And the planning begins....

Due to moving, getting health insurance through my work, and getting a bigger-than-expected tax refund, it looks like Italy Fall 2009 is going to go ahead as planned. Ideas, itineraries, questions, dreams, wishes, hopes, plans, and everything else are spinning in my head. At least it might mean this blog can become alive again :P

Thank you!

I just wanted to say thank you to the people from the Rick Steves helpline (a fantastic and friendly resource of all your Europe travel needs and questions) who have said many kind things about my little blog. I wish I had more inspiration and words to keep updating. Feel free to read my trip blog from last summer and come back or subscribe for updates, maybe I'll find some inspiration soon :)

Photography on the Blog - I attempt HDR

To help keep the blog going a little better, I've decided to include my photography exploits on here. It kinda goes with the whole theme I guess, since what I've been playing around with have been my Europe pics.

I have long admired the photography at Stuck in Customs - I read his HDR tutorial and watched a couple videos on Youtube and decided to try it with some of my Europe pics. Granted my camera isn't as good, the pics were recorded in JPEG, and I only have one exposure for all but a couple of them, but some of the results are interesting nonetheless. Here are a few I've done in the past couple days:

Barcelona Cathedral (original and HDR)






Brugge Belgium





Stratford-upon-Avon





Casa Battlo - Barcelona, Spain



I'll keep experimenting with some of my more interesting trip pictures and hopefully after I get a new camera this summer I'll be much better-equipped to really learn this valuable art.

Planning Restaurants

So I've been MIA for so long, no one probably even reads this anymore. But that's okay, I'm doing this more for myself than anyone anyway, because it's fun! :) A job, a long weekend to a tennis tournament, and some misplaced priorities resulted in this blog getting pushed to the back burner, but that's done now. For me, writing about travel is really cathartic, it helps me dream and plan and hope for more interesting adventures, so I will really try my best to update more regularly than I have been lately (Certainly more than once a month!!!!!).

without further ado....

While I was planning my trip, something I grappled with was how far to take my planning. It was important for me to at least make rudimentary plans for what I'd be doing each day, if for no other reason than to make sure the sights I planned on a particular day made solid geographic sense and so that I wasn't planning day trips the days right before and after traveling between cities (to break up the train trips).

But one of the things I encountered on many travel message boards throughout my research was how much of the finer details to plan. Some people, I've noticed, make all their restaurant reservations before they left home! To me that seemed too much; it takes all the remaining spontaneity out of it, and for me, exploring and finding places to eat along the way and off the beaten are part of the fun of being on vacation. Plus, by limiting yourself to places that take reservations, you miss out on some of the best places - the little places you can't even find online, the dives, the locals-only places that are so good that you have to wait an hour to get in or go early, no matter what.

But on the other hand, all of the places I did write down beforehand turned out to be excellent; from the TER Steakhouse in Amsterdam to Purstner in Vienna to Florence's lovely Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco to the beloved Da Francesco's in Rome, these are places where I had wonderful - even memorable - meals, that I I never would have found but for the amazing suggestions of locals and more experienced travelers. Moreover, with the level of tourist traps that exist in a lot of the world's most attractive cities, it's nice to have a fall-back list of places given by locals and experienced travelers that, in a bind, you know you can try out in an effort to avoid the obvious traps where the food is as bad as the prices are high. And at the end of the day, I'd much rather over-plan than get stuck at a bad restaurant on vacation, especially in a place that has a great cuisine and great restaurants that has unfortunately succumbed to the tourist hordes.

I suppose it comes down to a couple of things. For me, trying certain foods in each city was important. In Italy, I really wanted to try good pizza and gelato, in Amsterdam I wanted to try a really good Argentine steakhouse, etc. So in the end, relying solely on spontaneity would have only hurt myself because I would probably have missed out on these and other jewels. But relying solely on advance planning would be the other extreme; i would have missed out on the spontaneity of finding my own jewels and gems, several of which I did find.

Like most things in travelling and planning, there in no right answer to this issue; we all have to decide and do what will make us happy. But I do think that if you are a foodie, you would be doing yourself a disservice to not travel somewhere without at least a couple of special and authentic places that will satisfy your culinary goals.

