tara3056

This trip report is long overdue, but after traveling for a month, we were exhausted when we got back home, and had so much catching up on everything to do, that I couldn’t bear the thought of re-living the trip again, in writing, for quite some time. But now I’m up for it, and I wanted to give back to the Fodors community for all of the wonderful help I got from these forums when I was planning the trip. I don’t expect many people will make it through my trip report, because I know it will end up being incredibly looooong and detailed, but I can’t help it! That’s how I usually write!

We visited Europe from May 19 to June 18. We went to: London (6 days), Amsterdam (3 days), Amboise in the Loire Valley (3 days), Paris (one week), Rome (6 days), and Venice (4 days). We had planned for the trip for about a year and a half, and finally taking it was a dream come true. I’m 25, and my husband Jeff, is 30.


Pre-Trip Planning:

We’d bought open-jaw tickets arriving on May 19 in London and leaving on June 18 from Venice. We’d picked this time frame in the hopes that we’d miss most of the rain that we might have gotten by going earlier in the spring, but we also wanted to miss the worst of the summer crowds. All in all, I think we made a good decision, though we were a little worried about packing for a London-May and a Rome-June in one trip.

I should also mention that I am one of those psycho-overplanners. I spent months and months and hours and hours researching everything I possibly could about this trip… the Fodors forums were of inestimable benefit!! Some people – my husband for one – may have thought I was going a little too far with the pre-planning but we were so grateful for my hard work once we were on the trip. Every hotel we stayed in was *perfect*, we skipped so many long lines by having pre-printed admission tickets, and overall, ate very well using the restaurant recommendations I’d researched beforehand.

Many people don’t recommend pre-booking tickets to a ton of places, only the most crowded ones, but I honestly was so glad I did. Yeah, if our trip had suddenly needed to be cancelled, we would have lost some money on the various tickets, but most of the tickets had really flexible rules – like they were valid for all of 2007, or for an entire week or month, so with only two exceptions I can think of (the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, and the Borghese in Rome), we could still be completely flexible with our plans, and didn’t have to go somewhere we weren’t in the mood to visit on a particular day.

Our Packing Strategy:

We felt it might be tough to pack economically for a month-long trip in which we could realistically expect cool/rainy weather in London and Amsterdam, beautiful spring-like weather in France, and hot/humid days in Italy. We’re not people who could go on a trip – even a shorter one – with just a carry-on; at the same time, we knew we’d be moving around a lot from place to place and didn’t want our luggage to be a huge burden. So, we did several things that helped us minimize our load.

First, we packed using 1 and 2 gallon Ziploc bags. We put our clothes, neatly folded, into the bags, and then sat on them to remove the air. This saved a TON of space, and kept our clothes amazingly wrinkle-free. The value of this strategy became even more apparent during the trip, when we were able to leave the clothes we didn’t need neatly packed in their Ziploc bags, instead of having to constantly rummage through our suitcases, messing the entire thing up in the process.

Second, we decided we would have a “travel uniform” of sorts. Black is my favorite color, and cotton t-shirts don’t wrinkle much, so for my part, I packed probably 6 long-sleeved black tees (some v-neck, some ballet neck, etc., but all black tees) and the same number of short-sleeved black tees. Then I added in a wrinkle-free dress and a dressy shirt for nice dinners out, a couple pairs of jeans, a couple other pants, a scarf, and a lightweight jacket. By wearing the black tees every day, I was able to pare down my shoe selection, too. I brought one pair of black closed-toed shoes, one pair of black sandals, and one pair of heels for dinners. I suppose by the end of the trip I was getting slightly bored of my wardrobe, but I *loved* not having to worry about matching things (everything was interchangeable), and black didn’t show dirt. As for my Jeff, he brought several long-sleeved wrinkle-free button up shirts that would go with either jeans or khakis, for the cooler weather, and then 5-6 polo shirts for warmer weather, plus pants, underwear and undershirts, 1 pair of closed-toed shoes, 1 pair of sandals, and a fleece jacket. We had one 26-inch suitcase each, and were able to fit everything we needed (including my makeup/flat iron girly-type things, and all his geeky camera equipment) into those suitcases with *room to spare* and they only weighed 15 kilos each (no extra charges on Easyjet or Ryanair! Yay!) Finally, we also brought a backpack to use as a carry-on. It held our in-flight reading materials until we got to Europe, and later, held souvenirs. For guidebooks, I cut out the pages that I wanted to bring, stapled them together, and printed relevant information from the internet. (To illustrate how compulsive I am, I actually printed mappy.com maps for all of our hotels and restaurant reservations – and was glad I did too!) I had all of the papers split into 6 separate manila envelopes, one for each place, and we threw away the papers when we moved on to the next place.

Anyway, if I post pictures, and you see me constantly wearing black tees, I promise I wasn’t just wearing the same thing over and over! They were clean!

Oh, and speaking of clean laundry – I’d arranged everything so that doing laundry would be as painless as possible on our trip. We were staying at the Hotel Fita in Amsterdam, which in addition to being a great place to stay anyhow, had the added perk of free laundry service. Once we got to Paris, we had an apartment with washer and dryer. In Rome, we also rented an apartment with a washer (but no dryer this time). We didn’t really have to handwash anything in a sink at anytime during the trip, or visit a laundromat, which was great.

Okay, so on to the trip!

On Sunday, May 20, we landed at Gatwick nearly an hour before we were supposed to arrive, but that was fine. Neither Jeff or I can sleep on planes, so at most, we’d been able to dose off for an hour or so in-flight. We’d mostly read, or watched the on-demand movies from the personal video screens (I can’t imagine flying without them now!). We’d flown with Northwest, and everything went completely smoothly. The passport/immigration line was incredible, though. It took us just under 2 hours from arriving at Gatwick until we could be on our way. I’d pre-booked tickets for the Gatwick Express to take us to London Victoria (for half off, thanks to a Fodor’s tip), and the tickets were good for any day in 2007, so if something had gone wrong with our arrival day, it wouldn’t have mattered.

