The Finale

Alright everyone, the adventure has pretty much come to an end. Our last night in Paris involved being anti-EuroSavers as we said screw it and found a nice French restaurant to have a memorable last dinner at (who cares about English food?) since we received the great news that Hallie got an A+ (+?!) on one of her hardest courses! Four courses, including a tray with 15 stinky French cheeses as a treat before our dessert. 

Melt in your mouth boef

Stinky (tasty) cheese tray

chocolat 

We would like to wrap things up with our take on pros and cons of Europe and things we can’t wait to get back to doing in the US of A even though we assume a lot of these are associated with travel, we still miss them. 

Europe Pros:

Better public transportation - This goes for within cities as well as intercity travel. Our experience with the train system through 10 different countries was fantastic and it made our whole trip easy and worthwhile. We will also give EuRail a nod here as their pass saved us countless frustrations and easily over $1500 each. 

Cheap wine - Throughout France, Spain and Italy, you can find amazing wines between €1-3/bottle. Ridiculous. We are drinking a Bordeaux on the train to London as we are typing this!

Cheap food - Typical if you are eating the local cuisine. Huge emphasis in Spain on this one. Especially in Madrid, you can eat and drink like a king for dirt cheap. 

Restaurant etiquette - No one ever rushes you. Ever. Every time we ate in every single country we were in no one gave us a bill until we asked for one. This was great for times where we just wanted to relax and plan the next step. Never getting hassled is a great feeling. 

History - Pretty self explanatory here. Oldest things in USA go back a few hundred years. We saw plenty of stuff dating back a few thousand years. 

Architecture - This goes along with the history pro. Also, it was great how you could cross a border and every country had their own distinct feel and influences. 

Diversity - We go our entire lives only hearing one language from one nationality. In Europe everyone is always traveling and walking down the streets of any city you will hear dozens of different languages and see people from all walks of life. 

Quality of wine/food - People clearly take their food and drink seriously over here. Nothing is mass produced, nothing is processed. Extreme care is taken when preparing and serving foods and nearly every place you will find is this way. You can obtain extremely high quality food items at the most unassuming places. 

Ease of travel - No border checks, no security lines, no hassle. You can freely travel from country to country to country without any type of inconvenience. 

Tax and service inclusion - What you see on menus is what you pay. No tipping and no added taxes after your bill is presented make things straight forward and simple.

Energy - Don’t mean to sound like too much of a hippie here, but energy efficiency is much better in the “nicer” hotels and most of the places we stayed. For instance, all lights in common areas are automatic and you have to insert your card key to turn on any lights in your room. They are obviously addressing this issue much more effectively than we are in the states. 

Europe Cons:

Pay for water - You typically have to order water at restaurants, and it is typically more expensive than wine or beer depending on the country. However, learning this the hard way, we understand this may be more of a standard precaution for travelers. 

Smoking - Way more people smoke, and they blow it in your face. I reserved the right to blow back in their face whenever this happened. Unnecessary. 

Bathroom fees - In some countries (France and Germany, most notably)  you have to pay fees or obtain codes to use bathrooms. This includes restaurants, cafes, train stations - basically anywhere. They are clearly very sensitive about their restrooms. All the hassle and they still can’t keep their t.p. stocked. 

Walking on sidewalks - There is clearly a more “laid back” lifestyle in Europe, however people have no idea how to share a sidewalk. After about a week or so and several cities down, people would literally walk straight into you, so we would walk straight back into them. 

Entertainment - Try watching local television entertainment in any of these countries. Bad stuff. Movies and music are of the same caliber. Appreciate the commercialization of the US for this reason. 

Naples, Italy - Please refer to “Derailed” post. 

Wireless internet - Why? It is 2013 and all but 5% of where we were, be it at our hotels, restaurants, even Starbucks, had dial-up quality internet that doesn’t reach more than 10 feet past the router even though WiFi was an advertised inclusion. This is extremely unacceptable, especially when trying to plan a trip day by day. Seriously, 2013. 

Coffee - We didn’t realize how American coffee is, but all Europeans drink is espresso and espresso derivative drinks. While we can appreciate the (usual) higher quality, sometimes you can’t beat a large cup of joe. 

To go items - This goes along with coffee and the “laid back” lifestyle, but virtually nothing is taken out of a restaurant or cafe. Occasionally we would like to walk with our coffee, or not stand in a busy cafe with our giant packs. 

Dinner time - This varies immensely by country, but many restaurants are only open whenever the locals eat. Sometimes this is 9pm, sometimes 11pm, sometimes 7pm. We usually had to figure this out the hard way looking for restaurants and having everything either closed or too packed for an available table. 

