We thought it might make a good blog subject to discuss the myth that public transportation, and indeed traveling in general, within Europe is easy.
Here are a few things that have frustrated us.
We bought a Eurail pass, which cost a ton of money right up front. It theoretically allows us to travel within Europe endlessly. But there have been a ton of hidden fees and surprises.
Most trains are "mandatory reservation" trains, which means that your fare is covered by Eurail, but not necessarily the fee associated with the reserved seat. These fees have ranged from a few dollars to 90 Euro ($125) each for a sleeper train from Madrid to Lausanne, Switzerland (near Geneva). So that has really added up.
Then there's the issue of scope. The pass provided a map, which shows routes across Europe, but the countries where the pass isn't valid are shown in gray. Thinking this accurate, we got on the train in Budapest, changed in Vienna and headed north to Prague. When the Czech conductor came by to check our ticket, he said that our Eurail pass was not valid in the Czech Republic and that we either had to pay an upcharge or get off the train. Lacking local currency, we chose to get off in the next town, where we had to buy a ticket on the next one. It thankfully cost just a few dollars because it was a local train, but smelled of BO and took three hours longer than it should have.
So all our tickets in the Czech Republic and Poland we had to pay out of pocket. This little deception on Eurail's part has cost us a few hundred dollars.
And that doesn't even include the subway. After arriving in Prague four hours later than expected, we tried to buy a ticket on the metro. But at 8pm, all the ticket booths were closed, and the machines only took coins. This does not make sense in the country's biggest train station, where arriving passengers are mostly from other countries, and lucky to have local currency, let alone small coins. Luckily in Prague they don't actually take tickets when you get on the metro, so we had to risk it.
Sometimes, even when you do pay, they find nice little excuses to extort you. Arriving in Krakow this afternoon, we bought a ticket on the streetcar (2.50 Polish Zlotny, or about $.90) We got on the tram, and a man came by to check tickets. We produced ours, but we hadn't stamped the ticket in the appropriate box when we got on, resulting in a 150 zlotny fine ($56). Welcome to Krakow. This fine went in the guy's back pocket as well. This episode really ticked us off, because we were obviously tourists who had just arrived, bags and all, and it wasn't like we didn't buy a ticket.
Anyway, I apologize for the rant, but we are honestly getting a bit frustrated at European public transportation, which is supposedly so "easy" and "efficient."
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Excuse me, I Abfahrted.
Please excuse the blog title. Sure, it's a bit juvenile, but we have to admit seeing the German word for "Departure" about four thousand times a day in various train stations is a bit amusing. The other day, we abfahrted in about a dozen different stations. Cue Beavis & Butt-Head.
Anyway we last left you in Naples, which is in the South of Italy. The day after our last blog, we visited Pompeii, which was a bustling Roman town. One day in 72 AD Mt Vesuvius, sitting just behind town, blew, causing the whole place to be buried in about six meters (20 feet) of volcanic ash in a matter of minutes. No one had time to flee, and a lot of the people died right where they sat. The town was basically buried as a time capsule.
It is a bit freaky to be in Pompeii because a lot of the remnants of daily life are still apparent - political slogans painted on people's houses, graffiti, etc. A lot of the artifacts were excavated by the authorities so the town is essentially a bare shell now.
Freakiest of all, the ash managed to preserve the bodies of the victims in such a way that the archaeologists were able to create plaster casts of them and show the positions the people were in when they died. This person was particularly poignant, as she or he appears to be praying or begging.
From Naples, we headed north to Venice, which is so exorbitantly expensive we were only able to stay one day. But it really is all it's cracked up to be. The canals are cool, and there are gondolas everywhere (the most amusing of them including a stereotype Italian singer man, with accordion, serenading a gondola full of Japanese tourists).
We basically spent the day wandering the streets, which was cool - basically, just being in Venice is the reason to go.
The main square in Venice (Piazza San Marco) is known for pigeons.
After that we spent a very. long. day. getting to Innsbruck, Austria. The train left Venice at about 10 AM and was supposed to get in at about 4.30 PM, but due to the overwhelming wonderfulness of the Italian train system, we didn't get there until 10:30, and then we were stupid enough to get on the wrong bus, so we didn't get in until midnight.
But we have been riding the trains all over Europe. They vary widely in quality. The Austrian trains are by far the best ones we have encountered so far. They are very comfortable.
Long hours on trains means we've been reading a lot. That's not to say that we don't get bored.
That's our Platypus water bag on my head.
Anyway, Innsbruck is famous for having hosted the 1968 and 1972 winter Olympics. It's a pretty town.