My Top Ways to Avoid Being an "Ugly American"

Oh goodness, I have been very bad about updating. Having a job will do that to a person! But hopefully it means future trips will be forthcoming! Anyway without further ado, here's something I have been working on:

Yes I know this is a touchy topic for a lot of people. I also know that Americans are not the only "Ugly" tourists - there are Ugly Brits and Germans and Japanese and everyone in between. But anyway. I'm not talking about subjects I've discussed in earlier posts, like my traveler vs. tourist one, where my feeling there was more about how we as travelers can get better and more profound experiences from our trips. Instead, this post is literally more about how not to offend the locals. Though I know some people might include traits like this in this "ugly american" category, I don't even mean those families who wear jeans and pristine white sneakers. I'm talking about those people, when you see them, actually make you ashamed to be from the same country as they are, whichever country that might be. So here we go:

1. Do not address people immediately in English, just assuming they will speak it back. Can you imagine working in a clothing store in the US and someone comes and addresses you in Italian or Mandarin Chinese? It's pretty unthinkable. It's not that hard to learn three words - hello, goodbye, and thanks - in whatever language is spoken in your destination's country or countries. Even saying "hello" in their language and asking if they speak English is a big step. Phrasebooks cost about $10; in the scheme of a trip that costs thousands, that's nothing.
   
2. Don't complain about stuff not being like home. You know, those people who sit in a cafe in Naples and look at their pizza and say all-too-loudly, "Wow, this isn't like it is at home" or who ask for a "latte" in Italy and are shocked to receive a mere glass of milk - I mean..... come on.....why bother going somewhere else to see their culture if you just expect it to be like home?!
3. Don't be ignorant. I actually read a trip report a few months ago and the person had the audacity to say that one of the reasons she did not like Italy was because people hung their laundry out to dry and why don't they all just get dryers. I mean... WHAT? I don't even know what to say in response to that.
4. Do greet shop-owners upon entering a store. The culture in Europe is more like you are walking into a shop-owner or restaurant-owner's home than mere business. A simple greeting can go a long way and, who knows, maybe you'll strike up conversation and have a great memorable little cultural experience!
5. Do not expect hotels outside the US to be like here. Star systems and ratings are not the same here as they are there. If you must have that same experience everywhere, book a big international chain hotel. But even in those sometimes the beds are made a little differently or the bathroom is not the same.
6. Do not disrespect the places. Flash pictures not only are completely ineffective when you're taking a picture of something more than a few feet away but they HARM the artwork you're trying to photograph in the first place. And I wanted to cry when I saw someone leave a cup of melting gelato dripping on a centuries-old stonework sculpture in Venice. How can people do things like that. This one should really be a no-brainer, but the tragedy is that it isn't.
   
7. Do learn the local laws and customs. Don't speak loudly about being ignored by a waiter in a culture where the constant hovering by waiters is not usual, it doesn't mean the waiter's being rude. Learn about tipping, learn about parking and driving restrictions.
   
8. And perhaps the most obvious and all-encompassing one of them all... be open-minded! Turn the differences into positives, learning opportunities, and fun experiences! Who knows what you'll learn or who you'll meet.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, but they're some of the top important things I could think of. In over six weeks all across Europe, I experienced NO animosity about being an American. In fact, several times I encountered pleasure - people who wanted to know about me, where in America I was from, where I was traveling, etc. This myth that the rest of the world hates us is just that, a myth. I myself experienced the complete opposite. I think a lot of it is in the mindset. If we, as Americans, go overseas with open minds and hearts and stomachs (and unfortunately, wallets!), we will be treated by reciprocal open minds and hearts. I sure was, and I know that I am not alone!

Re-Creating Dishes From a Trip!

We all already know that my trip to Europe changed my life; I don't need to repeat that ad nauseum. I'm a bit of a foodie, I don't deny it. And certain things throughout my trip to Italy - some new discoveries and some old favorites - really hit me, hit me so hard that I felt the need to come back here and recreate them. Obviously, nothing can change the way these things tasted while there, made by the people who know what they're doing. But here are some of the things I've tried to recreate and how I've tried to do it.

