What I like best about photography is that simple changes in camera settings, composition or even the perspective is able to complete change the perception and emotion of a photograph. 

Florence was a photographer’s dream.  So many unique landscapes, buildings and even people roaming the streets.  One striking difference between major cities in Italy and ones back in North America is how many scooters and motorcyles are parked along the side of the road on any given day.   For this particular shot, I noticed a immaculately clean scooter at the side of the road, which allowed me to capture the Florentian sky, buildings and the edge of the embankment near the Ponte Vecchio.  Oddly, when I see this photo all I can think about is eating Gelato in the rain. Dont’ ask, it’s a long story

Here’s the mother of all brain dumps about Europe based on my trip and probably the longest post in the history of my blog.

Trevin’s braindump on Europe

Travel / Getting Around

• Getting a rail pass isn’t your only option. You can opt to buy point-to-point tickets, in combination with flights if neccessary, to save yourself mucho dollars. Our select-saver pass for 6 days of travel in 2 months cost us more than if we just bought point-to-point tickets everywhere.
• The rail pass will likely save you money if you’re traveling more than one month and your schedule is more open ended.
• If you get a rail pass that has a limited # of travel days, make sure you fill in the dates correctly when/if you take night trains. If you leave after 7pm, you mark the date of the next day. If you leave before 7pm, you mark both the current day and the next day (counts as 2 days travels). Obviously you should choose to take night trains after 7pm to minimize the offical # of travel days on your pass. If you have an unlimited travel pass, ignore this info
• Not every train requires reservation, but if it does, it will cost you €10 per ticket even if you have a rail pass. What a scam.
• Overnight trains are a great alternative to travel long distances since you not wasting valuable daylight traveling, but also because you don’t need to pay for that night’s accommodation. We did 2 stints on 6 bed sleepers cars and didn’t have any issues. Beware of night trains in Poland though — all the guide books will tell you to avoid them due to muggings. We met a guy in Prague that had to jump off the train after headbutting a guy on his way to Warsaw at an intermediate stop to avoid being mugged!
• Within Italy, there are 3 types of trains — Eurostar, Intercity and Inter-Regional. That is in order of speed to destination. The difference in fares can be staggering. Between Bologna and Florence, Eurostar was €18 where Inter-regional was €5! The time difference? 15 mins.
• Inter-europe flights are cheap as heck, if you buy them at least 2 weeks in advance. For example, I looked up a flight from London to Dublin and it was £20 including all fees and taxes. As it gets closer to travel day, the fares will rise by a crazy amount.
• Not every budget airline flies between every city, so I found http://www.whichbudget.com to be a good way to figure out which airlines services which city. Some of the notable carriers are: EasyJet, Smartwings, BMI and RyanAir.
• Even though everyone has a bitch and moan story about budget airlines like Easyjet or RyanAir, I’ve had no problems and been extremely happy. There are usually no assigned seats, but for that cheap, what do you expect?
• It’s a crapshoot whether or not the airplane you’re one will have seats that recline. So if you’re tired, be prepared for an uncomfortable flight.

Money

• Despite what you read on the web about a requirement for a smartcard in your credit card, your north american credit card will work in Europe. I didn’t go to a single place where it didn’t work. Opt for Visa and Mastercard instead of American Express for obvious reasons.
• Bring your ATM card, make sure it’s only a 4 digit PIN, and withdrawn money in each country in large amounts as possible to reduce your fees.
• Forget about travelers checks. The inconvenience and commission charged on cashing them in isn’t worth it.
• Use your credit card as much as possible to get the best conversion rates.
• Read the bill carefully at every restaurant. I got scammed in Cesky Krumlov by a waiter who added on 60 Kr for no reason.

Hostels / Accomodations

• Hostels are not as ghetto as you might think. The quality variance between hostels can be quite large, so use the reviews on HostelWorld.com and Hostels.com to your advantage. Not only should you use the ratings, but also read a couple pages of customer reviews.
• Expect to pay anywhere from €18-30 in any of the cities I went to, but keep in mind this wasn’t peak travel season. If you are paying far less than this, you are either in a really small town that doesn’t get much business, or you are going to be staying in a disease infested scum pool.