From Victoria, we took the Tube to Bloomsbury, where our hotel (the Arran House hotel) was located. We had no problem using the Tube, either. Again, I’d pre-purchased 7-day Travelcards, which paid off in terms of ease of use (ticket lines were crowded with tourists just arriving, but we skipped them) – and financially, too. I added up our Tube trips, and found that even using the Oyster wouldn’t really have saved us anything. We had a bit of a difficult time finding our hotel from the Tube station, probably because we were sleep-deprived, exhausted, and dragging our luggage. Once there, we were told our room wasn’t ready yet (at noon) and were invited to leave our luggage and come back at 1pm (or we could sit in the comfy TV/computer room for an hour)

So off we went to grab a bite to eat, and walk around a bit. An hour passed quickly, and we checked into our room. We promptly set our alarm and went to sleep. Now, I know what everyone says about jet lag and how to overcome it, but we never listen. We just absolutely cannot stay up the entire first day when we’ve had no sleep on the plane. So we usually sleep for 4-5 hours when we arrive somewhere, wake up and shower for dinner, eat, and then are still sleepy enough that night to go to bed around midnight. We wake up the next day, around 6:30 or 7am, ready to head out and explore. Of course, our strategy means the entire first day is wasted, and it *does* take us a good day or two before we’re feeling halfway normal, but this system generally works for us.

Dinner that night was at Pizza Express. It was horrible. I wasn’t expecting anything great mind you, just decent. We’d wanted something quick and easy for our first night there. The food was awful, and the service was worse. Oh well.

Now, a note about our hotel: I’d highly recommend the Arran House hotel to anyone wanting a clean, well-located, affordable hotel in London. We’d booked a double room for 72£ per night, though for that price, we’d planned on sharing a bathroom with another room or two. They did have rooms with private bathrooms available, for about 20£ more per night, but all the reviews said that these were “pod” bathrooms, about the size of an airplane restroom, that had been added to some of the rooms in recent years. The hotel is so old that it would have been difficult for them to add more spacious bathrooms for each room. We didn’t exactly want to share a bathroom, but we also weren’t prepared to spend more to have our own little pod – or stay in a more expensive hotel.

In any case, we were upgraded to a room with a “pod” for the same price as one without, which was a nice treat. It meant that our room was on the top floor of the hotel, though, which ended up being probably 4 floors up, but we didn’t mind since we appreciated having the privacy and freedom to use our bathroom whenever we wanted, and we figured we’d better get used to stair-climbing anyway since we’d be doing a lot of it in the coming month. I hauled my suitcase and our carry-on up the entire 4 flights, as the hubby looked on admiringly  The pod bathroom was really kind of amusing, as I’ve never seen so small a shower/toilet/sink combo before. As you showered, you could reach over the toilet to the sink if you chose. You had to kind of turn this way and that, and use the hand-held showerhead, in order to shower well, but we didn’t mind at all. I imagine if we were larger people, we wouldn’t have liked it, or in fact, perhaps not even been able to use it. But we’re fairly slender people and managed quite well - In fact, we loved our pod! It meant no sharing bathrooms, no toting clothes and toiletries down the hall every morning, and being able to use the toilet in the middle of the night without being afraid you might run into someone while dressed in your PJs.

May 21: We woke up around 7, ate the wonderful full English breakfast provided by the hotel, and headed out. The breakfast, served buffet-style in the basement from 7-10, was constantly re-filled whenever anything ran out, and included: scrambled eggs, fried ham, stewed tomatoes, beans, sausage links, 4 kinds of cereal with milk, oatmeal, white and wheat toast with various jams and Nutella, miniature plain and chocolate-filled croissants, peaches in syrup, yogurt, OJ, water, tea, and coffee. It was a great way to start the day, keeping us fueled up until at least early afternoon. (Apparently guests can use the kitchen in non-breakfast hours to cook their own meals or store things in the fridge, but we never did this. They also have a washer and dryer you can use for 5£ per load, though again, we didn’t do this.)

So, after said breakfast, it was off to the Tower. I’d wanted to visit the Tower since I was 12. A history major in college, my love of history started from a very young age, and as a kid, I went through periods of obsession with different topics. (At 12, it was Henry VIII and all his wives and thus, the Tower, too… at 10, it’d been Egypt; at 14, the Holocaust…) So, even now, at 25, I was beaming as we exited the Tower Hill tube and caught our first glimpse of the tower complex. I’d heard some say it was cheesy, but I was determined to see it, and I’m glad I did! (Again we had pre-booked tickets, which could be used on any day within the week we were there, so it wasn’t like we were obligated to go to the Tower on a certain day.)

To see the prisoners’ inscriptions on the Tower walls, to see the Tower Green where Anne Boleyn was beheaded, to see the eerie White tower, walk on the old cobblestones, know that the Tower dated back to William the Conquerer… well, I was verklempt. Oh, and the Crown Jewels were awfully nice to drool over too. We walked along the top of the tower walls, and looked down and saw where the Beefeaters who work at the tower live. It was bizarre to see this beautiful old stonework, these old wooden doors, these adorable but old apartments, and know that people actually lived in them. There were lawn chairs outside many of them, and well-tended flowers. So cool.

It was drizzly that day, the only day that we were rained on at all in London – nice! The dampness gave everything a more atmospheric feel, anyhow. Coming from Iowa, where it was already quite sunny and warm, nothing made us feel quite so much like we were actually *in* London as a rainy brisk day spent at the eerie old Tower.

After we finished there, we walked across Tower Bridge, rambled along the riverfront on the opposite side, passing by the strange mushroom-shaped city hall building, then took the Tube back to Bloomsbury. We stopped in our neighborhood Tesco for some water and a snack, and whatdoyaknow? Some things are cheaper in London – bottled water for example. A *huge* bottle of Vittel or Evian cost only 60 pence, or about $1.20. The same size would cost at least double that in our supermarket back home.

Dinner that evening was at Bistro 1 in Soho, where they have a 3-course prix fixe for 9.90£, a real bargain. And it was delicious! The second-best meal we had in London, and definitely one of the cheapest. I had a starter of delicious mussels in a Provencal-style sauce, beef burgundy for my main, and tarte tatin for dessert. I don’t remember what Jeff had, but he was happy with his food too.