Hotels - Granted we were on a tight budget and booked bottom of the barrel hotels, but the hotel size was far too small. Some were way below even motel standards in the US with old medieval type of keys for our rooms. Again, 2013 people. Get some swipe keys. 

Soliciting - Yes, we were in plenty of touristy areas, but the solicitation was disgusting at some points. The majority of time I would try to make friends for Hallie, but some of the time it was overwhelming at how many people were trying to get you into their restaurants or buy their little trinkets/junk. We can’t remember how many times we heard “ONE EURO, ONE EURO, ONE EURO!!!” Ugh.

Credit card acceptance - Another “IT IS 2013!” statement. We found ourselves in a tight spot several different times where places you would assume would take credit cards did not accept them. People were usually disgusted by the fact we wanted to use them. This was an issue in multiple large cities and well established locations, not the smaller ones as you would expect. 

Things We Can’t Wait To Get Back To:

Pots of coffee

Communication with the world (texting, calling, email, FB, etc.)

Regular exercise

Guitars

Reliable internet

Not eating out / home cooked meals

Comfortable beds

Available laundry
Haircuts

Pets

Being on the same (relative) time schedule as everyone we know

Normal entertainment accessibility (shows, movies, music)

Work and school (weird, huh?)
Dry cleaning

Being able to understand people, menus, signage around us

Daily routines

Being comfortable with (and not paying for) tap water

Not having to worry where every possession is at every second of the day

Living out of a dresser, closet and bedroom instead of a backpack

Being a local, not a tourist 

And most importantly - seeing, talking and catching up with all of you friends and family following this!

Almost caught a bus back home!! (pronounced sahn-cloo)

We hope you all have shared even a fraction of the excitement we have had along our ridiculous adventures. As much fun as traveling around Europe has been, it has only solidified our patriotism as Americans. U.S.A!!! U.S.A!!!! We can’t wait to get back to all of you! <3

Dancing our way back to the hotel in Paris in the snow! Au revoir, Europe!

Dutch Land

Amsterdam is a neat place, definitely not deserving of the negatively rebellious reputation it has acquired - we had to intentionally seek out any type of stereotypical rubbish. The city is an odd blend of newly modern and fashionable boutiques and restaurants and old antiquated pubs and shops. We needed to escape the cold during our first stint of wandering which took us to one of the more modern establishments in town. A “meat and cheese” tray ended up being liver pate and raw meat. I was particularly delighted as it was amazing and I knew this meant more for me - Hallie wouldn’t be eating anything but cheese.

Dutch buildings

Canal at dusk

Tasty raw meat dish

While we were close to the Red Light District, we figured we should go check it out. Well, they should probably be calling it Red Light Alley because it was only a few creepy  and underwhelming window displays. As I was trying to get some snaps for all you followers, the subjects inside were not too thrilled. One of them ended up banging on the glass like an upset ape at a zoo exhibit. I named her Coco the Monkey.

Coco before I teased her with a banana

The next morning at a cafe we made a nice little feline friend. A black cat was jumping to and fro and all over the patrons of the cafe. Hallie was more stressed that the cat was going to jump on her than she was when our bags were almost stolen in Barthelona. 

Gatti

Brussels seems to be half Dutch and half French, which makes for a very interesting dynamic. However, after we got there and walked 15 minutes to our hotel and realized everything was closed, the front desk man (again, like the woman in Genoa) looked at us like fools when we asked why everything was closed. This time we just received a “It is SUNDAY...?!”. Apparently everything here is closed on Sunday. Having not eaten in quite some time we went on a trek to find something tasty. After walking back the same 15 minutes we came (in about 15 degree weather) we found a restaurant open. Upon seating and reading the menu, we noticed they didn’t open the kitchen on Sundays. Hmm. Luckily after more wandering we found a few little touristy strips with plenty of places open. After dinner we stopped by one of the local Belgian waffle stands not expecting much. Blown away. Neither of us really know how to describe the waffles here, but they are like an entirely different food than what is in the states. They are so good that after we finished the first one (topped with white chocolate), we downed a second one (topped with chocolate). After stuffing our gullets with gofres, we wandered through what seemed to be an unending row of chocolate shops. They were all pretty expensive, but all worth it. Think Lindor truffles, but much more rich and flavorful. 

Again, it was far too cold to be walking around getting snaps so we have very few to leave you with from Brussels.

Unfortunately that is all of our exploration for our trip. Two more (three for me) days bring us back to Paris and London, where it all began. I’m sure we’ll run into some blog worthy material in the next few days, if not, look for a final post of pros and cons and things we can’t wait to get back to doing in the good ol’ U.S. of A.!