Other / Misc

• I had a 60L pack but could have done it with a smaller one. I just used this one since I borrowed it from Craig. Colene has a 50L pack and did just fine for a month. Many travel guides and websites will say to do it with 30-35L, but I have no idea how that’s even possible for a month!
• Most of your electronics (iPod, digital camera, etc) have battery chargers that are ‘world compatible’, meaning they transform the voltage from 110-220V. This means you do not need to buy the expensive and bulky travel transformer and can settle for simple adapter plugs. For every battery charger or appliance you’re bringing, look at it and it should tell you the voltage parameters it can operate in.
• Internet kiosks are everywhere in Europe and expect to pay €1-2 per hour for access. Some of the kiosks are super sketch, not even running windows in real ‘kiosk’ mode. Make sure you sign out of everything and delete all cookies!
• Bring at least 1 extra camera battery, otherwise you’ll be left at some point charging your only battery and missing that crucial picture.
• Bring one highschool-locker-style dudley padlock per person. You will need it as several hostels have lockers for you to use to lock up valuables.
• A neat alternative to little padlocks for locking your backpack and daypack zippers is to just use of those those keychain keyrings instead. It’s cheap, yet effective at stopping the pickpocketers.
• Bring a cable lock, at least 24″ (preferably 36″) to lock down your backpack while on the train. It’s common place for people to jump on the train, steal your bags and jump off at the same station. Especially true on night trains.
• Don’t bother bringing all the toiletries in the world. You can, and should, just rebuy a whack of stuff in every city you go to. You should bring at minimum: toothbrush, toothpaste, deoderant, a bar of soap and nail clippers. Other stuff can easily be bought at one of the local grocery stores. This will save you from having to pack all of it around, and squeeze it into travel size bottles. Girls and your makeup? I have no advice
• If you’re traveling for a month, bring about 1.5 weeks worth of clothes and expect to do laundry. More clothes than that and you are packing too much. If you’re traveling for more than a month, pack 2 weeks of clothes.
• Get comfortable doing laundry in the sink to extend time between visits to the laundromat. You want to avoid going to the laundromat too often, as it will eat at least 2.5 hours in wash, dry and travel time.
• Bring liquid detergent if possible, otherwise just buy the standard laundry detergent at your destination. Bring a portable rubber sink stopper too, since many sinks don’t have stoppers.
• Bring a pair of flip flops to wear in the bathrooms of the hostels otherwise you risk carrying 7 forms of foot fungus around Europe with you.
• Despite all the guide books say, disregard the idiotic quest to ‘not look like a tourist’. Seriously, you are a tourist and everyone can tell. Bring whatever clothes are comfortable and that you like wearing because you’ll be wearing the same stuff over and over.

Now we’re onto to info about each destination I went to. Here it is, in the order I traveled in:

Nice

• Nicoise cuisine is sub-par compared to ‘regular’ French cuisine. Something about anchovy and tuna salad turns me off. If that floats your boat, you’ll love it here.
• Beach? If you’re thinking about white sand beach, forget about it. Think more of a beach with a short with full blown rocks.
• The city is pretty small, making the hostel situation slim pickings. Although out of the way, I highly recommend Villa Saint Exupery. It’s set in an old church and has a great bar/common area perfect for socializing.
• Day trips are feasible (and highly recommended) to the village of Eze and Monaco. If you plan to go to Eze, make sure it’s on a clear day otherwise the trip will be useless as you will have no view. Trust me, I know since it was foggy the day I went
• Monaco better visited at night, since the reason everyone goes is to see the famous Monte Carlo Casino (James Bond anyone?). During the day, the Monte Carlo is very unimpressive although you’ll see some stunning cars parked out front any time of day.
• 1 or 2 nights is all you really need in Nice. More if you are traveling with a significant other since it’s a gorgeous and romantic city.