May 22: Breakfast at the hotel, and then we set off for the British Museum, an easy walk from our hotel. I was excited about seeing it, as was Jeff, but honestly it ended up being quite a big let-down. We’d LOVED the Louvre when we went to Paris the year before, and after having been to the Louvre, I found the British Museum to be not as nice, and it didn’t hold our interest for the entire day, as the Louvre had. So after finishing at the Museum, we walked to Russell Square and enjoyed lazing about in the sun. Then we walked to Covent Garden to Neal’s Dairy Yard for some cheese. We got quite lost on the way there, which gives me an excuse to mention the number one thing we hated about London: navigating it! My God. It is incredible. First, it’s a huge city. Second, most maps are terrible. Street names change every few blocks, even though technically, it’s the same piece of pavement continuing in the same direction. Streets twist every which way, some street names are duplicated in different parts of the city, road signs are surprisingly hard to find in a quick scan – you have to really look for them in many cases – and judging scale is difficult. Sometimes we’d set off on what we thought would be a short walk, and it ended up being much longer than we’d anticipated – and that’s IF we managed to get where we wanted to go without getting lost one (or five) times. We’re normally really good navigators, but we struggled in London.

Anyhooow, the cheese we got from Neal’s Dairy Yard was fantastic. We stopped at Tesco for a surprisingly good baguette and some pre-sliced apples, then enjoyed a little picnic in our hotel room. We lazed around the room a bit, watching BBC, and then headed out to dinner at Navarro’s. Now, I picked Navarro’s because it was supposed to be really good food at an affordable price, but I knew that many reviews mentioned that the service there could be spotty. We’d decided we would risk it. (BTW: we were trying to stick to a budget of around $120-130 US dollars/per day for food for both of us. Throughout the whole trip, we’d generally eat cheap for breakfast and lunch, and then splurge at dinner.) Well, the food at Navarro’s was pretty good, but not great, and service started out completely fine, but then got seriously worse after we finished our meal. At Pizza Express the night before, we’d been unable to get our waitress’s attention to ask for the check – eventually Jeff had to find her in the back of the restaurant to ask for it after we’d been waiting 30 minutes or more. Now, I’m no stranger to having to ask if you want the check – that’s how they do it in France, and I hate to see some Americans thinking that the French are rude because they don’t bring the check to you, and the Americans don’t know that you have to ask for it. I didn’t know if this was the case or not in England, but either way, found it impossible to even catch the eye of our servers. At some point, we started joking that we must have an Invisibility Cloak hiding us.

So at Navarro’s we again waited…and waited…and waited to be able to pay. I even tried waving down our waiter – and eventually, even a waiter that wasn’t ours, and I still wasn’t noticed. So all in all, while the food was decent there, it wasn’t so good as to make the overall experience a positive one, and Navarro’s isn’t a place I’d recommend.

May 23: Breakfast at our hotel and then on to Westminster. We enjoyed the views of Parliament and Big Ben as we walked to the Abbey. We waited a few minutes after we got there to be able to join a verger tour of the Abbey. It was worth the extra 5£. Our tour lasted about 2 hours and allowed us to go in parts of the Abbey that other tourists can’t (though not many, and that’s not why I’d recommend it). Our verger was a wealth of knowledge, if a bit stiff, and definitely increased our enjoyment of seeing the Abbey. Again, history major that I was, I stood in awe and silent appreciation before the humble coronation chair that has been used in the coronation of every English monarch for centuries. I looked at it, thinking how Queen Elizabeth I had once sat in that very chair – incredible. Too bad about the grafitti carved into it by errant youths in years past, quite a shame.

After Westminster Abbey, we walked across the Thames to the London Eye for a “flight.” Jeff and I rolled our eyes at how they call it a “flight.” This was rather a disappointment for us. Yes, it was nice, I suppose, and yes, you do get a nice view in particular of Parliament from above, but we didn’t enjoy it all that much, particularly when you consider the cost of it – 30£ or $60 for the two of us. Of course, if you start translating everything in London into US dollars, you will get depressed very quickly over many things. (Like our $60 dinner at Pizza Express!) I think this is mostly because we didn’t find London to be all that attractive of a city to begin with, and from above, London mostly looks like any other big city in the world.

I understand the appeal of London to many people. It’s massive, it has something for everyone, it’s historic, but oh-so-modern too. There are ancient buildings juxtaposed with futuristic skyscrapers (like the gherkin building!). It’s busy at all hours of day and night.

As for us, while we could appreciate London, we much preferred every other city we visited on our trip. Paris is our first love. Some find it boring, with the wide boulevards and Haussman buildings everywhere you look – no architectural variety – but we think it beautiful. And nowhere else in Europe were we as troubled by traffic as in London – and that includes Rome!! Our hotel did not have a/c, and it could be a bit loud throughout the night because the traffic never ceased. And London is huge, and not very walkable at all. So, I think that’s why we didn’t fall in love with London as we have with other places. Not to say we didn’t enjoy it, we just didn’t love it and probably won’t be itching to go back anytime in the near future. But I’m jumping ahead of myself!!

After the London Eye, we took the Tube to Kensington and had tea at the Orangery. This was a fabulous experience and exactly what we needed to re-charge. We’d wanted to do afternoon tea at one of the London institutions, but couldn’t justify the cost, and weren’t too keen on the idea of dressing up for it. The Orangery was a great substitute. The tea and champagne were great, as were all the nibbles – sandwiches, scones, cakes… It was a beautiful sunny day, 70-something degrees, and as we drank our tea and felt very civilized, everything was right with the world.

We spent some time shopping on the high streets, then went back to our hotel to get ready for dinner, which was at Dionysus – a raved-about Greek place not far from our hotel. Apparently they’ve been in business for decades; their original building burnt down, and they rebuilt in a new location. There are websites where loyal customers are applauding the re-opening, saying how much they’d missed it. So I was looking forward to an inexpensive, but good, meal – and I adore Greek food. *sigh* Again, another massive disappointment. It was just so very mediocre, and Jeff’s pita sandwich was so flavorless and the meat so dry.

We hadn’t believed the rumors about the food in London not being very good, but we were starting to give in to the stereotype by this point in our trip. I mean, sure, most of it was edible, but food is the *best* part of any vacation for me, and in this case, well – it was far from it.

May 24: Jeff and I started to tire of London on this day. The traffic, the noise, the crowds, the exchange rate, getting lost, and the bad food were all taking their toll on us. Our feet and calves were also pretty sore from all the walking and stair-climbing, but we’d expected that and were able to not let it bother us. After all, we don’t usually walk miles and miles every day, so we knew our legs just needed to acclimate to the new pace. And they did – after a few more days.