I've tried to recreate that perfect Roman pizza (see picture, click for full-size). I even bought a pizza stone to even out the crust. I buy pizza dough at Trader Joe's and also their basic canned tomato sauce - which even got my mom's stamp of approval (she makes her own from scratch). But it came out better with their imported Italian Tomato Sauce in a box. Really yummy authentic taste. Whenever we made pizza growing up, we'd put on sharp cheddar and plenty of parmesan or romano. But no. The Italians make their margherita pizza more simply. Great crust, great sauce, and great - whole milk I've discovered - mozzarella cheese, all in the perfect balance. Of course, part of what makes it so amazing is that it's cooked so quickly and so hot in a wood-burning oven. But I turn my oven up to 500 and get pretty darn close. And when I pull it from the oven, take a bite and close my eyes, I almost feel like I am sitting in Rome on that last glorious night, sitting in the teeny Piazza del Fico at a red and white checked tablecloth, the way we all picture Italy to be. Not perfect, but not bad either.

Fettunta - the most classic pure wonderful thing possible - is down right easy, if you have the right (and by right, I mean quality) ingredients. I take lovely Ciabatta or other Italian bread, toast it up, scrape a garlic clove across the hot toasted edges of the bread, drizzle some of my precious unfiltered Italian extra virgin olive oil, and savor each delicious morsel. This time when I close my eyes, I'm sitting in the little Tuscan Osteria, with its brick arches, wooden beams, candlelit tables...

I was perusing the frozen aisle at Trader Joe's a couple months ago and saw frozen artichoke hearts, and the light bulb went off. I bought them, defrosted and patted dry, and deep fried them. They bloomed and crisped.... just like those little shavings of artichoke hearts we had in the tapas bars in Barcelona. One bite and I am transported back to that bustling bar with its white walls and chalkboard wine list.

These are just a few of the things i've tried to recreate. others include that Barcelona hot chocolate (melt top quality dark chocolate with some milk and a teeny bit of rice flour, whisk til it boils, take off heat and whisk til it thickens), Belgian Frites (thick-cut fries made from russet potatoes - fried once at a low temp to cook the inside, taken out to cool, then fried again at a high temp to crisp the outside), and bucatini all'amatriciana (a Roman dish using bucatini pasta, tomato sauce with a little bit of spice and onion, mixed with bacon and topped with pecorino romano)..... I haven't been quite as successful making these dishes as with the ones I described above. but still, not bad. And I'll keep trying.

It may not be the same setting or the same fresh quality ingredients or as beautiful, but they're almost as tasty and they are great "living" reminders of my memorable trip. So, give it a shot. Try to recreate that wonderful dish you had. Scour the net for recipes, experiment, have fun with it!

Are "Tourist Traps" really that bad?

I was inspired to write this after reading a discussion on a messageboard about the semantics about what makes a tourist trap. The debate was whether something not built specifically for tourists could be a tourist trap. I think in the end it doesn't really matter. They're both tourist traps. But I think the way we travelers view them does make a difference.

So ultimately, I think there are two kinds of tourist traps. Those things built or in existence solely to attract tourist dollars and those things that have become, over time, tourist traps for one reason or another. Fitting into the first group would be places like The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas or the imported crappy mask stands in Venice's Piazza San Marco. Fitting into the second group are places like Florence's Ponte Vecchio, which is lined with pricey gold shops, or the subject of the debate that inspired this post, the Tower of Pisa.

I think the difference, while it might be esoteric, is an important one for us travelers. For those of us who are travelers who put great importance on experiencing the real culture of a place we travel to, I think part of that includes supporting the local economy and those people and places that work so hard to remain great. It is important to me to know where my money goes, and by and large the first kind of traps are run by people whose sole existence in life is to make money off of me.

Of course, the line can be blurred and it is a difficult one. Perhaps my most frustrating "tourist trap" experience came when I was in high school on a summer family vacation with my family. We went to New Mexico and visited the Taos Pueblo, which is a very famous image from the Southwestern US. A historical and fascinating structure, the Pueblo itself was built centuries ago to house the tribe, not to attract tourists. So in a sense it should fall under the second category. But yet, when we walked around, all we could see were the many (many many) shops that the residents had set up to sell stuff to tourists. It was handmade, sure, but it was overpriced and you felt more like these people were only there because they knew we would be there. So I think this may be the paradigmatic combination of the two. But I think these types of places are few and far between.