We went to visit the recently refurbished Olympic ski jump, which makes you wonder who would be crazy enough to start way up there and then jump off the ramp. We went to the top of the ramp and mentally went through the motions of jumping off. Pretty scary stuff. This is the only picture we could manage that actually shows the scale of the thing. The jumpers start at the very top.
If you're wondering what ski jumping looks like, here's a video on YouTube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UE31hCwYoMg&mode=related&search=
Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time in Innsbruck, so we headed off to Budapest, which is the capital of Hungary. Budapest isn't a place a lot of Americans would think to come, but it's got pretty much everything you would think of in an European capital. The architecture here is stunning, it's orderly, and clean. We like it a lot more than other cities that you might otherwise think of, like Rome.
Here I am being stupid with some souvenirs for sale on the street.
Hungary has some pretty cool money. It's called forint and it's got these great photos of the heroes of Hungarian history. Here's a picture:
http://www.davidpride.com/Europe/Hungary/images/Forint.jpg
We are on a mad dash to finish up our travels in Europe. We are in Budapest two days, then on to Prague for just one day, then one day in Krakow to see the Auschwitz concentration camp. From there, we are off to Ireland for a few days to visit with our friends Sean and Ann who are going to be there right at the start of their own round the world trip. Then home. We are leaving in just ten days! Time does fly.
By the way, you can click on most of our photos and they will blow up to a bigger size.
Anyway we last left you in Naples, which is in the South of Italy. The day after our last blog, we visited Pompeii, which was a bustling Roman town. One day in 72 AD Mt Vesuvius, sitting just behind town, blew, causing the whole place to be buried in about six meters (20 feet) of volcanic ash in a matter of minutes. No one had time to flee, and a lot of the people died right where they sat. The town was basically buried as a time capsule.
It is a bit freaky to be in Pompeii because a lot of the remnants of daily life are still apparent - political slogans painted on people's houses, graffiti, etc. A lot of the artifacts were excavated by the authorities so the town is essentially a bare shell now.
Freakiest of all, the ash managed to preserve the bodies of the victims in such a way that the archaeologists were able to create plaster casts of them and show the positions the people were in when they died. This person was particularly poignant, as she or he appears to be praying or begging.
From Naples, we headed north to Venice, which is so exorbitantly expensive we were only able to stay one day. But it really is all it's cracked up to be. The canals are cool, and there are gondolas everywhere (the most amusing of them including a stereotype Italian singer man, with accordion, serenading a gondola full of Japanese tourists).
We basically spent the day wandering the streets, which was cool - basically, just being in Venice is the reason to go.
The main square in Venice (Piazza San Marco) is known for pigeons.
After that we spent a very. long. day. getting to Innsbruck, Austria. The train left Venice at about 10 AM and was supposed to get in at about 4.30 PM, but due to the overwhelming wonderfulness of the Italian train system, we didn't get there until 10:30, and then we were stupid enough to get on the wrong bus, so we didn't get in until midnight.
But we have been riding the trains all over Europe. They vary widely in quality. The Austrian trains are by far the best ones we have encountered so far. They are very comfortable.
Long hours on trains means we've been reading a lot. That's not to say that we don't get bored.
That's our Platypus water bag on my head.Anyway, Innsbruck is famous for having hosted the 1968 and 1972 winter Olympics. It's a pretty town.
We went to visit the recently refurbished Olympic ski jump, which makes you wonder who would be crazy enough to start way up there and then jump off the ramp. We went to the top of the ramp and mentally went through the motions of jumping off. Pretty scary stuff. This is the only picture we could manage that actually shows the scale of the thing. The jumpers start at the very top.
If you're wondering what ski jumping looks like, here's a video on YouTube.http://youtube.com/watch?v=UE31hCwYoMg&mode=related&search=
Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time in Innsbruck, so we headed off to Budapest, which is the capital of Hungary. Budapest isn't a place a lot of Americans would think to come, but it's got pretty much everything you would think of in an European capital. The architecture here is stunning, it's orderly, and clean. We like it a lot more than other cities that you might otherwise think of, like Rome.
Here I am being stupid with some souvenirs for sale on the street.
Hungary has some pretty cool money. It's called forint and it's got these great photos of the heroes of Hungarian history. Here's a picture:http://www.davidpride.com/Europe/Hungary/images/Forint.jpg
We are on a mad dash to finish up our travels in Europe. We are in Budapest two days, then on to Prague for just one day, then one day in Krakow to see the Auschwitz concentration camp. From there, we are off to Ireland for a few days to visit with our friends Sean and Ann who are going to be there right at the start of their own round the world trip. Then home. We are leaving in just ten days! Time does fly.