We missed breakfast at the hotel this morning, which was fine by us, because while it was a great and hearty breakfast, it also got a little old after having it for several days in a row. So we had a yummy brunch at Pret-a-Manger down the street. Then we took the Tube to the Museum of London, which was okay, but I wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way to visit it. Of course, they had some of it closed for renovation work, so that may have affected our opinion of it. After that, we walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern to have a look-see. The great thing about London is the free museums – it allows you to peek in places you might never go to normally, and allows you to slip out after an hour or so, when otherwise you’d feel guilty about having spent the money for admission and then left so soon. Neither Jeff nor I are modern art fans. We really don’t understand it, and though I think we’d both *really* like to, we don’t. But we decided to give it a shot at the Tate Modern, and after an hour or so of looking at artwork quizzically, and trying oh-so-hard not to be rude by whispering to the other “why is that art??!?”, we left. (No offense to any modern art fans – I realize we’re just not sophisticated enough yet to appreciate it!)

Off then to Oxford Street for window-shopping and to pretty Grosvenor Square. We were getting somewhat grumpy by now for some reason – for my part, I suspect my sunburned scalp had a bit to do with it. I’m extremely pale and generally wear sunscreen if I’m going to be outside a lot, but I can’t help my hair’s part-line from getting burned, and it did, and this was another sunny, abnormally hot, day. So back to the hotel, where I napped while Jeff went across the street to the huge Waterstone’s bookstore to browse for books and a map of the Loire Valley.

Dinner that night was at Denise’s, a French restaurant not very far from our hotel. And lo and behold, dinner was very, very good – YAY! Just what we needed. Everything was reasonably priced (well, as far as London goes, which is to say, still expensive when you’re spending US dollars) and delicious. And we weren’t wearing our Invisibility Cloak that night!

May 25 (last day in London): We ate breakfast at the hotel and set out for St. Paul’s Cathedral. We were looking forward to it, but I think we didn’t expect to be as impressed by it as we had been by Westminster Abbey, just because it’s not as old, or generally, quite as historically significant. But it was magnificent! Truly astounding, in scale, in the natural light that flowed in, in its beauty. Wow. We climbed to the Whispering Gallery where we tried to whisper into the wall and have the other hear it while pressing an ear to the dome across the way, but we couldn’t get it to happen, no matter how many times we tried. Jeff wanted to climb to the very top of the Cathedral, hundred of more steps up, and I didn’t, so I went back to the Cathedral floor to look around, and to sit and reflect.

After leaving St. Paul’s, we made our way back to our neighborhood, and sought out North Sea Fish for some of their famous fish and chips. Neither of us are big seafood-lovers, but hey, we’re in London – we had to try fish and chips! It was delicious, seriously delicious. Well, I liked it better than Jeff did, but in general, I like seafood much more than he does. The fact that he liked it at all speaks highly of North Sea.

Thus fortified, we made our way to the British Library, which we *loved* - truly one of the highlights of our London trip, along with the Tower. I love Shakespeare, and to see his original Folio there, along with so many other amazing, amazing treasures, was incredible. I was in happy ecstasy, explaining to my less-liberal-artsy husband (he’s a hardcore software engineer and science freak) the significance of some of the items – the Magna Carta – the 800 year old document in which King John made certain concessions to the nobles which, arguably, may have kept England from eventually experiencing a revolution against the monarchy…!! It later influenced our Declaration and Constitution!! Beowulf… oh my god, this is the epic… !! A Gutenberg Bible??!!!! You get the picture… I was excited, running from treasure to treasure, pointing and telling their stories. Luckily, I have a husband that not only tolerates me going all academic-freaky on him, but loves it when I do. *whew*

After the Library, we went back to the hotel to change into nicer clothes for dinner. After a week of subpar food, we were splurging on what we hoped would be a great meal – at Latium, an Italian restaurant also in Bloomsbury. And, oh, what a meal!! It was a great way to spend our last night in London, and we left the restaurant on quite a Food High. Jeff had: pumpkin ravioli with sage butter to start, beef with pickled carrots, toasted hazelnuts, and swiss chard for a main, and tea with petits fours and chocolates for dessert. I had: buffalo mozzarella with sundried tomatoes and chicory to start, ravioli with lemon-ricotta filling and a light tomato-basil sauce for my main (incredible!), and the most. perfect. amazing. incredible. (I’m running out of superlatives) dessert. Panna cotta with fresh fruit. This was no ordinary panna cotta, though. It was a tiny mound of it, with vanilla bean specks throughout, and even the tinest, tinest bit of it on your spoon was enough to fill your senses with perfumy-sweet-vanilla goodness. And the fruit was the freshest, sweetest imaginable. Who needs anything more? The total for the meal, with a half-bottle of red wine, 2 bottles of mineral water, plus tip came to 83£. Yeah, that was about $166, and it was worth every penny. It stands out as one of the top 4-5 meals from the entire trip – highly recommended!

Next: We’re off to Amsterdam, where we’re enchanted, falling completely in love with the city of canals, bikes, friendly locals, and vice…. It’s also here, thanks to an amazing ice cream place called “Australian” where we begin our habit of an ice cream per day, sometimes more, for the rest of the entire trip!

LCBoniti

Hi tara!

Sounds like this is going to be an epic - and you've made a very good beginning!

Don't scrimp on the details, please.

lpsmith

Great report tara; we'll be in London first week of September staying in Bloomsbury area like you.

lpsmith

tara- I forgot to ask- what sites did you use to get advance tickets that were good for the whole week and were you able to get discounts or 2 for 1 tickets?

mideba

Hi Tara,

Enjoying your report. Was in London late June and also enjoyed tea at the Orangery.
My trip report is moving very slowly - I have 5.5 weeks to cover.

MissPrism

Next time you are in London, nip into the first bookshop you see and get yourself an
A to Z
It is essential for finding your way around.

tara3056

lpsmith - I'll try to top the thread that mentioned the 50% off Gatwick Express deal...

And now for another obscenely long installment:

May 26: We had reservations on Easyjet, leaving London Luton at 11:15, arriving Amsterdam at 1:15. Because of Easyjet’s rules about being at the airport 2 hours before the flight leaves, we woke up at 6am, and planned to take the Easybus to Luton. The bus was leaving at 8:15. We had no problem making our way through the Tube with all of our luggage to the Baker Street station, which was the stop closest to where the Easybus was supposed to depart from. However, in typical Jeff & Tara fashion, we got a bit turned around exiting the Tube station, and headed the wrong way briefly before being able to find a street sign that let us know we were going the wrong way. We were worried we would be late for the bus, or would get turned around again, so we started seriously speed-walking to try to find the bus. We did eventually find it, just in time, but once we walked up to the bus, the driver told us not to get on, that the bus had a flat tire, and that we would have to take the green line bus to Luton instead. We hung out with all the other passengers for about 20 minutes until the green line bus eventually showed up. The easybus driver explained the situation to the green line driver and we boarded. We didn’t have to pay anything, and our easybus driver didn’t pay for our fares, either. We guessed they might have had a reciprocal agreement (or the green line would be paid later).