Cinque Terre

• One of the highlights of my trip. Charming area with 5 (hence, ‘Cinque’) small cities connected by hiking trails and train.
• You can’t go wrong staying in any of the cities, I chose Vernazza since I found it more charming than the others.
• Make sure you try Pesto as it originates from this area, thus a local specialty. Pesto pizza is to die for!
• Unless its the peak tourist season, you don’t need to book accommodations ahead of time. Every single business has a room to rent. Get off the train in Monterosso and just start walking around asking for a room to rent. Standard price for a private room with double bed and private bath is €50-60 in September after negotiation. If someone approaches you at the train station, pass on their offer as you’ll find a better deal elsewhere. We got approached by a guy at the train station who quoted €80 as his “special deal”.
• If you can’t find a private room in Monterosso, try any of the other 5 towns. Alternatively, you can try one of the two hostels that are in Cinque Terre, but I highly recommend a private room.
• Water views in rooms are overrated, because you barely spend any time in them. The money you save on your nightly fee can be used toward gelato or coffee
• Don’t let the difficulty rating of the hiking trails fool you. Even the ‘easy’ or ’slights’ trails can be challenging. The easiest legs of the hike are between Corniglia and Manarola, and Manarola and Riomaggiore. These are 30 and 20 mins long respectively, and mostly paved. The trails between Monterosso and Vernazza, and Vernazza and Corniglia are over an hour a piece and has enough incline to make you sweat. Don’t wear flip flops or 2 piece bikinis like I saw on some of the hikers!
• Definitely take the time to swim on Monterosso beach, and rock jumping/diving in Riomaggiore. The water was so warm even in September!

Rome

• Espresso is truly the greatest in Italy. Go for either straight espresso shots, or cafe freddo (cold/iced). Steamed milk drinks are far superior in Seattle (no joke), but nevertheless still good in Italy. Seattle coffee houses know how to make a dense, stiff milk for lattes!
• Eat gelato. Your taste buds will thank you for it.
• Weird Fact: A Japanese TV station paid for the restoration and clean-up of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and now consequently own the rights to all images and video of it for 10 years. One of the weirdest bits of trivia on this entire trip.
• You can get kicked out of the Sistine Chapel for taking photos. Sheila, a traveler we met in Rome, did in fact get booted. My sister and I, on the other hand, are more stealth at taking photos I guess
• You will debate whether you should pay the money to go into the colosseum. You will be disappointed at the inside, but you are already in Rome. Can you really not pay the €10? You’ll regret it if you don’t go in, trust me. Even if you say afterwards that it was a completely disappointment and a dump inside, like I do, you won’t have regrets!
• The paid tour of the colosseum and Palentine Hill is worth it, despite being pricey (€25). The amount of history and information they give you on the sites is extraordinary and well worth it. At the colosseum, paid tours get to skip the chump line where all the penny pinching tourists are.
• You will not take the metro as much as you expect in Rome. First, the metro stops are really inconveniently located, and second, the sights are all walkable from each other. Bring comfortable shoes!
• Avoid the Freestyle Inn hostel like the plague.
• Pop Inn hostel is highly recommended.
• If hot weather isn’t your thing, avoid Italy in the summer. I went in September and it was still 2-shower-a-day hot. I’m truly a pacific northwest boy!
• Be prepared to not eat many fruits and vegetables. Nearly all the meals you will have will consist of simple carbs like pizza, whitebread and pasta. Whole wheat? Forget about it.
• You have to actively seek out and buy fruits, but thankfully, there are quite a few fresh fruit markets and grocery stores.
• The fountains you see all over town spewing out water is completely safe to drink. Save your Euros and fill up your water bottles. (However, according to Omar, I might have to reconsider my Nalgene bottle. Yikes!)

Florence

• 2 great hostel choices — Archi Rossi and Emerald Fields. Archi Rossi is a larger, more commercial operation whereas Emerald Fields is smaller and more intimate. Can’t go wrong with either.
• For the Galleria degli Uffizi and Gallery Acadamia, make reservations. You’re an idiot if you don’t as you will stand in line watching in awe as other people bypass the line completely. Don’t bother using any of the 3rd party reservation services as they will add a surcharge and the museums don’t guarantee reservations made through them. Just call the official reservation telephone # directly and you will be routed ultimately to a real human that will give you a reservation # that you give at the ticket booth the day of. Every guide book on the planet will have the telephone number that you can call.
• If you want to buy cold cuts, sandwhiches or produce, go to the Mercato Centrale in the San Lorenzo area. It’s a few blocks off Via Nazionale. In particular, check out Nerbone, which serves out of this world roast beef sandwhiches. Check out TastingMenu.com’s description of this sandwhich, since I can’t describe it any better myself. Truly one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had.
• If you have the time, and money, head out to Molinella for tandem skydiving with The FlyGang. It’s 2 hours north of Florence via 2 trains, transfering in Bologna. 175€ gets you the jump, free t-shirt, your own camera guy and a DVD of your jump set to music. The highlight of my trip. Talk about a rush!
• Italy truly does have the best gelato on the planet. My sister jokes that she has been eating her way through Italy, but truth be told, so have I. My new favorite flavour? Rice gelato.. out of this world!

