds: Vienna, Munich
American-like things in Europe:
grunge/rock/music: Reykjavik/Oslo
grad student party: Copenhagen
people who speak English: Iceland
BK/McDs/KFC: too many places
Things I forgot to pack: nail clippers, power adapter
Other essentials: iPhone, good local maps
Travel snafus: one hostel reservation botched, one train overslept, one tube of toothpaste leaked, one international driver's license lost, but nothing major
Air travel: totally painless, I am a big fan of IcelandAir and RyanAir now
Biggest regret: None. I covered a lot of ground, which meant I never spent more than three days in any one place, but I cannot think of a country that I would have nixed.
Nuisances: laundry (but it is so nice to pack light), being your own travel agent (even with the Internet it takes so long), overbooked cities (marathon in Berlin, Ocktoberfest in Munich, students finding flats in Vienna), not knowing the local languages (especially in Germany/Vienna/Holland), Italian trains
Best natural scenery on my trip: Norway by a long shot, but I am spoiled by all the great places you can go in North America
Books read while in trains, plains, and laundromats:
Freakonomics (nothing special, just good light reading)
House of Sand of Fog (excellent)
Movies seen:
Inglorious basterds (with German subtitles, so I understood English and some French, and saw it with a bilingual German who made her best attempt to translate the German for me)
Future trips to consider:
rent a car and travel the perimeter of Iceland
bike trip through Norway
yearly trip to Italian villa with my mother and aunts
learn German in Vienna
Stockholm, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, Prague (did not make them this time for various reasons)
Expat places:
Oslo (Swedes go there to make money)
Vienna (Billabong's is great Aussie bar)
Reykjavik (the government gives grants to artists and musicians)
Coolest hostels:
Reykjavik Downtown Hostel, Reykjavik, Iceland
Ruthensteiner, Vienna, Austria
Plus Florence, Florence, Italy
Friday, October 2, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Week One
This is gonna be a quick update, as I have twelve minutes left on my Internet rental.
Today, Friday will my seventh full day in Europe. So far I have divided time between Iceland and Norway.
Most of my time in Iceland was right in Reykjavik, which is a great city for nocturnal, pedestrian, English speaking tourists like myself. It is a perfect stopover spot coming from the West Coast, because you do not really need to change your internal clock, even though they are seven hours ahead of us, they stay up that late anyway. Hitting the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport to the next stop is highly recommended. I wish I had more time in Iceland, but I expect to be back some time in the future.
Norway has been kind of a mixed bag. Normally when I travel I try not to let the thought of how much money I am spending interfere with enjoyment of the moment, but things are just so expensive here that you cannot help but think about what a beating your wallet is taking. To really do Norway right you need to cover ground more slowly than I have time to do on this trip. I basically am finishing up a loop today from Oslo to Bergen to Flam and back to Oslo. The transportation legs, train from Oslo to Bergen and boat from Bergen to Flam, have been very scenic, even with less than perfect weather. Bergen was disappointing, partly because of some really cold rain. Oslo is Oslo, I will write more after visiting tonight. Flam is great--nearby hiking to waterfalls, etc.
Gotta catch a train!
Today, Friday will my seventh full day in Europe. So far I have divided time between Iceland and Norway.
Most of my time in Iceland was right in Reykjavik, which is a great city for nocturnal, pedestrian, English speaking tourists like myself. It is a perfect stopover spot coming from the West Coast, because you do not really need to change your internal clock, even though they are seven hours ahead of us, they stay up that late anyway. Hitting the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport to the next stop is highly recommended. I wish I had more time in Iceland, but I expect to be back some time in the future.
Norway has been kind of a mixed bag. Normally when I travel I try not to let the thought of how much money I am spending interfere with enjoyment of the moment, but things are just so expensive here that you cannot help but think about what a beating your wallet is taking. To really do Norway right you need to cover ground more slowly than I have time to do on this trip. I basically am finishing up a loop today from Oslo to Bergen to Flam and back to Oslo. The transportation legs, train from Oslo to Bergen and boat from Bergen to Flam, have been very scenic, even with less than perfect weather. Bergen was disappointing, partly because of some really cold rain. Oslo is Oslo, I will write more after visiting tonight. Flam is great--nearby hiking to waterfalls, etc.
Gotta catch a train!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
two days left in Seattle
So I am off to Europe in two days.