Anyway the point really is, I try to avoid the first type of tourist trap but not the second. There's a long history of gold shops on the Ponte Vecchio - and the things in them are still of the highest quality 18k Italian gold, made in Florence or Italy, etc. OK, maybe there are cheaper places to get them. But it's still the PONTE VECCHIO! It's still the Tower of Pisa - built to be a church's bell tower, not an attraction.

For the real tourist traps, those things that would never even exist but for tourists supporting them, I have a plea to my fellow travelers and tourists. STOP SUPPORTING THEM. If tourists refused to buy fake imported masks in Venice, they wouldn't exist. If tourists refused to give in to the cheese and crappy souvenirs and stayed away from the places and people who want to take advantage of us, those places would go out of business. Some things can't help being attractive to tourists. We are fascinated by a tower that's angled or by Times Square's hustle and bustle. And I personally have no problem giving my money to these "tourist traps" - at least these things have values and existence and my money is not going to support some money-making enterprise but to restore and maintain and improve the sights that we all love. In the end, whether you see the difference between these types of tourist traps or whether you care, that's up to you and me and everyone else individually. I suppose the ultimate question is: when you support a particular shop or business or restaurant or whatever, is it helping the place you love or hurting it? For me, that's the only thing I really need to consider.

Happy traveling!

Tips for Researching and Planning Itineraries

So sorry I haven't posted in so long. The good news is that I got a temp legal job allowing me to make some money and hopefully put some away for future travel! The bad news is that I have much less time to blog! But anyway, here's one I've been thinking about for some time now so hopefully it helps those planning a trip somehow.

Although it's rewarding, planning and researching your own trip can also be tiring and daunting. Once you've decided where to go, a difficult decision in itself, more difficult decisions await. What time of year is best? How many days to stay in each city? Accommodations? Sights? Ways to save money? It can be a serious time investment to do it well, and I personally believe it can really affect how successful a trip is.

I think one of the biggest mistakes I made was in planning how long to stay in each city on my trip. After several combinations and changes of where I wanted to go, I settled on my list of 10 cities. But then all I sort of did was say "ok, this city is a little smaller, I'll only spend 4 nights here" and "ok, this city is a little bigger, I'll spend 5 nights here" - BEFORE I actually really got down to the specifics of what I'd do in each place. Of course, now hindsight is 20/20; I had no idea how much I'd love Copenhagen and Lisbon and all of Italy and that I'd want an extra day or so in each place. I thought I would totally fall in love with Vienna, but I didn't. I liked Brussels, but four nights was probably one too many, etc. All the planning in the world couldn't have made me foresee how much I would like a particular place or how long I would really feel I needed there.

So my advice to anyone reading - and to myself for future trips - is to figure out what you actually want to do in a city before you plan your amount of time. So, how? The first is obviously through guidebooks. Every guidebook is different. Some just give basic information and don't really update it much (like Lonely Planet). Some update all the time but pick an choose what places to highlight (Rick Steves's Books). And the list goes on. My best advice would be: go to the library and take out various books and read them. Make lists of sights that sound good to you and based on guidebook suggestions, try to figure out how many days you would need. Tailor the suggestions to yourself and the kind of traveler you are: for example if you're not an art person, you probably won't spend as many hours in a museum as someone who is an art person. Another biggie is day trips. Figure out if you want to take any from a particular destination (by destination here, I mean a place where you will actually stay in a hotel). If you want to take day trips from a particular city, you'll need more time there of course.

I already wrote about hotels in a previous post. But in planning your itinerary, the location of your hotel can make a big difference. Do you want easy access to transportation and the train station? Do you want to be in walking distance of all of the sights? If you're renting a car, does your hotel have parking and is it easy to get to? Is it in a safe neighborhood? These are things you need to research and determine the answers to even before you start trying to find your hotels. Learn the neighborhoods, decide approximately where in the city you want to be, what amenities you need, and then research hotels.