Deutscheland, YAAA!

Hey everyone! Another update from the train. As we left Venice we stopped at a (very touristy) restaurant near the train station and made a few new friends. Don’t blame us, we just had a little bit of time and didn’t want to walk around with our packs anymore. Plus the majority of Venice seemed to be more of an imitation of former authenticity. The first friend was a nice man outside who promised us the difference in their food was all of their homemade pastas. Right after being seated I walked near the restrooms where you could see into the kitchen - dozens of bags of Barilla. YUM! Our second friend, a creepy old American woman seated near us, overheard me being me and telling Hallie she could have anything she wanted off the menu since she was my gal and she gets only the best on her birthday. Well, twenty minutes later, we hear a shaky and soft “Happy Birthday....” and Hallie looked up to her new friend staring at her with a giant grin on her face. She didn’t even remember me commenting or know why the lady thought it was her birthday, but a new friend nonetheless. 

An overnight train swept us from Venice to Munich in a little over eight hours. We had our own six person private car with seats that turned into beds for €8/person. Not bad! The only train friend we made was some large and imposing German man slamming our door open in the middle of the night screaming in German. After we both shot up with looks of bewilderment, he smiled and said “... I AM ZE CONDUCTA!!” That settled that. 

As we woke up and got off the train in Munich at 6am, everyone was already drinking entire liters of beer at the train station. My kind of place. After killing time in a Starbucks for a few hours we wandered a block to our hotel and checked to see if we could leave our bags when we were pleasantly surprised by the man saying we could check in at 9 am. Nap time. 

Wandering through the streets after the nap took us by numerous pretzel shops, bierhalles, the Glockenspiel, a street full of about 40 German meat markets, and other typical Bavarian delights such as plump mustached men wearing forest green hats with feathers and matching suspenders and pantses probably named Udër. You could very well say he was an Udër man. 

Meat as far as the eye could see

Glockenspiel

Ein pretzel, ya?

We stopped for dinner and some beers at the famous Hofbräuhaus where they had a German Polka/Folka band jamming away to the patrons seated in the picnic table style dining hall. After a few liters of beer, a platter of sausages and kraut, some onion soup and a few pretzels, we went across the street for dinner number two. This time more beer with more meat and some type of potato ball. Amazing. Breakfast the next day? You guessed it. Beer, meat, kraut, potatoes, and pretzels. 

Hofbräuhaus  - Hitler held first Nazi meetings here

Yaaaaa

Liter by liter

Beers for the band

Dinner #2

Breakfast

Typical German breakfast ya

The train ride to Cologne was filled with plenty of little dutch-like towns packed with little houses with steep roofs. Once we dropped our baggage off at a hotel, we found a dinner spot near us that was jammed packed with locals and served nothing but enormous schnitzel (hammered and battered pork or veal) with pots of gravy... and beer. 

Massive schnitzel yaaa

The only problem here, along with every place in Germany so far, is their lack of acceptance of credit cards. Everyone seems nearly insulted and/or disgusted when you try to pay with any form of electronic payment. After the bill came and they didn’t take cards I knew I had nearly enough to pay in cash, but not quite. So I strolled the frigid streets nearby to find three ATMs - two that didn’t take VISA and one that was out of order. After I returned we scrounged up every coin and bill we could find and somehow got within 5 cents of the bill. Crisis averted. At this point, we really could have used Denny’s money breeding trick.

Cologne was far too cold last night and this morning for snaps. Sorry. We will make sure to do a better job at bundling up in Amsterdam to not let anyone down. 

It's Not Delivery, It's Buongiorno!

As much as this trip has been great, being sick and traveling internationally had taken its toll. Hallie witnessed this by waking up to me lying in bed blasting “Born in the USA”. However I ended up sucking it up and going out to explore Florence. Luckily, we were surrounded by more Americans here than anywhere else on the trip combined. 

Florence has a massive amount of high end shopping, beautiful art (Renaissance started here) and gelaterias everywhere (also origin spot). 

Gatti Gelati

Michaelangelo's David

The trip from Florence to Venice was quite the treat as we finally had our own seats again! Friend update: we did make a new train friend who coughed at least one of his lungs up (violent coughs every 14 seconds, four feet away from us) and perhaps gave one or both of us the plague. Venice is as beautiful as everyone says it is, of course, however a little more commercialized than we thought. Our hotel is nestled in a corner on a canal with a spectacular view from our window. 