We made it to Luton by 9:30, and weren’t stressed because we knew we still had an hour and 45 minutes until our flight left. The check-in lines were quite long, though, so that scared us a little. We’d just barely gotten in line when an Easyjet employee came on the loudspeaker and announced that it was “last call” for the 11:15 flight to Amsterdam, and if any passengers for that flight were in the terminal, they needed to skip the line and see her immediately at one of the check-in kiosks. Thus stressed again, we made our way to the woman, who chided us mildly for being “late.” See, I had thought that the arrive-2-hours-before-departure “rule” was more of a strong suggestion, because there are no assigned seats on Easyjet, so you want to get there early because you board according to your arrival time. Apparently, it’s more than that, though nothing I saw on the easyjet website when I bought the tickets made me think that the 2 hour rule was a requirement.

The flight was uneventful, as was getting our luggage at Schiphol and finding a shuttle to take us to our hotel, the Hotel Fita. Side note: Schiphol airport has got to be one of the nicest possible airports. It’s so well laid-out, everything’s clearly marked, and we were able to leave the airport much faster than usual because the process was so painless.

About the Hotel Fita: It’s a wonderful hotel that I highly recommend! It’s located in the Museum District, and you can walk to either the Rijksmuseum or the Van Gogh Museum in less than 5 minutes. I’m sure it’s not as centrally located as some might prefer, but we had no problem walking – or bicycling – into the most central part of the city, up to Centraal, and back again. And the beautiful, peaceful, tree-covered streets with quaint canals made me appreciate that we weren’t entirely in the thick of things.

The hotel room itself was very pleasant – plenty large enough; we never felt like we were tripping over our luggage. The bathroom was *huge* and spotlessly clean. After our “pod” bathroom in London, it felt truly luxurious to have a large bathroom again. Just outside our door was a computer terminal with internet that any of the hotel’s guests could use for free, and down the hall, was the breakfast room. The breakfasts were quite nice – not as large or varied as the ones we’d had in London, but still good and much-appreciated, and the best part was the fresh-squeeze orange juice that the owner made for each guest.

All of the hotel’s workers were extremely nice and eager to help in any way they could. Upon check-in, the front desk worker showed us the room and offered her assistance with anything we needed, then left, only to return several minutes later with 2 glasses of sparkling wine and a bowl of nuts to snack on. So very nice and thoughtful. The free laundry service was another perk. We just told someone we’d love to take advantage of that offer, expecting they’d tell us where to find the washer and dryer so we could wash our clothes, but instead, they told us to leave our clothes in a bag outside our door and they would be returned to us later that day, clean. We felt a bit badly, because we had about a week’s worth of laundry that needed to be done, but it couldn’t be helped, and after all, we *had* chosen to stay there – in part – specifically because of the laundry service. Oh, and I almost forgot one of the biggest perks: free phone calls to anywhere in the world! We loved having the chance to speak with our families, to let them know everything was going okay.

So, in short: the free phone calls, free internet, and free laundry service were what made us pick Hotel Fita to begin with, but the location and friendliness of the staff, as well as the general comfort of the room/bathroom, were what pushed it onto our Extremely Highly Recommended list!

So after we’d gotten settled in at the hotel, we left to explore Amsterdam. Within an hour, we were in love. I hadn’t expected to like Amsterdam. I wanted to see it, and it had looked quaint and appealing to me in pictures, but I didn’t think I’d really fall for it. But I did, hard. After the chaos and noise and massiveness of London, Amsterdam felt like Paradise on earth. Sure there were cars, but not many, and they only had one or two lanes on even the busiest ring roads – the other “lanes” were dedicated to bicycles, and to the (electric = quiet) tram system.

The canals and their tall, leaning canalside houses, were so beautiful. It was a quiet city, with hardly any traffic noise, just bicycles whizzing by, and flowers were spilling out of all the flowerboxes. We had no real plans except to wander around. We turned a corner and came upon the Singel flower market, which was amazing. I mean, I knew the Dutch were known for their bulbs and flowers, but still… and everything was incredibly cheap, too, by US standards. I saw the most beautiful, healthy-looking phalaenopsis orchids being sold for something like 2 for 12€. A single orchid of that quality at my local florist would cost at least $50, maybe more. And the bulbs were, as could be expected, outstanding. We always buy Jeff’s Grandma an amaryllis bulb or two for Christmas, and she loves watching them grow. We thought how astounded she would be if she could see these amaryllis flowers, each one seemingly as large as my head.

Shortly after leaving the flower market, we encountered the “Australian” ice cream shop – Australian was the name of the shop, not the style of the ice cream, though it may have been that, too. Here, we had some of the best ice cream of the entire trip (only Berthillon in Paris tops it). The flavors were so intense and true-to-life, and Jeff and I immediately decided we would go back in the remaining 2 days we’d have in Amsterdam. I can particularly recommend the vanilla, pear, and passionfruit flavors, though every one we had was fantastic.

I’d wanted to at least see a bit of the Red Light District, so we headed in that direction. It’s actually smaller, and less seedy, than I thought it would be. For one, you kind of have to seek it out, because it’s not so huge and so overt that it smacks you on the head as you wander Amsterdam. Second, yes, there’s sex shops and the sort around, but there’s many “normal” restaurants and hotels and houses, too, and plenty of “normal” locals walking around too, so it didn’t feel dangerous or seedy. Of course, we were there in the very early evening, and it might take on a bit different feel late at night. The only time I felt a bit uncomfortable is when we ventured into some of the tiiiny little alleyways. Most of the windows were still closed, but we certainly saw plenty of women in various states of undress facing the windows that looked onto the alleys, which were no wider than my armspan. The discomfort I felt came mainly from being the only woman in sight walking in these alleys. Otherwise, it was all men. I didn’t feel in danger, just a bit self-conscious and conspicuous.