I'm one of those Type A planner types and I realize not everyone is. But for me, when you only have 4 of 5 days in a world-class city that has tons to do, I think winging it is doing yourself a disservice; in my opinion, at least minor planning is important or you might end up wasting your precious valuable time. What I did was to plan each day but leave free time for wandering and spontaneity. For one thing, this helps efficiency. With a little research and planning, you can be sure you are hitting sights on days they're open and you can sight-see more efficiently because you hit sights that are all in the same geographical area. Day trips are a nice way to break up hectic sightseeing - I planned my daytrips in the middle of my stay in a particular city when I could. Just to break it up a bit. I think overdoing museums in one day is also not a great idea. If the things are fresh in your mind, I think you appreciate it more and if you try to do too much in one day - something I was guilty of especially one day in Vienna when I went to three palaces in one day or in Rome when I went to about 6 churches all in a row - you'll forget it all and it will just mush together.

I think the ultimate point in all my rambling is that to have the trip of YOUR dreams, YOU have to be the one making the decisions. Blindly listening to guidebooks or people on a messageboard or, as I discussed in another post, blindly following a group tour, means you will have a trip someone else has decided would be great. But if it's not what you want, what's the point? So just do a little bit of researching, plan the trip YOU'D love, and I think you're a lot more likely to have an amazing time!

Traveling within Europe: Fly or Train?

This seems to be one of the biggest questions for European travel: fly or train between major destinations? On my trip I did both. Here's what I learned and my opinions on the matter.

Of course, the quintessential backpacker method would be the night train - you save time for sight-seeing and $$$ on a night's accommodation. This didn't work for me for several reasons: I'm a bad sleeper. Not sleeping at all on a night train would make me exhausted, grouchy, grumpy, and it'd mess me up for probably 2 days after. So for me, it wouldn't be convenient. Also for some of my longer trips I was traveling alone and thus safety was a concern.

I had a rule: If a train was over 6 hours or so, I flew. For example, a train from Lisbon to Barcelona would've required at least one night train and at least one change. You're talking a whole day, if not more............... or a two-hour flight. NO BRAINER. Another one is Amsterdam to Copenhagen. They look close on a map but when you look at the train schedules you have to make at least one change and it takes a lot longer than it looks like......... or an hour flight. NO BRAINER. And flying is not always "ugly" - check out the picture below of our approach into Lisbon (click for full-size)


The thing is, flying within Europe is so easy. There are so many discount airlines offering deals and specials. Our Lisbon to Barcelona flight was only 30 euros, including taxes and fees. Some were more expensive but still cheaper than trains. You do have to be careful. Some of the low-cost airlines use outlying airports (we got lucky and every low-cost flight we took went through the main airports in each city), which can result in added costs and time getting to and from the city from these small outlying airports. Some have very strict baggage limits and even charge you to check bags or reserve a seat. But I think if you know all this stuff in advance and prepare and pack accordingly you won't have a problem - I didn't, and I took 5 of these low-cost carriers within a few weeks.

Of course, sometimes trains are beautiful rides or are more convenient. I trained from Vienna to Venice - got a fantastic 29 euro deal from the Austrian railways and it was a 7-hour direct train arriving right at the Venice station. It went through the foggy Alps and the beautiful countryside (see the picture at right, click for full-size). Aside from the fact that there wasn't really anywhere for luggage (and I had a carry-on sized suitcase that was still too big for the overhead racks) so I had to sit for 7 hours all contorted and uncomfortably with my luggage, it was a beautiful and convenient ride.

There are other conveniences to training it. The high-speed trains have power outlets. There is no security - thus no lines and no limit on FOOD. Trains are how the locals travel so you can meet interesting people. And it's the only way to see the countryside, which can be part of the adventure.

One of the biggest conundrums seems to be Rome to Venice or vice versa. The flight is about an hour, the train is about 4 and a half hours. Seems obvious, right? fly! But this isn't the whole story. It takes a half hour (and costs 11 euros) to get from Rome's train station to/from the airport. I didn't do it, but I know it takes longer than that and probably costs more to get to/from Venice's airport. You have to get to the airport 2 hours early and go through security and wait for your luggage at the other end (and hope it made it at all!). In the end, the timing is probably about the same. But 1) the train costs less and you have no added expenses like getting to/from the airport, 2) you get to see Italy's countryside, 3) you have the chance to meet locals, 4) no security line, 5) no checked baggage, 6) more flexibility because you don't have to book so far in advance. The choice still seems obvious - but obvious the other way. Train train train.