View from balcony

View from balcony

The commercialization is only really an issue in the “touristy” areas as you can easily escape them and get lost meandering through tiny streets with plenty of local cafes, restaurants and shops. We found the best two Italian restaurants within a few blocks from our hotel (that we ate at back to back).

Hallie kept wanting to buy these masks that were everywhere?

One of the many dead ends we came to

More locals than we thought

Typical Venetian canal

They even cut the crust off for us!

This post has to stay a little short though as internet has still been a massive issue (non existent) at our hotels and we are at some deserted cafe with some Indian man screaming at someone on the phone in Punjabi. 

And no, sorry, we did not ride in the Gondolas. It was far too cold and expensive for the EuroSavers!

The hotel tonight is another overnight train to Munich! Next post to include snaps of beers and sausages. 

Derailed

Where to begin with Naples. This place is probably the worst place on the entire earth. When we got off the train and walked two miles to our hotel room and we were convinced we got off in some slum suburb of Mumbai, India. The whole walk we kept trying to convince ourselves it was getting better, it never did. Filth, everywhere. Mass amounts of trash covering the streets. Urine stench the entire walk. Mattresses lining the roads. Graffiti on every inch of every building. 

We walked down the alley way to our hotel and were scared for our lives as we seriously thought we were part of Slumdog Millionaire. There were huge metal gates we needed to buzz in to get to our hotel. The front desk man was quite a treat. When we asked if the whole city is like the walk from the train station, he had the same reaction as the front desk woman in Genoa and responded with “I have no idea what you are talking about?! I think this is the greatest place on Earth.” Maybe this man has never stepped out of his jail cell of a hotel. A tad bit later I asked if there was anything good to eat around the location and he proceeded to laugh at me and then talk about “castels” for four minutes. 

At this point we thought from front desk man’s reaction that the whole city couldn’t possibly be as bad. We were wrong. We then walked down the main drag to the water and it was just more of the same. This time with streets crowded as if the residents were not aware of the extreme amount of filth surrounding them. We would’ve felt more comfortable in the back alleys of Tijuana than here. 

When we got to the water we stopped at a restaurant and got some pies (what Naples is known for). When it was time to close the bill, the greasy Italian server told us over five times (literally) that the tip was not included in the bill. Not only did he tell us that five times, he stood by our table (in a crowded restaurant) and stared us down for over 15 minutes while we finished our wine. He did not get a tip. 

We literally did not feel comfortable or safe here. The combination of that and me starting to get sick from drinking some water from the faucet a few days ago led us to the conclusion we needed to skip town. We hopped on the first train we could to Florence. 

On the train, it was discovered that they overbooked by about 40 seats and we ended up sitting in the stairs by the doors of the train for over three hours. Fantastic. 

We got to Florence and pretty much crashed as I wasn’t feeling well. That is when we got a call from the front desk man at 1030pm mumbling about some extra charge we needed to pay in the morning. When we tried to check out he told us he put us in the wrong room, not the one we booked, so we needed to pay the difference. Makes sense, right? When we got into a very heated shouting match, he called me a “fookin asshole” and threatened to call la polizia. 

On the bright side we checked into a new hotel today and we’re roaming around Florence which is beautiful. We promise to have more good news next post!

We will now leave you with some mobile uploads of typical Napoli streets (I was too scared to bust out my camera). 

Every street corner - seriously

Beautiful landscaping

When in Rome

Pisa is a nice little town that doesn’t seem to be ruined by the obvious amount of tourism it has. We arrived quite late and went out for dinner. This is what we imagined Italy to be like. Extremely cheap bottles of house wine, homemade pastas, fresh caught fish (anchovies!), and a warm and welcoming family vibe. 

The tower was... the tower. Hundreds of people snapping silly snaps. It was a little larger than we thought but it was still just a generic tourist trap. 

The train to Rome was also along the Mediterranean coast and filled with beautiful views. Bad news though - no new train friends! We had our own little private six person room in a car all to ourselves.

Rome was a huge, great city. It surprised us how much of the ancient Roman ruins were scattered in through the relatively newly developed city. After we landed and checked in we headed towards the Colosseum and stopped at an amazing little pizzeria where no one spoke English. Another amazing meal for $5.

When we got to the Colosseum we had another insane sunset. I was blown away by the history of the place and how much was actually left standing from 2000 years ago. After we left I helped Hallie make a new friend! I asked Hallie if she would like a tiny little glowing cube souvenir. That is when the nice little Indian man who was selling them decided to follow us for literally over 12 blocks saying “Friends! Friends!”. 