By the way, you can click on most of our photos and they will blow up to a bigger size.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Pronto?....ENGLISH!!!...Pronto?...ENGLISH!!!
Sorry it has taken us awhile to get you a blog.. we have after 4 months discovered that if you buy a card reader you don't have to search for hours to find an internet cafe that has photo capablities... This is genius at work folks.. only took 4 months.. I would say that 's a record!
OK.. Onto blogging.. We last left you in Switzerland, happy and free and singing the sounds of music while spinning on a mountain top. Yah , now we are in Italy.. the only spinng we have accomplished now is getting out of the way of the masses of vespa scooters without being flattened . This is a task that you cannot take lightly.. your very survival depends on it!
We started in a very beautiful region called Cinque Terre. Lovely, touristy as hell, but very nice. The name literally means 5 lands, corresponding to five towns in the region. The houses all cling to a side of a cliff over- looking spectaular ocean views. Here is a nice example. The town is bigger than it looks and continues on the other side of the cliff.
The terrain from Cinque Terre proved rather difficult. We arrived in the first Cinque Terre town, Riomaggiore, at 8pm and was told that our room was given away.. but "not to worry we have another place for you to stay across the street" and up a million stairs. Hot, sweaty and overall annoyed, we settled into our room to find that our sink was out on the balcony and our bathroom was in another person's room... wierd ????
Here is a great photo of Bob doing his morning rountine out on the balcony.
The view is great though.. not sure what the women below us thought of our morning routine...
We walked a few of the trails that connect the towns. The area is beautiful and not to be missed for anyone who visits. Here was the beginning of our first taste of italian culture.We have learned while we are here that all of the italian stereotypes are true. They are loud, argumentative and love to flail their hands wildly.. to those of my wonderful relatives reading this... I wonder where we got it????
We also did a quick day trip to Pisa, this is all you need to know..This is not the nicest town we have been to. We went to see the leaning tower and left. The tower is an impressive structure and you fear for the people that spent their hard earned 13euros (yah thats alot, $20USD) to climb it. Here is a nice picture of it peeking out from behind the church to say, "hello".
ONTO ROMA!!!! (insert flailing italian hands while saying)
Spent the next 3 days touring around Rome. I am not sure what I was expecting but it lacks the "european feeling" that you get so well in Paris. There is a ton of grafiti on thousand year old relics.What there is to see is impressive. We spent a day in the Vatican museum and learned very quickly that we should of gotten a guide to help.- There is just room after room of priceless art. Far to much to look at all in one sitting. Honestly, you get tired of looking up after awhile. Take a look at this picture, you can see the complexity of the art on the ceilling.Exhausting. There is easily 100 rooms just like this one, and yes that's real gold. We were amazed at the amount of wealth at the Vatican.
The Pope's guard, who by the way are from Switzerland, have some interesting outfits. They haven't been changed in a LONG time, and it shows.
We spent the next day at the Coliseum and the Roman forum. We got a guide for this, which paid off in the end. The factoids of this place make you appreciate the niceness of modern day sports. Just as a spectator... women were expected to stand on the top deck. The Vestal Virgins, however, got a place of honor to sit. The Coliseum was decked out with all the modern conviences of a game today, it had food stands, bathrooms (this ironically was only for the men), etc. Of interest... the women because they did not have any bathroom facilities were given "doggy bags" which they then deposited their waste into... now a lady can't be expected to hold onto her waste for the rest of the match so she throws it over the side onto the walking crowd below. What a fun treat if you are having a nice stroll outside. Don't even ask me how they used the bags, under all the togas while standing up...Too bad they didn't let us in on the trick, it would make camping a whole lot easier. Sorry I disgress, here I am near the Coliseum.
Bob had a run in with a gladiator.. errrr
From Rome we headed south to Naples. Not the biggest tourist attraction. It is fair to say that we are the only ones. We decided to use this as a base to get to Capri and Pompeii. The area here is not nice at all. You are lucky on an hourly basis while walking the streets to not get killed by oncoming traffic. We keep thinking at each place that "this is the worst traffic".. but I think Naples has won the prize. You are not even safe on the sidewalks from the Vespa scooters, if there is a free space to ride on, it is their right to occupy it, apparently.
Spent today in Capri. It was nice to leave the hustle and bustle of Naples and head out into the ocean to the pretty island of Capri. The geography of the island is ridiculous. All hills and houses clinging to the mountain, makes you wonder how they live here. There isn't enough flat space for even a soccer field.