The moral of the story is that sometimes flying is better and sometimes the train is better, and what "better" means is different for each and every single one of us. So, the only way to really decide what's best is to research. Check the times, check the flight options, check the prices, consider your schedule, and decide. Here are some useful sites for doing all that research:

• Belgian Railways site - has an easy-to-use schedule finder (for any country!) - tells you times and connections and various options for trains throughout Europe
• Bahn.de - same as the previous link, but from the German Railways (check this helpful 'tutorial' of sorts on the Rick Steves site for using Bahn to do your train research)
  
• Kayak - finds all the low-cost airlines and the regular service ones, too.
• SkyScanner - similar to Kayak but more focused on the low-cost carriers
  
• Here's a great list of many, if not all, of the low-cost carriers
  

The Problem with TV Travel Shows

This post may be one big DUH of common sense. I don't know. But after watching a show on the Food Network about Rachael Ray's travels throughout Europe, to places I myself went, I cannot keep silent. Travel shows are helpful on some basic superficial level. Watching "Giada in Paradise" made me want to go to Santorini one day. And the really good people like Anthony Bourdain make an almost extreme effort to get off the beaten path.

The big problems with these shows is that, for those of us who are actually always thinking about new places we want to go and see, these shows are completely unrealistic. The aforementioned Rachael Ray show that set me off was set in Lisbon, which was, as you already know, one of my favorite places of my whole European trip. Obviously, everything she did wouldn't fit into a half hour show, I get that. But she skipped major attractions and entire neighborhoods (neighborhoods that happen to have great food, no less), instead going to clearly touristy cultural centers and restaurants and avant garde little cafes, where everyone spoke English and the menus had translations. Where was the fado bar? Where was the plate of grilled meat with rice and potatoes that was ubiquitous on almost every menu I saw? I realize Rachael Ray is catering to the masses of Middle Class America. But what better a person to introduce the American public to the REAL city that many of her viewers might never get to see otherwise. How disappointing.

Better is Samantha Brown, whose Passport to Europe and Passport to Latin America series are fun. She does go to smaller little cafes and she puts a nice emphasis on walking around, wandering into little shops, talking to locals, and really getting a feel for a place. Step in the right direction for sure. One of her mottoes is even that traveling in your comfort zone makes for a boring trip. Couldn't agree more. Her problem is that it's hard to travel like she does. Almost all of her featured hotels are on the very high end. And in every city she goes to, she has multiple guides. Private guides are EXPENSIVE. Most of us can maybe afford one or two on a whole trip, let alone one or two a DAY. But if you are like me and are always looking for new places that look interesting, I think Samantha Brown's show is about as good as you can get. She takes one city and explores it pretty well, enough so that you can kind of envision it and get a minimal handle on the city and even just what it looks like.

Rick Steves's shows on PBS are excellent as well. He gears much more heavily to us "normal travelers" who are on some kind of limited budget and time. His problem, however, is that just like his books he goes for quality over quantity. Which is nice, but he is essentially your "editor" - telling you what's important and fully leaving out stuff he and his staff have decided what's not. For what he includes, his shows are great. And he definitely travels more realistically than anyone else. But again, I would be cautious of using his shows for any more than just seeing if you might like the way a place looks/feels on TV. And personally, I have a lot of trouble finding when the show actually airs on my local PBS.

The Travel Channel has a wealth of other interesting shows like the aforementioned Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations (which focuses on food and bizarre food at that). He often takes unrealistic treks that most normal people would either have to spend a lot of money or would have great difficulty experiencing. But of all these travel shows, I find his by far the most entertaining. The Travel Channel also airs interesting shows like Globe Trekker (also aired frequently on PBS), where a group of young backpack-types look at a place. I find this one more realistic than some of the others, but it doesn't air much. If you get the Travel Channel, definitely check its listings frequently for features and shows about places you're interested in.

As for shows on the Food Network, some are better than others. Mostly domestic but IMO better than others, Giada de Laurentiis's Weekend Getaways show is a cute little weekend look and she seems to go to mostly normal types of places. Personally I'd never set food in any place Rachael Ray goes to eat at, not after seeing her butcher lovely Lisbon.

So, watch these shows, but watch them for entertainment. I would never really take any travel advice from them. And now I will end my probably meaningless rambling... ;)