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Need Advice on Trip to Europe!


Kasei

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Okay, so, guess who might be back packing across Europe this summer? Yep, this Texas girl right here.

 

:D

 

I'm not 100% yet on whether or not I'll be going, but definitely leaning toward yes. I really want to, I was just kind of wanting to save up money to move to Colorado this year. If I go to Europe this basically uses up all of what I've saved so far and then some.

 

However, the friend who is inviting me to go is about to start medical school and this could be my last chance to have an awesome adventure with her for the next six years. I am also told by nearly everyone to travel and see the world while I"m young and unattached....basically because kids and balancing someone else's schedule in your life ruins everything I suppose. xD I have neither of these problems right now, so maybe I should go see what's out there. I dunno.

 

On average we are slotted to spend about 2 days in each country. This will be a month and half long trip going everywhere from the UK to Finland...and basically most of the western half of Europe. Not sure if we plan on hitting Greece or not, need to get the itinerary from her.

 

Oh, and Denmark! We are going to Denmark! I have always wanted to go there, not sure why other than to see Jutland drafts in person. ^^

 

 

SO!

 

 

I was hoping you guys could help convince me that I really need to do this by filling me in on some of the must-sees in Europe. I know most of you live there and maybe you could tell me some of the stuff I absolutely must do or see. Sell me on this trip before my practical side takes over and talks me out of it!

 

 

 

P.S. For the record, I am not wanting to be super touristy about this. I don't feel like I will simply die if I don't see the Eiffel tower or the leaning Tower of Pisa or anything (though we do plan to see Stonehenge...) so unless there are some big tourist attractions that are must-sees, don't feel you have to mention them. I'd rather know what I should do/where I should go from a local's opinion of a place than follow a tourist brochure. :)

 

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Hello Kasei.

If you enter London, you will find lots to see, plenty to do, try for summer rather than winter, bring plenty money with you.

Are you thinking of youth hostels or B and B? Or a hotel? Check trip advisor online for useful reviews, and enjoy the adventure.

Evenings are spent chilling n drinking often , here in England.

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Will you go to the Netherlands?

 

I could also help you with London (if you go there), I've been a frequent visitor of it XD. It depends on what kind of things you like to see. I'd definately go and see all the famous sites such as Big Ben, Parliament buildings, Oxford street, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace. If you like museums you could go to the Natural History Museum and/or the Science Museum (but you only have 2 days so not sure if you should. They're great though.)

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Just 2 days in each place sounds like you will spend more time packing/travelling than you do actually seeing places, you'll be exhausted...you may find it better to be more selective with the places you would like to visit and spend longer in those places. For example if you would like to visit Stonehenge, (June, Talisman, I know could give you more info on this) it is a good 2 hour drive from London which would take up a lot of a day, presuming that your entry point to the UK is London of course.

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If you are planning that amount of travel, consider an Interrail pass - these are train passes that are valid for various lengths of time (it's changed a bit since I did it 20+ years ago) across basically most of Europe. They are also valid on some ferry routes such as the cross channel ones, and the Baltic ones between the different Scandinavian countries and North Germany. For cheap accomodation, get a YHA (youth hostels association) card and use them. They are better than they sound, all over the place, and great places to meet other travellers (even if most of them are at the top of steep hills).

 

It's difficult for me to make specific recommendations as to what to see and where to go as it was such a long time ago that I did this, and Europe is so vast, plus we will inevitably have different interests. For me it was and is all about getting off the beaten track. The only other suggestion I will then make is a good guide book - the Rough Guide to Europe or something similar. If you ever though do get to Denmark then look up the Roskilde Ship Musuem - it's quite possibly the finest example of a Viking Longship anywhere in the world - absolutely fascinating. Copenhagen is nice too, from what I remember.

 

PS Just seen Charlie's reply above, and yes indeed StoneHenge is a good 2 hour drive from London if not more. There are though other sites in the vicinity such as Avebury and the famous White Horse, although to see them all you probably have to join an expensive guided tour. Not my cup of tea, but you might not mind. I guess though it all depends on your budget.

Edited by Talisman
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Thank you all for the help so far! I am getting so excited just thinking of all the cool places we'll get to see.

 

To Talisman, yes, we are doing the rail pass and have looked at hostels. We may be couch surfing with a few people over there but lodging is a big expense issue--neither of us have a huge budget, so the more we can hack off of our total expenditure the better. So the big fancy tour groups thing is likely not happening, in other words. :)

 

Athena, I will be in the Netherlands at some point. :) Pretty sure we are doing all of the UK. The range of days is not absolutely decided yet, so we may stay longer in some places and less in others depending on what we find to do. Right now I'm just taking suggestions.