We took a boat ride to see the grotto's. Now, for those of you who don't know what a grotto is in this context; it is a cave built by the sea erosion. The reason people travel far and wide to see these is you can actually travel inside them. The cave entry is very small and the water is very deep, and the only light that can enter the cave comes in through the water. This makes for some pretty amazing colors. Here is a picture but the camera doesn't do it justice.
What you see here is boat coming in the entrance. The ride inside comes complete with your own italian singer\rower\tip grubber. (a very well rounded man)
This catches us up for now. We are heading to Pompeii in search of Mount Vesuvius, tomorrow. Hopefully, that will yield some nice photos. We are heading to Venice, after that.
In closing, the blog title. I have been trying to use my spanglish to communicate with the italians. This doesn't always work, you get to spend the rest of the time saying only one word to each other hoping that by the 7th time one of you will get what the other is saying or magically learn the other language. This usually means you yell louder after each time, thinking that surely by yelling this will help. I tried to call a hostel to get a booking for a room.. he said "Pronto" (I thought this meant, "faster"... I learned later this is means hello) I said "ENGLISH"... he said (even louder) "PRONTO"... so I said louder.. "ENGLISH"... ahh after all this time through evolution these are our communication skills. Then he hung up.
---Gina
OK.. Onto blogging.. We last left you in Switzerland, happy and free and singing the sounds of music while spinning on a mountain top. Yah , now we are in Italy.. the only spinng we have accomplished now is getting out of the way of the masses of vespa scooters without being flattened . This is a task that you cannot take lightly.. your very survival depends on it!
We started in a very beautiful region called Cinque Terre. Lovely, touristy as hell, but very nice. The name literally means 5 lands, corresponding to five towns in the region. The houses all cling to a side of a cliff over- looking spectaular ocean views. Here is a nice example. The town is bigger than it looks and continues on the other side of the cliff.
The terrain from Cinque Terre proved rather difficult. We arrived in the first Cinque Terre town, Riomaggiore, at 8pm and was told that our room was given away.. but "not to worry we have another place for you to stay across the street" and up a million stairs. Hot, sweaty and overall annoyed, we settled into our room to find that our sink was out on the balcony and our bathroom was in another person's room... wierd ????Here is a great photo of Bob doing his morning rountine out on the balcony.
The view is great though.. not sure what the women below us thought of our morning routine...
We walked a few of the trails that connect the towns. The area is beautiful and not to be missed for anyone who visits. Here was the beginning of our first taste of italian culture.We have learned while we are here that all of the italian stereotypes are true. They are loud, argumentative and love to flail their hands wildly.. to those of my wonderful relatives reading this... I wonder where we got it????We also did a quick day trip to Pisa, this is all you need to know..This is not the nicest town we have been to. We went to see the leaning tower and left. The tower is an impressive structure and you fear for the people that spent their hard earned 13euros (yah thats alot, $20USD) to climb it. Here is a nice picture of it peeking out from behind the church to say, "hello".
ONTO ROMA!!!! (insert flailing italian hands while saying)Spent the next 3 days touring around Rome. I am not sure what I was expecting but it lacks the "european feeling" that you get so well in Paris. There is a ton of grafiti on thousand year old relics.What there is to see is impressive. We spent a day in the Vatican museum and learned very quickly that we should of gotten a guide to help.- There is just room after room of priceless art. Far to much to look at all in one sitting. Honestly, you get tired of looking up after awhile. Take a look at this picture, you can see the complexity of the art on the ceilling.Exhausting. There is easily 100 rooms just like this one, and yes that's real gold. We were amazed at the amount of wealth at the Vatican.
The Pope's guard, who by the way are from Switzerland, have some interesting outfits. They haven't been changed in a LONG time, and it shows.
We spent the next day at the Coliseum and the Roman forum. We got a guide for this, which paid off in the end. The factoids of this place make you appreciate the niceness of modern day sports. Just as a spectator... women were expected to stand on the top deck. The Vestal Virgins, however, got a place of honor to sit. The Coliseum was decked out with all the modern conviences of a game today, it had food stands, bathrooms (this ironically was only for the men), etc. Of interest... the women because they did not have any bathroom facilities were given "doggy bags" which they then deposited their waste into... now a lady can't be expected to hold onto her waste for the rest of the match so she throws it over the side onto the walking crowd below. What a fun treat if you are having a nice stroll outside. Don't even ask me how they used the bags, under all the togas while standing up...Too bad they didn't let us in on the trick, it would make camping a whole lot easier. Sorry I disgress, here I am near the Coliseum.