Our curiosity sated (well, as much as we’d wanted sated!), we left for our hotel again, to clean up a bit before dinner. I should also mention that we, of course, saw “coffeeshops” but again, it wasn’t really quite as overt as I thought it would be. Now, I’m not naïve – I know that Rastafarian colors and marijuana leaves painted onto a coffeeshop’s window tells me that they just might be serving things besides coffee, but with a lot of the establishments, you couldn’t outright tell if they were coffee houses, or “coffeehouses” unless you smelled the characteristic smoke wafting from the doorway. I knew there was a rule about how to tell, and only later remembered what it was – that café meant they served coffee, while coffeehouse meant that they served cannabis.

Dinner that evening was at Sama Sebo, a much-lauded Indonesian restaurant very close to our hotel. It was certainly a unique experience. We had their “rice table” and were amazed at the 20-odd little dishes that were laid before us. That said, I really, really didn’t care for the food at all. It was my first time having Indonesian food, and while I am normally an adventurous eater, I greatly disliked this. Oddly, my much-more-cautious-eating hubby loved it. I ate what I could, then snacked on some other things later that night. Dinner was 63€ + tip.

May 27: We had breakfast at the hotel and then set off for the Van Gogh Museum. I’d pre-printed tickets, so we were able to skip the considerable line. (Later, as we left the museum, we saw the line was double what it had been when we entered, and we would have been even more grateful for skipping-privileges.) We both love Van Gogh, having first seen an original Van Gogh at the Louvre the year prior. We’d never cared for him before, in prints, because you see certain of his works (Starry Night, Sunflowers) so often, and on paper, they look only semi-interesting. But paper doesn’t capture the magic of his work at all. In person, I find many Van Goghs to be violently beautiful, so this museum was a real treat. I will say, though, that the crowd made it a bit difficult to really be able to enjoy it. You could barely see the paintings at all because of the crowds directly in front of them, and it took some time to be able to get up front to the rope yourself – and once there, you didn’t want to give your spot up, so you kept moving along slowly with the rest of the crowded line, shuffling at a snail’s pace from one work to the next. I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been later that day, and while I’d hate to see anyone who wants to go to the Museum be turned away, it did make me appreciate places like the Anne Frank House and the Borghese that had limited, timed-entry admissions.

After Van Gogh, we went back to Australian for another ice cream, and then on to Mac Bikes to rent bicycles. We’d heard it was madness to do this in Amsterdam, that the locals were crazy on their bikes, but found this to be so completely overstated and untrue. We’ve both been on RAGBRAIs before – which is Iowa’s annual cross-state bicycle ride in which over 10,000 cyclists all pedal between 50-80 miles per day for a week, camping out each night. So after a few minutes of adjusting to the heavy bicycles (with upright handlebars, not dropped), we felt perfectly comfortable pedaling all over the place. We both felt like little kids, joyously cycling around with no particular destination in mind. We rode all over the city, being constantly impressed at how much ground you can cover with a bike, with virtually no exertion. Much better than walking! And the dedicated bicycle lanes make everything so easy – I’d be more scared to ride down some of my neighborhood’s streets here in the US than I was riding anywhere in Amsterdam.

After locking our bikes to the rack outside of the Fita, we decided to walk a bit more. I’m surprised I’m confessing to this, but um, we set off in search of a coffeeshop, and ended up at a place called Rookies. This will probably make us sound like the most uptight people ever, but it’s true – neither Jeff nor I had ever so much as smoked a cigarette, much less a joint or done any other drugs of any kind. We drink wine with our meals, and that’s about the extent of it. But we were in Amsterdam, and we had to at least buy a little somethin’-somethin’, just to say that we had. So we bought a pre-rolled joint, dropped it off to the hotel, and set off for dinner on our bikes. We didn’t know whether we’d attempt to smoke it or not, but were amused anyhow that we’d seen what a coffeehouse looked like inside, and bought something.

Dinner was at The Pancake Bakery, kind of near the Anne Frank House. We had a Caprese pancake, some sort of apple dessert pancake, and Dutch “witte” (white) beer and alcoholic cider. Overall, dinner was good. Nothing to rave about, nothing I’d seek out again if (scratch that: when) we return to Amsterdam, but it was filling and decent, and hit the spot.

May 28: We skipped breakfast at the hotel, having stayed up too late the night before, and subsequently slept in. So we headed over to the Cobra Café, behind the Rijksmuseum for some lunch. We wanted to sit outside, so we went inside and asked the bar staff if we could just sit outside or if we needed to wait to be seated or tell anyone we were there. They said just to go ahead and sit, so we did. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Invisibility Cloak back, in full force. Waitresses served people around us, but pretended we didn’t exist. When other people took empty chairs and also waited (even locals, it seemed), they too were ignored. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, and were afraid we’d missed some key rule of protocol. Generally when we’re ignored somewhere, or when anything goes wrong, we blame ourselves first, trying to understand if it’s a cultural difference we’re unaware of, or what. In this case, we couldn’t figure it out, and after 20+ minutes of waiting, we left and had an excellent fast lunch from the little tents opposite the café… a tomato and brie baguette, a Dutch waffle with powdered sugar and chocolate syrup, an espresso, and fresh-squeezed OJ.

Thus sated, we went to the Rijksmuseum, again using pre-printed tickets. We enjoyed ourselves and are glad we went. We were so impressed with the quality of light in the Dutch paintings, which we’d read about, but must be seen to be completely appreciated. Overall, though, our feeling was that a very small percentage of the entire collection was on display, yet the admission still cost as much as you’d expect for the entire Rijksmuseum admission once the renovation is complete. You could spend an entire day in the Louvre for the same price, but we spent only an hour and a half in the Rikjsmuseum and felt like we’d covered it sufficiently.

By the time we left the museum, it was raining quite hard, and we didn’t have an umbrella. The sky had looked fine when we’d left our hotel that morning, and it wasn’t a long walk back to the hotel, but we did get a bit drenched. Making things worse, we had to return our bikes by 3pm that day, which gave us only an hour to dry off and hope for the rain to break, because we knew we’d be pedaling in the rain otherwise – you can’t cycle and use an umbrella at the same time – or if you can (in Amsterdam, no less), then more power to you!