Lucca, Pisa and Siena

• Florence is a great base camp for day trips to Tuscan hill towns. Lucca, Pisa and Siena are all about an hour by train from Florence.
• I would recommend lumping Lucca and Pisa into the same day, and Siena on its own day. Lucca is 1 hour west, from which you can catch another train 30 mins south to get to Pisa. To finish off, you’ll catch an hour train direct from Pisa to Florence.
• Pisa is a dirty, grungy town and literally the only thing worth seeing is the leaning tower. Let me tell you, it is breathtaking. We spent a total of 2 hours in Pisa, which included the walk to the tower from the train station (20 mins), lunch on the steps outside of the tower (30 mins) and general photo taking. There is nothing else worth seeing in Pisa.
• Lucca is gorgeous, and Rick Steves claims that the tower in Lucca gives the best view in all of Tuscany. Sorry Rick, I have to disagree. The view from the tower in Siena blows it away.
• While the piazza in Siena is much, much larger than the one in Lucca, I felt the piazza in Lucca to be more charming. But you really can’t go wrong with either.
• Spend the €2.50 to rent a bike in Lucca to ride around the city and the protective wall. Make sure you remember where you rented the bike from, otherwise you’ll be like me and ride around for 20 mins looking for where to return it.

Munich (Oktoberfest)

• Don’t bother drinking coffee here, it is some of the worst I’ve tasted, no matter where you get it.
• Book your acommmodations far enough in advance, everything books early, early. Everyone loves the drinky!
• Hostel Meininger is the closest hostel to the Oktoberfest grounds.
• Pace your drinking at Oktoberfest, those 1L steins are the equivalent of 3 beers. By law, the German government mandates that beer cannot contain any preservatives. Trust me, you’ll notice the difference from that crap we’re drinking back home. It’s scary how easy it is to drink.
• If you don’t have a table reserved at Oktoberfest, don’t worry. You have 2 choices:
  • Show up early (~10 am) to get a seat. You will have a long day of drinking ahead.
  • Show up later in the day, but before 6pm and gamble that you will find a table. We lucked out and got a table for 2 hours.
• Remember that they will not serve you beer unless you are at a table. After you get the beer, you can stand up and walk around.
• Don’t eat inside the tents if possible as the prices are outrageous. €12 half-chicken anyone? Go for the food outside the tents — can’t beat a €3 bratwurst semmel!
• The Deutches Museum is a waste of time. Largest science museum in the world, but over 50% of the exhibits are completely in german. Don’t waste your time.

Prague (Czech Republic)

• Don’t even think about coffee here either. I was better off drinking mud.
• It is so cheap here to eat and drink, you can’t help but love it. $1.00 US beers anyone?
• Czech Inn hostel is the best hostel in the city. Not as central as others, but it’s like a posh hotel for the price of a hostel.
• Don’t expect any memorable meals here. Go for nutritional value!
• Looking back on our trip, the worst meal I had was on our last day in Prague. Yuck.
• Take the time to to spend a night in Cesky Krumlov, which is a 3 hour bus ride away and a UNESCO World Heritage site. A day trip isn’t worth it and you’ll be rushed since last bus leaves for Prague at 5pm.
• If you get a chance, check out Cross Club, the best club in the city. Always a good sign that a place is swarming with locals.
• It’s almost always a better idea to get a 24 hour transit pass, which is good for metro, bus and tram. It’s surprisingly convenient.
• If you have a rail pass, it’s almost certain that travel to Czech Republic won’t be covered since it’s in Eastern Europe. You will get a discount on tickets, but be prepared to fork out some extra Euros.