 

There will be two girls and a guy in this group and we are all in our mid 20s, fairly adventurous and okay with roughing it (we camped all last summer in the wilderness and climbed lots of mountains) so we are okay with off-the-beaten-path adventuring. I'm fairly outdoorsy myself so I would love any suggestions of places of natural beauty to go as well as the more usual city sights. All three of us are pretty interested in museums and things as well; that Viking ship suggestion sounded really interesting.

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I was going to say the Yorkshire Moors, if you're after natural beauty.

 

For more city-ish things, The Jewish Memorial in Berlin, there's also a strip of the Berlin wall which has art painted on it which is worth seeing, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is beautiful inside.

 

If you visit Malta the public gardens in Valetta are beautiful, we went in Winter which isn't when they are at their best but still lovely views of the ocean.

 

Venice is good for just walking around. Look at the canals, there are some lovely shops too, but they can be expensive in the most touristy areas, you're better to walk a bit more out from St Martin's Plaza ect. If you have a chance visit Murano as well for the glass shops, the glass museum is nice but if you're short on time you can miss it out.

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Hmm well for the Netherlands, there are many places you could visit. There's Amsterdam, The Hague (Den Haag in Dutch), Utrecht, Eindhoven, Rotterdam.. hmm there are many great sights/cities. In terms of nature I'm less sure, we have beautiful nature in many places but I haven't been to many of them. You should definately take a train ride or something and see some of our flat countryside.

 

Our museums aren't free most of the time (unlike in the UK), this is something to keep in mind if you're on a tight budget.

 

For those cities I mentioned, it's just nice to walk around in them (the city centre). Utrecht has some lovely canals / rivers and so do The Hague, Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam etc. I've been to all of these cities, especially often to Utrecht (where I study) and Eindhoven (close to where I live). Eindhoven has got the longest street with the highest amount of bars in a street, or something like that. I'm personally not into that, but if you are, that might be something to see. Eindhoven is also where Philips started (do you know Philips?). The Hague has the parliament buildings in it, as well as the Museon (nature and history museum) and a special cinema, Omniversum (Europe's first 360° IMAX-cinema. The films may be in Dutch though, and it costs a bit). The Esher museum is great too if you like his illustrations. Close to the Hague there is Madurodam, this is a miniature city, with famous sites and things from the Netherlands, in miniature. It costs some to get in but it's quite great.

 

Hmmm that's just a few things to go see, there are many more and I can tell you more about other things if you want to know, I've got to go now though but if you wish to know more things feel free to ask :).

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I haven't read what everybody else has written but if you are only going to spend 2 days in England, I seriously would not waste half a day and a lot of money driving past lots of lovely stuff just to get to Stonehenge. I love prehistory but it is really just a pile of stones in the middle of nowhere and it is really really outrageously expensive to get up close. They have it fenced off and I was very disappointed. I didn't pay the extortionate fee for a tour. There is nothing else for miles around and even to get a drink or something to eat they screw the visitor unmercifully .The best view of it was actually in the distance from the road as we came over the hill !! Honestly. There is much more interesting stuff to see (and for free) packed close together in London.

Edited by vodkafan
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I just read what Chaliepud wrote and I completely agree. If it was me I would do less places and have more time in each place.

But of course that is your choice. If you need an emergency crash pad when in England I can put up 3 and do you a meal . For instance if you were passing through south to north or something. I am centrally placed in the middle of England. I live in Rugby, where the game of Rugby Football was invented, at the private school of the same name.

Would be cool to meet some Americans.

Edited by vodkafan
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Ahh Berlin is going higher up on the list, everyone I talk to has been mentioning Berlin--certainly a must-see!

 

Thank you vodkafan for the suggestion on Stonehenge as well as for the generous offer on lodging; not sure where we will be exactly in relation to Rugby, but it would be lovely to have a place to sleep and not pay and arm and a leg. We are meeting up later tonight to discuss the trip, I will certainly bring both of your points up. :)

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Just got our itinerary more narrowed down--here are the countries we will be visiting and (roughly) the number of full days we will spend in each, not including traveling:

 

3 days Ireland

4 days UK

2 days France

1 day Switzerland

2 days Austria

2 days Czech Republic

5 days Germany

2 days Belgium

2 days Netherlands

2 days Denmark

2 days Sweden

3 days Finland

 

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Hi Kasei,

 

A few years ago I backpacked across Europe myself, to this day it's still one of my fondest memories, I had an amazing time as I am sure you will yourself, if you go to Belgium, I highly recommend you go to Bruges, it was my favourite place out of everywhere I visited, its one of the most amazing and beautiful cities/towns I have ever seen and I hope to return there sometime soon. It's one of the most preserved medieval places in Europe, the Town Hall for example has never been knocked down or refurbished, simply added on over the centuries, so it is this one building that changes ages in architecture and design as you walk around and inside it, bizarre but amazing and everyone is very friendly.

