I was in Germany last week. Loved it. I knew a little bit of German but pretty much everyone there speaks English, at least in the cities anyway. A lot of the signs are easy to figure out or it's in English. A good "starter" European country IMO.
Anywhere but Portland, really.
Edit: Since you mentioned that money isn't a factor, be sure to fly Business Class at a minimum.
You can just fly between all eu cities for like 100 euro so you can easily do two.
But dont go to shit like berlin on your first trip man
Other places sound nice, but the flights are incovenient or more expensive. Vancouver to Munich is pretty chill (very short layover in Amsterdam).
About to pull the trigger on flying into Munich and then:
-Check out Castle one day
-Check out old town historic Munich one day
-Check out Nuremburg one day
-Check out Salzburg, Austria one day
-Check out main town one day
-Fly out
All those places are pretty close by train from the central station (~1-2 hours).
Seems like a nice starter intro to Europe trip? Obviously at some point in the future I'll do a big 2 week full one with the big hitters of England/France/Italy. But for now I'd just like to see some historic castles, nice pretty scenery and eat some european food. Would this layout work? I think since I only have a few days I don't want to bite off anything really ambitious here going from city to city to city and would rather base at a single city nice relaxing hotel and explore locally + day trips for the days?
Also fwiw, things I like in traveling are castles, trees, lots of green nature, lakes, etc... I like the scenic stuff.
Only really, really, really downside is that all the flights back on KLM from Amsterdam to LAX which is like a 12 hour flight in economy have...no aisle/window seats left, so I'd have to sit in the middle of a row for the long ass flight which sounds super miserable. Not much of a choice though, most planes to the US and Europe for mid/late-June are pretty full at this point.
More than 30,000 people in 15 countries were asked to rank the nations with the worst sense of humour and Germany came out on top.
One question, how do you order food off menus if they're not in English and you can't read German? At least in Japan they usually have pictures of all the foods so you can just point and say "this please".
One question, how do you order food off menus if they're not in English and you can't read German? At least in Japan they usually have pictures of all the foods so you can just point and say "this please".
One question, how do you order food off menus if they're not in English and you can't read German? At least in Japan they usually have pictures of all the foods so you can just point and say "this please".
I've never been to Europe and always wanted to go.
Oh yeah and Germans actually seems to respect traffic lights for pedestrians and such. Kinda weird from a Frenchmen perspective to be honest, jumping to Italy and its messy traffic afterwards (closer to what I was accustomed to) made me realize the contrast between "Latin" people and "Germanic" ones. Well to be precise quite a bit of France are actually Germanic people that thinks they are Latin and as such believe they are entitled to sunlight, but you get my drift.When I was in Paris I chalked their lack of respect for traffic lights up to big city folk being too busy to give a shit, but I guess that's just a French thing then. Explains the many dents and scrapes in the cars. (Whereas in Belgrade it was bullet holes, last time I was there...)
Oh yeah and Germans actually seems to respect traffic lights for pedestrians and such. Kinda weird from a Frenchmen perspective to be honest, jumping to Italy and its messy traffic afterwards (closer to what I was accustomed to) made me realize the contrast between "Latin" people and "Germanic" ones. Well to be precise quite a bit of France are actually Germanic people that thinks they are Latin and as such believe they are entitled to sunlight, but you get my drift.When I was in Paris I chalked their lack of respect for traffic lights up to big city folk being too busy to give a shit, but I guess that's just a French thing then. Explains the many dents and scrapes in the cars. (Whereas in Belgrade it was bullet holes, last time I was there...)
So I've decided I definitely want to do Chiemsee and the castles and palaces. Unfortunately the main tour that all the tour companies use is on Mondays only and I'll be flying in Monday afternoon and out Sunday so I don't have a monday.
Therefore this will be my big English-only speaking challenge, will try to find my way from Munich to Prien by train along the Salzburg line, and then to Stock where the boats are (about 4km), then get on a boat and go to one island, then to the 2nd island and then back to shore and take the trains back to Munich. This is without me having any idea how the trains work or anything. Any tips? I figure I will either feel like a traveling badass when I accomplish this, or get lost in the Munich countryside and never be heard from again :(
This is the best info I found:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187309-i118-k6396650-Train_question_day_trip_from_Munich_to_Lake_Chiemsee-Munich_Upper_Bavaria_Bavaria.html
Well, double checking my e-mails from last night it looks like the hotel I tentatively booked in munich is completely non-refundable so I guess I am going to Munich for 6 days!
Time to pick up a german practice book to read on my cruise and learn some phrases.
So you're not coming to Seattle now, right?
So I've decided I definitely want to do Chiemsee and the castles and palaces. Unfortunately the main tour that all the tour companies use is on Mondays only and I'll be flying in Monday afternoon and out Sunday so I don't have a monday.
Therefore this will be my big English-only speaking challenge, will try to find my way from Munich to Prien by train along the Salzburg line, and then to Stock where the boats are (about 4km), then get on a boat and go to one island, then to the 2nd island and then back to shore and take the trains back to Munich. This is without me having any idea how the trains work or anything. Any tips? I figure I will either feel like a traveling badass when I accomplish this, or get lost in the Munich countryside and never be heard from again :(
This is the best info I found:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187309-i118-k6396650-Train_question_day_trip_from_Munich_to_Lake_Chiemsee-Munich_Upper_Bavaria_Bavaria.html
Go to a train station.