London

• Get over the fact that it’s so expensive here. The sooner you stop converting the better of a time you’ll have.
• Try to find a friend to stay with to avoid the hellish expense of a hostel paying out in pounds.
• Avoid the Victoria and Northern tubes at all costs. I can’t believe how hot and stuffy it is in those lines despite it being 70 degrees outside!
• Most of your travels will be in zone 1, 2 or 3. A day pass is almost always the best option.
• Even though I didn’t get a chance to do it, spend the money to go on the London Eye. The view is worth it!
• From London Victoria station, it will take just over an hour to get to Heathrow.
• Go to The Roadhouse on fridays in Covent Garden. Great atmosphere, tons of locals and the house band that plays after 11pm is actually a pretty good cover band.

Hopefully this information helps someone on their travels. If anyone has questions, shoot me an email or drop a comment!

Arrived in Prague yesterday morning off another night train. This train was completely ghetto compared to our Florence to Munich leg. We managed to meet some more kickass travelers on the train, Mark and Lindsay, who are also Canadian from Whistler.

We get to our hostel, the Czech Inn, just outside the main city center and I’m astounded at the quality of this hostel. It seems that as our trip goes on, the hostels are getting better and better. This one is more of a hotel than a hostel with completely clean rooms, modern clean design both inside and out with a cool lobby and bar. Highly recommended!

The prices in Prague are so insanely cheap. Beer is universally about $1 US, and often you can find it for cheaper when you go to places off the beaten path. They use their own currency here, the Kronus (Kr), and 100 Kr = $5 US approximately. The conversion is about 20:1. I’m eating and drinking like a king here because of their insane economy. Examples:

1. 1/2 roast chicken, a fanta, and a loaf of bread for $5 US.

2. 2 pieces of pizza and 1 beer = $3.85 US.

3. 1 Pearl Jam ticket, on the floor = $45 US

Yes, things are pretty cheap here. And yes, you read that right, I went to a Pearl Jam concert yesterday at the Prague colosseum for $45 US. We went last minute and got tickets at the door from a scalper along with 10 other people from our hostel. Back home, floor tickets for this type of concert would be at least twice the price. Reason for the cheap tickets? According to a local, “Czech people are lazy and always want to sit. Actually, all Europeans are pretty lazy”. Good for us!

Even though I’m not a big Pearl Jam fan, we had a blast and I actually recognized 5 songs more than I expected (for a total of 5). I didn’t know them by name, but I could sing along to a bunch of them. Weird!

While the city of Prague is nice, there is nothing that unique about it. So many other cities in Europe have much more history and are nicer, although those cities are much more expensive. Our 4 days here will be a perfect amount of time once we factor in some easy days lounging around, recovering from excessive partying and taking a day trip to Cesky Krumlov.

I have 8 days left in my trip so it’s definitely coming to an end pretty soon. I’m bumbed to be going home so soon, but also glad to get back to consistently hot showers, my own bed and my friends (awwwww).

See everyone soon!

The Cow Goes ‘Moo’

And so did the steak on my plate. It might have even twitched. Our last night in Florence was marked by a quest to find an eatery for the famous local Florentine Steak. It was described to us as ’so tender you can cut it with a spoon’. How can you not want to try that?

Our dinner companions were Gillian and one of our hostel roomates, a peculiar girl named JJ who shared way too much information about her last European hookup in a bunk bed. Yuck. After walking about a mile in the pouring rain, we end up at a restaurant famous for its steak, but it’s freaking packed. So we turn around and go to the first place that seems decent — kind of defeats the whole purpose of walking that far for a specific restaurant, but we were hungry. We order a bottle of house red and an appetizer, then it’s onto the steak. We realized that after the waiter took our order, he never asked us how we wanted it cooked. Not good. The steak arrives at the table and it appears nicely cooked — charred on the outside, great set of herbs and it smells divine. I cut into it and I swear it tried to bite me. That thing was more raw than probably even the tuna sashimi I love so much back home. Woah. I manage to power through it and it’s actually not that bad. In fact, it’s quite tasty but I couldn’t finish it all because the thought of completely raw beef was turning me off. I tried squeezing some lemon on it in hopes that it would somehow magically cook some more, but hey, can’t win ‘em all!

Florence was great, an unbelievable experience filled with some great photos, great friends and some much needed relaxing. Goodbye Florence, Hello Munich!