The next day we went to Vatican City and toured their museums and Sistine Chapel. First tourism related expense of the trip! Although it was a lengthy experience and involved an unnecessary amount of attempts to sell us touristy items, we thought it was worthwhile to see the 8 km of 600 year old art. 

At this point in the trip we were starting to feel a little worn so we took to the laundromat. When in Rome! Both of our dinners in Rome involved sitting in bed and eating local meats, cheeses and veggies. True EuroSaver style. 

The next morning we headed to Naples, which is where things started to get interesting. Necessary to save for another post. 

Ciao

Three Hours, Three Countries

Hey everyone, sorry about the lack of updates from the road - internet has been terrible and almost nonexistent. Since the last post, things have been greatly improved as we’ve been traveling along the coast of France and into Italy. 

In the morning in Nice we hiked up a giant hill around an old Roman castle to see the coast and it was insanely beautiful. Nice is a bustling little town with a lot of busy streets and markets. We were surprised at how busy it was during the “off season” and couldn’t imagine it in the summer months. 

Town north of Nice, France

Roman castle on Nice

After the morning we hopped on the (free) regional trains that hug the coast of France and Italy to head to Monaco. Hallie did not like Monaco. These photos and words can not describe the opulence that filled the streets. As we trotted around with our giant packs and sweat from the hike in Nice, everyone else passing us on the street were dressed nicer than Hollywood’s finest. The harbor was filled with over 100 yachts and the parking lots filled with dozens of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Needless to say, the EuroSavers did not belong here. All of this upset Hallie very much, which I found hilarious. 

Near the harbor in Monaco

If I could only have one of these cars to pay off my entire student loan debt...

Next stop after gorgeous sweeping panoramas from the train windows was Ventimiglia where we hopped off to grab dinner. As soon as we crossed the border from France to Italy, everything was immediately different. Language, architecture, people - everything. When we got off the train we walked two blocks to the water where we saw one of the most amazing sunsets. Ciao Bella! This was a brief stop as we had only 1.5 hours until we needed to board to Genoa. 

No caption needed. 

Genoa was a ... not so beautiful place. There was an odd ghost town feeling as we walked a mile to our hotel as everything was closed and a bit unkept. Everything (but our hotel). On the walk to the hotel, an old woman that had been digging in a dumpster with her umbrella handle followed us 100 yard through a crooked alley with a creepy and raspy voice speaking Italian. When she figured out we didn’t speak Italian, she spoke more. Common theme around these parts. When we finally ditched our alley cat friend and checked in, I asked the lady at the front desk why everything was closed. She looked absolutely flabbergasted and extremely offended. “NO!! EVERYTHING IS OPEN!” she exclaimed. Hallie looked extremely confused as, no, literally everything in this city was closed. Not one shop, bar, restaurant, or market was open. We were looking to get out of town as soon as possible the next day anyway as we had a long hiking day ahead of us. As we were checking out, the same woman had the exact same response to me when I asked how much their breakfast was. “NO!! IT IS OPEN! THE BREAKFAST IS OPEN!!”. Same disgusted look by her, same confused looks by us. Luckily the breakfast was free and, of course, included salami. 

As we hit the train on our way to Cinque Terre, a collection of five old world Italian fishing villages tuckered into cliffs along the western Italian coast, we were lucky enough to have the same amazing views of the Mediterranean Sea from the train ride. We hiked from the first village to the second which took about two hours and granted us with some of the most amazing views we’ve ever seen. The hike was pretty strenuous and at times a little dangerous, especially with our giant packs. Luckily the weather was perfect and the best we’ve had all trip. We took trains in between the other villages and perfectly pulled into the last one right at sunset. There are not a lot of words to describe how amazing this region is so we will leave you will a little collage of photos from there to do it the slight bit of justice (some wouldn't upload!). 

Typical view from our hike

At Vernazza - Backdrop familiar? (Hint: look at our blog background)

Typical path on our hike

Manarola, Italy

Fresh pasta with pesto made from basil grown in local mountain tops

Riomaggiore, Italy at night

Current background on my computer

Riomaggiore, Italy

Next update: Quick stay in Pisa and then off to Rome.

P.S. New train friends include:

• Man who had headphones on and sang every song for us with a combination of “doodlie doo doodlie de de doo deedle deedle doo beep doo doo”’s. 
• Lady who was sick (dying?) and nearly coughing blood out of a window with her companion screaming at her in Italian the whole time. We changed cars. 
• Little children speaking Italian sounding hilarious saying “Mama Mia!!!”
• Woman with little ugly and hairy dog that fell on top of, and sat on, Hallie.
• A clan of intimidating men who I had an intense staring match with.

Grazie  for following! Ciao!