Alas, the rain didn’t let up and we once again got wet, though not outright drenched, when we returned the bikes. Luckily, the weather improved in time for our reservation at the Anne Frank Huis. Until this point, we hadn’t taken a tram because we were too intimidated by the strippenkaart system, but braved it anyway, and found it quite simple in the end. All trams pretty much go to Centraal anyhow, and we figured even if we ended up at Centraal and missed getting off at a more appropriate stop, we were still closer to the Anne Frank house than we would have been setting off from our hotel.

We made it to the Anne Frank house, to be greeted by a line that wrapped around the building. I’d again pre-printed tickets, knowing that this would let us skip it, but as we stood there assessing the situation, we didn’t see a way to skip the line. There was no way to really shove everyone aside, and no specific line with a sign for pre-purchased tickets. We walked around a bit more and then saw a small sign on the building, that said persons with reservations could ring a doorbell to be buzzed in a small side door. We did that, were buzzed in, and allowed to begin our tour immediately. You should have seen the quizzical, dirty looks we got though, as we were allowed inside right away.

The Anne Frank house was very moving, and very sad too, but in ways I can't do justice to in writing this. The experience stayed with me long after the visit was finished. I had read her Diary when I was maybe 10 and I think hadn’t been mature enough then to fully understand and appreciate it. Jeff had never read her Diary – he just knew she was a young girl who hid there with her family from the Nazis, but was eventually discovered. So we bought a copy of the diary in the museum’s gift shop. I would later read it in Rome, and Jeff read it on the flight home. We both agreed that we would have had an even more meaningful experience at the museum if the diary had been fresh in our minds. I’d intended to read it before we left for Europe, but became too bogged down in everything else, as we prepared to be away from home for a month.

Back at the hotel, we used the Fita’s phone to reserve restaurants for our stay in Paris, and to call our parents. It was my first time speaking French on the trip, and I was nervous and self-conscious, but managed okay in the end. Dinner that night was at a little Italian restaurant called Sette Bello, and it was quite good, and quite cheap. We paid 39€ for bruschetta, a margherita pizza, a penne w/ 4 cheeses dish, a half-bottle of red wine, one dessert, and one coffee. The waiters were classically Italian, warm, convivial, heavily-accented. The best part, for us, was when the owner’s cat decided to pay us a visit. Apparently the cat lives with the owner in the apartment upstairs, which is connected to the restaurant via a small spiral staircase. As it got later in the evening and the restaurant started emptying, I suppose he felt it would be okay to let the cat out, so the cat went around the restaurant, happily checking on things and watching the aquarium with great interest. It even let us pet him and purred loudly for our efforts. I know some people may not like cats, and might be turned off at the idea of a cat in a restaurant, but we have our own little kitties that we’d been sad to leave at home for a month, and so we greatly enjoyed being able to pet this cat.

Walking hand-in-hand back from dinner, we both agreed that Amsterdam was a fantastic place, a place we’d surely return to, even though we’re unable to say what exactly we’ll *do* when we come back. It doesn’t have that many sights/museums to see, and we went to the ones we wanted to. Amsterdam is just a nice place to be. A place to wander around, just enjoying being alive. I should add, too, that we felt so welcome in Amsterdam. The locals were so warm, and so friendly, and it seemed to us that they didn’t mind their tourists at all, unlike in some other places we went to (even places that I loved).

And, well, as for that little coffeehouse purchase we’d made the day prior, we debated over what to do with it. We were leaving the next day and couldn’t very well take it to France with us! And we were both oh-so-very curious but also scared to try it, having been warned at the strength of Dutch, um.. coffee. Yeah. So, in a scenario that makes me laugh each time I recall it, Jeff and I sat in a little park right next to our hotel, feeling like 2 very bad teenagers, and lit it, each taking a few little drags off of it, but not really inhaling. When we tried inhaling, we both sputtered and struggled not to cough. It was vile, and the taste it left in our mouths was so much stronger than we expected – even brushing our teeth didn’t completely eradicate it. So we put it out and threw it in a trash can, having somewhat satisfied our curiosity although we felt absolutely no effects from it whatsoever. And although we’re quite liberal and adventurous in other ways, we were quite content to be prudes in that respect.

Next: On to Amboise in the Loire Valley, where things start to unravel a little…

tara3056

lpsmith: I believe the Gatwick Express 2-for-1 is no longer valid, but I know I booked the Tower of London and St. Paul's ahead of time, using their own websites. Most of the other major museums (British Museum, British Library, Tate, Tate Modern, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, etc.) are all free.

marigross

looking forward to the Italian part...

plafield

Great report so far! Looking forward to Paris, Rome and Venice!

LCBoniti

Excellent writing style! Looking forward to Paris . . .

highflyer

So how come you thought the 2 hour 'rule' wasn't a requirement? In my book a 'rule' isn't exactly a suggestion!
When travelling internationally you're required to be at the airport 2 hours before your flight.
I did read on Fodors about an American who thought the countries in Europe were too small to justify the term 'international' when flying between them....

LVSue

Tara, I am so enjoying this! I can just picture everything you did. Our first trip to London we stayed at a hotel near Arran with baths down the hall. I, too, wasn't fond of North Sea Fish, and the whole time I was reading about your dinner debacles, I was wishing I could have told you about Denise's--and there it was!

I thought your "coffee" experiment was a hoot, but I never would have even had the nerve to buy it in the first place, so kudos to you!

Can't wait for Paris!

mvor

Enjoying your report about some of my favourite cities, thanks for sharing.

Your comment about the Tate Modern provoking the question, "Why is this art?" is, in my view, a compliment to the musem and to you.

Looking forward to more...

Shadow

Tara...I am SO enjoying your wonderful trip report!! What a great writer you are...and, for your ages, I think you both are very mature. I don't know how you can remember all that you did in the right order!! Just fantastic...can't wait for more!!

I do have two questions: You enjoyed the Orangery...was the food buffet style? Were the sandwhices fresh and desserts fresh as well? I'll be going next month....
And, are the Magna Carte and the Guttenberg bible at the British Library or the British Museum?