Ready, Set, Drink!

We get to Munich off a night train from Florence and get to the hostel at 6am. Holy crap, German language is killing me. At least Italian had some similarity to French. German? Forget about it. Miraculously we found our hostel despite the crazy bad directions on Hostelworld.com.

Once we get there we immediately meet 2 pairs of other travelers. First we have Melanie and Josie from Montreal (Go Canada!) and Tracy and Matt from Houston, Texas. In other cities we hadn’t managed to meet people so quickly so this was great. All of them were so friendly and interesting. Definitely made our time in Munich unforgettable! There is nothing like sharing large quantities of beer with a large group of people!

The first night we do a free walking tour around the city, wasn’t bad although many of us thought he was making stuff up some of the time. On the tour, I meet 2 lovely girls, Julie and Lauren, from Australia that are a complete blast. Not to mention gorgeous I think I might be in love for the first time in Europe

Later in the day the 6 of us decide to go to Oktoberfest.. probably 5pm. We walk around Oktoberfest and it is freaking crazy. Much more of a carnival atmosphere than I expected, reminds me of Playland back home in Vancouver except this one has over 12 gargantuan beer tents and 18″ long bratwursts.

We immediately go to the world famous Hofbrau tent and we manage to snag a table for all of us despite most tables being reserved a year in advance. We quickly order a round of beer, each being 1 Liter (3 beers)! Over the course of 2 hours, I manage to polish off 2 steins and Colene does an admirable job of just over 1. So by 8pm we´re all drunker than you can imagine, I just wish I could post up more pictures.

At some point I get up to go to the restroom and the line is insane. While in line, I see a dude standing there with 2 beer steins in his hand. His buddy is yaking in the stall so loudly its making everyone else in line queezy. He busts out of the stall, belches and grabs the 2nd beer out of his friend’s hand and is drinking again before even leaving the restroom. These germans can drink!

By the time I get back to the table, everyone is mysteriously gone. Didn’t help I was gone for 30 mins! They probably figured I fell in.

I walk outside and conveniently run into Melanie, Josie and Colene. Colene looks at me and, in a priceless moment, exclaims ‘I’m sick. I need to go back to the hostel’. The look on her face was hilarious as I’ve never seen her this drunk, even at her birthday last month where she drank a fish bowl of mystery alcohol.

We both pass out in our bed about 8:45pm and sleep for 12 hours ready for another day at Oktoberfest. Go Munich! This place is completely unreal.. the partying, drinking and mass of people is like nothing you’ve ever seen. Anyone up for going next year?

Good new, Bad News

Good news: Munich has coffee to go! Something I’ve been missing ever since I first landed in Europe.

Bad news: The coffee here universally stinks. I don’t even think it’s possible to make coffee that tastes this bad everywhere you go. We have it so good back in Seattle it’s not even funny.

Good news: We can finally eat something other than pizza and pasta here in Munich.

Bad news: We’ve basically exchange pasta and pizza for bread and bratwurst. After 8 bratwursts in 2 days, I sick at the thought of meat in a bun for the first time in my life. I’m terrified Munich has ruined weiner-shaped meat for me for the rest of my life.

Good news: The hostel we’re staying in is the cleanest and best one yet. Total party atmosphere with great people.

Bad news: we’re paying through the nose for it, they double the rates during Oktoberfest.. b*stards.

We’re off on a night train to Prague on Thursday night and arrive Friday morning bright and early at 8am. Bradley, a fellow Canadian that we met in Rome, is joining us for the weekend to party it up. After Prague it’s off to London where I finish my trip off and get to see Spencer finally after a few years of separation. I’m stoked!

Last 4 days have been a blast. We left Rome and have hit a bunch of Tuscan hill towns after arriving in Florence. We’ve hit Lucca, Siena and Pisa and seen all the sights. Totally an unreal experience so far and we’ve found a gem of a hostel in Florence called the Emerald Fields.  It’s run by a local named Marco who absolutely knows how to run a hostel and create a great atmosphere for his guests. Highly recommend staying here!  It’s a bit of a walk from the train station, but still a great location.

There is only one internet terminal in this whole hostel for about 20 people so my time is short.. will elaborate more on our trip later including surviving a torrential rain storm in Siena today.