Bob had a run in with a gladiator.. errrr
From Rome we headed south to Naples. Not the biggest tourist attraction. It is fair to say that we are the only ones. We decided to use this as a base to get to Capri and Pompeii. The area here is not nice at all. You are lucky on an hourly basis while walking the streets to not get killed by oncoming traffic. We keep thinking at each place that "this is the worst traffic".. but I think Naples has won the prize. You are not even safe on the sidewalks from the Vespa scooters, if there is a free space to ride on, it is their right to occupy it, apparently.Spent today in Capri. It was nice to leave the hustle and bustle of Naples and head out into the ocean to the pretty island of Capri. The geography of the island is ridiculous. All hills and houses clinging to the mountain, makes you wonder how they live here. There isn't enough flat space for even a soccer field.
We took a boat ride to see the grotto's. Now, for those of you who don't know what a grotto is in this context; it is a cave built by the sea erosion. The reason people travel far and wide to see these is you can actually travel inside them. The cave entry is very small and the water is very deep, and the only light that can enter the cave comes in through the water. This makes for some pretty amazing colors. Here is a picture but the camera doesn't do it justice.What you see here is boat coming in the entrance. The ride inside comes complete with your own italian singer\rower\tip grubber. (a very well rounded man)
This catches us up for now. We are heading to Pompeii in search of Mount Vesuvius, tomorrow. Hopefully, that will yield some nice photos. We are heading to Venice, after that.
In closing, the blog title. I have been trying to use my spanglish to communicate with the italians. This doesn't always work, you get to spend the rest of the time saying only one word to each other hoping that by the 7th time one of you will get what the other is saying or magically learn the other language. This usually means you yell louder after each time, thinking that surely by yelling this will help. I tried to call a hostel to get a booking for a room.. he said "Pronto" (I thought this meant, "faster"... I learned later this is means hello) I said "ENGLISH"... he said (even louder) "PRONTO"... so I said louder.. "ENGLISH"... ahh after all this time through evolution these are our communication skills. Then he hung up.
---Gina
Monday, September 3, 2007
Needs More Cowbell!!
We're in Switzerland at the moment. Suffice it to say that the words are hard to find to describe this place. It's impossibly beautiful. Everywhere you look there is a giant mountain with a cow (wearing a genuine cowbell) or a little village in the foreground.
We came to Interlaken, Switzerland, by way of Chamonix, which is just over the border in France. We rode the cable car on the opposite side of the valley from Mont Blanc, but the cable car summit was unfortunately socked in. We still got some great views of Mont Blanc on the way up and we were able to get a cool photo from the summit, which is high enough to be above the clouds. Here's a photo of us at the top of the cable car:
From our base in Interlaken, we have spent a few days on the train, tooling around the Swiss high alpine villages. They are unfailingly stunning. We were originally going to stay here for two days, but we're on our fourth.. and counting!
This is at the summit of a scenic cable car at 10,000 feet.
This is the highest mountain in this region, Jungfrau, at sunset. We took this photo from the balcony of the B&B we are staying at.
Here I am at th foot of Jungfrau. You can see the rail line in the background.
We love it here, the scenery is world class and the peo0ple are great. The only downside is that is exorbitantly expensive. But, as you can hopefully see from the photos, it's a truly amazing place to be - definitely worth the expense.
Sorry for the short blog but this computer is not cooperating!
We came to Interlaken, Switzerland, by way of Chamonix, which is just over the border in France. We rode the cable car on the opposite side of the valley from Mont Blanc, but the cable car summit was unfortunately socked in. We still got some great views of Mont Blanc on the way up and we were able to get a cool photo from the summit, which is high enough to be above the clouds. Here's a photo of us at the top of the cable car:
From our base in Interlaken, we have spent a few days on the train, tooling around the Swiss high alpine villages. They are unfailingly stunning. We were originally going to stay here for two days, but we're on our fourth.. and counting!
This is at the summit of a scenic cable car at 10,000 feet.
This is the highest mountain in this region, Jungfrau, at sunset. We took this photo from the balcony of the B&B we are staying at.
Here I am at th foot of Jungfrau. You can see the rail line in the background.
We love it here, the scenery is world class and the peo0ple are great. The only downside is that is exorbitantly expensive. But, as you can hopefully see from the photos, it's a truly amazing place to be - definitely worth the expense.
Sorry for the short blog but this computer is not cooperating!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)