 

If you do end up going to Greece, it's very hard to get to, but there is a tiny (TINY!) village on the south coast called Stoupa I stayed at for a week, its so small the taxi company only has 1 driver, and regularly gave free lifts as everyone knew each other, again everyone was friendly and it is the most isolated, peaceful town i have ever visited, hidden behind mountains, if you do go there, visit the bakery along the coast, you'll never want to leave.

 

I hope you enjoy yourself wherever you choose to visit!

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Ahh Berlin is going higher up on the list, everyone I talk to has been mentioning Berlin--certainly a must-see!

 

Berlin is probably my favourite city in mainland Europe. There is loads of historic stuff to check out but it is also a very modern city. It's very easy and cheap to get around using a travel pass and the people are just fantastic.

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3 days in Finland during summer? Awesome! :) I definitely need to think about this and come up with something. Do you wish to stay in Helsinki or would you like to try other cities/towns as well?

 

We're up for anything, one of our group has a friend who lives in Finland so I think we will be crashing with him most of the time, but honestly I don't think we have to stay in Helsinki the whole time--Finland is a big, beautiful place and we want to see it!

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  • 3 weeks later...

frankie, on 24 Jan 2013 - 03:26, said:

3 days in Finland during summer? Awesome! :) I definitely need to think about this and come up with something. Do you wish to stay in Helsinki or would you like to try other cities/towns as well?

So! To help you think of ideas, my friend was thinking of maybe seeing some summer festivals (we would be there mid-July) or doing some hiking, I hear it's gorgeous up there. :) Not really set on staying in Helsinki unless you just know a ton of awesome must-check out things. This will be the end of our month-and-a-half-long-trip so we will be hurting for cash probably so nothing too expensive...unless, again, it's simply a cannot-miss.

 

Note: I am a closet power metal fan. :) If you know of any cool rock concerts or local music scenes (even non-metal ones, we are music lovers) we should check out, please let me know, haha.

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So, my friend and I were going over places we would like to go on this trip and here is what we came up with for the UK--we basically just wrote down cities we have heard of but have no idea what to do in them. If anyone has anything to add PLEASE let me know so we can look into it as we are going to start making lodging plans in the next few weeks...we decided against stonehenge because, well, rocks. For a lot of money. And out in the middle of nowhere. But we are looking for any tips on other must-see places/things.

 

Ireland

-Dublin

-Temple Bar

- Hurling (Gaelic Football) Croke Park Stadium

- Howth (near Dublin) cave exploring and ocean adventures!

Belfast

-Giant’s Causeway

 

Scotland

-Edinburg

- Loch Ness (because why not. Camping anyone?)

 

England

harry potter stuff!

-Alnwick castle

-The Elephant House

-Manchester

-London (help! Cool pubs? Non-expensive places to visit?)

-Yorkshire moors

 

Netherlands

-Amsterdam (The Hague, possibly)

 

 

Wales: No ideas yet. Help!

 

Any summer festivals going on in the UK in June? Or must-see concerts? We have no idea what is going on over there this summer, so any tips-offs would be helpful. :3

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Sweden. I suppose you're going to Stockholm? Stockholm is a city with lots of water around. So the archipelago would be my first advice. Gamla stan (The old town) is very central, and nice. We have some nice museums, like the Vasamuseum and Naturhistoriska riksmuseum (Nature history museum) if you are into that. 

 

Visit Stockholm: http://www.visitstockholm.com/en/

 

Gamla stan as mentioned above is popular for tourists, so you may not like that. But it's worth a walk-through. http://www.visitstockholm.com/en/To-Do/Attractions/gamla-stan/1856

 

http://www.visitstockholm.com/en/To-Do/Attractions/boat-sightseeing-with-str%C3%B6mma/971 -- boat sightseeing around Stockholm

Edited by emelee
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By the way, if I was travelling to so many countries, I would go to a grocery store in every country and just look around what kind of food and candy etc are there. It's so interesting to see differences! And if I am curious, I buy a little from what looks interesting and try them. 

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