Look for one of these:
(http://images.zeit.de/reisen/2011-06/bahn-2-2/bahn-2-2-540x304.jpg)
Tap the UK flag somewhere.
Everything else will follow. If not, ask someone.
Germany ain't scary, not even Bavaria. And our public transport systems are mostly easy to use. Also, most of the places you're looking for are somewhat tourist-friendly and might even have English information.
Oh yeah and Germans actually seems to respect traffic lights for pedestrians and such. Kinda weird from a Frenchmen perspective to be honest, jumping to Italy and its messy traffic afterwards (closer to what I was accustomed to) made me realize the contrast between "Latin" people and "Germanic" ones. Well to be precise quite a bit of France are actually Germanic people that thinks they are Latin and as such believe they are entitled to sunlight, but you get my drift.When I was in Paris I chalked their lack of respect for traffic lights up to big city folk being too busy to give a shit, but I guess that's just a French thing then. Explains the many dents and scrapes in the cars. (Whereas in Belgrade it was bullet holes, last time I was there...)
Some French guy once told me that in Paris, you don't pull the handbrake when parking so other cars can nudge you back and forth in small parking spaces.
Not sure if it's actually true.
Bebps book your train tickets now on bahn.de
It will be half price
So this is a dumb question and you're all gonna laugh at my ignorance, but all the stuff I read about Bavaria makes it sound like every food place serves a menu of basically Bratwurst, Beer, Pretzels, and Fried meats. Which sounds great as that's totally my kind of eating (not big on more gourmet type dining, I live on Burgers, Hot Dogs, Fried Chicken, Sandwhiches and so on; yes, I know I should start eating better), but like is that the only type of good food in South Germany? Because it doesn't seem like a lot of variety and feels like after a few days of eating sausages and drinking beer I'll kind of be bored of it.
In California we have great American, BBQ, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese food. In Japan there's Sushi, Ramen, Yakiniku, Tonkatsu, shitty Italian, and weird ass psuedo-American Dennys everywhere. In Munich will there be some good Italian, Spanish, Indian, etc... etc... type restaurants to mix up between all the Brat and Beer? I tried yelp for Munich but I guess Yelp isn't really international because like 2 restaurants total showed up.
Oh and in Europe (or Germany more specific) are most restaurants good? What I mean by that is in America Yelp is popular for a reason; there's a lot of shitty food places. If you just randomly walk into a restaurant it might be great, but it might be awful. There's a huge range and it's a gamble without looking it up in advance. Otoh in Japan you can walk into any food place and at the very worst the food is maybe average 3/5. Pretty much every place is good -> amazing in Japan because they really have high food quality standards. Just wondering what Germany is like in that respect, basically if I should look up food places in advance or just walk into places at random when I'm hungry.
Asking a lot of questions, but I'm on a boat in the ocean and there's fog everywhere and I can't shit and I got nothing to do but look forward to stuff. Ship is pretty dead after 9:30pm.
When I told my dad (who I work with) about the Europe addition he got kind of mad and thought it was stupid going to Europe for just five full days (+2 flight days). Then he calmed down and said I should take more days and he'll cover me at work, so I was able to extend it to a 10 day trip (2 flying, 8 full days). Should give me a little more breathing room to relax and see a lot of stuff. I mean it's totally possible to do a 1 day hop to another major city and back the next day, but I'll figure that out when I get there. Definitely wanna do Salzburg, Nuremburg, Castle, Chiem and stuff within Munich itself. That, at a relaxed paced is probably a full 7-8 days worth.
Maybe day trip to Prague or Vienna. But it is tempting to do a day in Paris.
Pretty excited, but for now more excited for Alaska which is first. Looking forward to seeing a glacier!
Oh and in Europe (or Germany more specific) are most restaurants good?
Paris is such a great city. Save it for when you have more time there.
I was in Germany in June and its this misty rain, nothing major. No downpours or anything. It was basically like that for the entire 3 weeks in June I was there lol So you get used to it. I'm sure you have jackets, cause you'll need them.
Got a business class upgrade for the flight from Vancouver to Europe. So freaking stoked. Never been business class before, gonna party it up!
Hijacking the thread for my own use. Heading to Spain this Saturday. 10 days there (Barcelona, Granada, Toledo, La Manga del Manor, Malaga), and then 2 in Brussels and 2 in Amsterdam.
Hijacking the thread for my own use. Heading to Spain this Saturday. 10 days there (Barcelona, Granada, Toledo, La Manga del Manor, Malaga), and then 2 in Brussels and 2 in Amsterdam.
Hijacking the thread for my own use. Heading to Spain this Saturday. 10 days there (Barcelona, Granada, Toledo, La Manga del Manor, Malaga), and then 2 in Brussels and 2 in Amsterdam.
You'll be the only guy on your Untappd feed with a Spanish beer badge.
Got a business class upgrade for the flight from Vancouver to Europe. So freaking stoked. Never been business class before, gonna party it up!
Which airline?
Spain is the best. Canas y tapas all day.