My aunt did some architectural design for an Italian villa a few years back, and her compensation was lifetime access to the villa for a couple weeks each year. Pretty sweet. Generally she goes over with my mother and their other sister and a few friends, but I've always been on the invite list as well, just never took them up on it. This year all the stars aligned with respect to savings (some), job commitments (none), and motivation (it's been way too long!).
Since getting to Europe from Seattle involves a nontrivial amount of flying, I decided to extend the trip on the front side. Iceland's only a seven hour flight from here, and everybody raves about the place, so I am starting there, then on to Scandinavia. It's not exactly the best time to be that far north, but it's still before the equinox, so I'll get 12 hours of sunshine a day, clouds allowing. The weather predictions right now suggest rain, clouds, and mild temperatures, in other words Seattle winter weather, which I don't love but can certainly tolerate.
I'll be doing Iceland and Norway solo, but in Sweden I will be meeting up with a couple Americans. My friend Mike is working in Sweden on a four-month contract, and the plan is to meet up with him in Copenhagen. Then I will backtrack a bit to Stockholm, where a friend of my aunt has generously offered to host me for a day or two.
The itinerary between Sweden and Pisa is wide open at this point. I have done Western Europe before, so an Eastern route would expose me to new places like Berlin, Prague, etc. But I have places to stay in France and possibly Spain, and I really like both countries and want to brush up on my language skills. So we'll see.
Every trip starts with preparations, and they're never exactly fun, but they're part of the story.
Booking flights was a bit of a challenge, because I'm doing a very odd trip, not only in terms of entering/exiting Europe, but also in terms of leaving from the West Coast here and returning to the East Coast. I will actually be flying to Dublin for the very last days of the trip to get a good one-way flight back to the States. There was probably a more sensible way to arrange my flights, but none of them are super expensive, and maybe it's good serendipity to do it the way I'm doing it.
With the most important travel legs arranged, as well as hotels/hostels for the first week, I'm down to a bunch of trivial errands--got my international driver's license, bought a more suitable backpack, dusted off my camera, upgraded my phone plan, got some music on to iPhone, etc. So I basically have packing left, then call my credit card companies, and get on a plane!
My aunt did some architectural design for an Italian villa a few years back, and her compensation was lifetime access to the villa for a couple weeks each year. Pretty sweet. Generally she goes over with my mother and their other sister and a few friends, but I've always been on the invite list as well, just never took them up on it. This year all the stars aligned with respect to savings (some), job commitments (none), and motivation (it's been way too long!).
Since getting to Europe from Seattle involves a nontrivial amount of flying, I decided to extend the trip on the front side. Iceland's only a seven hour flight from here, and everybody raves about the place, so I am starting there, then on to Scandinavia. It's not exactly the best time to be that far north, but it's still before the equinox, so I'll get 12 hours of sunshine a day, clouds allowing. The weather predictions right now suggest rain, clouds, and mild temperatures, in other words Seattle winter weather, which I don't love but can certainly tolerate.
I'll be doing Iceland and Norway solo, but in Sweden I will be meeting up with a couple Americans. My friend Mike is working in Sweden on a four-month contract, and the plan is to meet up with him in Copenhagen. Then I will backtrack a bit to Stockholm, where a friend of my aunt has generously offered to host me for a day or two.
The itinerary between Sweden and Pisa is wide open at this point. I have done Western Europe before, so an Eastern route would expose me to new places like Berlin, Prague, etc. But I have places to stay in France and possibly Spain, and I really like both countries and want to brush up on my language skills. So we'll see.
Every trip starts with preparations, and they're never exactly fun, but they're part of the story.
Booking flights was a bit of a challenge, because I'm doing a very odd trip, not only in terms of entering/exiting Europe, but also in terms of leaving from the West Coast here and returning to the East Coast. I will actually be flying to Dublin for the very last days of the trip to get a good one-way flight back to the States. There was probably a more sensible way to arrange my flights, but none of them are super expensive, and maybe it's good serendipity to do it the way I'm doing it.
With the most important travel legs arranged, as well as hotels/hostels for the first week, I'm down to a bunch of trivial errands--got my international driver's license, bought a more suitable backpack, dusted off my camera, upgraded my phone plan, got some music on to iPhone, etc. So I basically have packing left, then call my credit card companies, and get on a plane!
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