Thanks for a great read!!
Shadow

tara3056

highflyer: It wasn't a rule, per se - that's why I put "rule" in my trip report, to designate that at no point were we told that it was a RULE to be there two hours prior to our flight. Even in the US, there is NO rule about arriving at the airport 2 hours in advance; it's just a recommendation so that you have enough time to get through security, etc. Northwest, for example, says that you should plan on arriving 2 hours before your flight, but technically the rule is this: "Passengers must be checked in at least 60 minutes and on-board at least 30 minutes before scheduled departure time for flights to/from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and all other International flights." (Found here: http://www.nwa.com/features/update_airport.shtml)

And as for Easyjet, they say: "Check-in desks close exactly 40 minutes prior to the scheduled departure time of the flight. We recommend you check in at least two hours before the scheduled departure time. All passengers to provide a valid form of photographic ID at check-in on all flights, including domestic services. After check-in, go straight to security. The boarding gate closes 25 minutes prior to the scheduled time of departure." (Found here: http://easyjet.com/EN/Flying/index.html)

So what part of that, exactly, would make one think it was a rule rather than a suggestion?? I feel like you were unnecessarily rude, without even knowing for sure what you were talking about.

-----------

To everyone else who's replied, thanks for reading and for the compliments!

Shadow: I'm certainly not able to remember all of this on my own!! I brought a small notebook with me, and took a few minutes at the end of every day to journal about where we'd gone and where we'd dined. I knew my trip report, when I finally got around to writing it, would be really long, but at the same time wanted to include plenty of info about the hotels in particular and restaurants to a lesser extent. When I was researching hotels/restaurants before the trip, I always searched the forums here for mentions of them and enjoyed reading about other people's experiences, so I wanted to make sure I could contribute some details, too.

As for the Orangery - yes, the sandwiches were made fresh. Jeff had the champagne tea and I had one that was slightly cheaper, so we each had different items and could share them all. For instance, my tea came with cucumber and cream cheese finger sandwiches, while his came with smoked salmon sandwiches (I liked his better). Then I was given a scone with jam, while he had one with clotted cream and fresh berries. My dessert (as if we needed one after the scone!) was some sort of orange cake and his was a flourless chocolate torte.

The desserts were laid out on a table when you entered, so you could browse (they were sold individually as well as in the tea selections), but nothing was served buffet-style.

The Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible, and all the other treasures I mentioned are in a special room at the British Library (not Museum).

tara3056

From Amsterdam to Amboise:

May 29: We left the Hotel Fita at 8:15 for an 8:56 train from Centraal. We were going to leave earlier than that, but the hotel’s owner assured us we would have plenty of time to get to Centraal and catch our train. We started to get a bit stressed as we waited for the tram, thinking it was a mistake to leave so late, but in the end, the owner was right, and we arrived at Centraal before our train even arrived, about 10 or 15 minutes before departure.

We took the Thalys from Amsterdam to Paris. I’d lucked out when I booked the tickets and managed to get a special deal on 2 First Class tickets for only 150€ - the same price or less than 2 second-class seats would usually cost. We really enjoyed the Thalys, and being in first class was especially nice. I’m not sure it would have been worth paying more to be in first, but since we were, we enjoyed the benefits of more leg room, a surprisingly yummy meal served to us at our seats, and plenty of luggage room. We’d never been on a TGV/bullet train before and it was pretty thrilling to watch the beautiful scenery go by at nearly 200 mph. We went fairly slowly until we got to the French border, though. (Apparently the tracks in Amsterdam and Belgium aren’t made for such high-speed travel?) As we watched pretty little villages whirring by, we both thought that it would be nice some other time to rent a car and explore this part of France, and Normandy too.

Once in Paris, we needed to transfer from Paris Nord to the Montparnasse station. We could either take the metro, or use a cab. We opted for the cab. For one, we didn’t want to deal with our luggage on the metro, and we also thought it might be nice to see Paris if only for a brief time through a taxi’s windows. We thought it might make us even more excited to come back to Paris in 4 days’ time, and we were right. Our cab driver was typically Parisian, weaving in and out of his lane, dodging pedestrians by what seemed like a relatively small margin, etc. We didn’t mind though – we thought it thrilling, and most taxi drivers are actually very good drivers; they just seem reckless. Besides, he wasn’t going any faster than 35mph most of the time, so we felt like even if we got into an accident, it probably wouldn’t be fatal. So we grinned and enjoyed the ride.

We had 45 minutes or so at Montparnasse, so we just sat around and read for awhile, then boarded our train to St. Pierre des Corps, a station just outside Tours. We’d picked this station rather than one directly in a city because we could rent the car directly from that station and hopefully be on our way to Amboise without having to content with tons of traffic.

The train to St. Pierre des Corps was a little uncomfortable at times, though. When we boarded, we were pretty sure we were on the right car, but there was a lady already sitting in one of our seats. So we took two seats in front of her. After a few minutes, though, a couple boarded who were ticketed for the seats we were in, so we moved and had to tell the woman that we thought she was in our seats. She didn’t speak any English, but we managed fine, and she moved without a problem. So we settled in for awhile, but then another woman approached us and said we were in *her* seats – again, she knew no English, so I was struggling to figure out what she was saying. I’d felt fairly confident that we were in the right place, but obviously this confused me and I thought I’d probably made a mistake. After a couple minutes, she left, choosing to sit in some other unoccupied seat.

I was still confused, though, and a nice elderly Frenchwoman sitting behind us stood up and started speaking to me in French, trying to explain the situation, but I could only pick up bits and pieces. It appeared she was trying to reassure me that we were in the right place after all, but eventually she pointed out the conductor standing in the car in front of us, and told me to talk to him. So I walked up and greeted him, pointed, and stated rather idiotically “Cette voiture est numero dix-huit?” - Oui - “Et les places soixante-six and soixante-sept est la?” (I pointed again.) Oui. I felt like an idiot, but also felt better knowing that we were in the right place. It seemed to me on this trip and on others we took in France and Italy, that no one was super-concerned with the assigned seating. I saw many people just take an empty spot, but we’d wanted to double-check anyway because, by this time, the train was quite full, and if we’d been asked to move again, I’m not sure where we would have moved to. We finally settled in for the hour-long trip, thanking the woman behind us for her assistance, and apologizing for only knowing a small bit of French.

We arrived at St. Pierre des Corps and made our way to the Europcar desk. We’d reserved a car through Auto Europe and were expecting to get a non-diesel economy car with a/c. The woman working at the desk was very nice though, and I think she appreciated my attempts to be polite and speak French, and she upgraded us to a brand-new Volkswagen Touareg, a sort of small SUV. It was diesel, with a/c, and had plenty of room for our luggage. It was determined that I’d be doing the driving, even though Jeff usually drives while I navigate, because the car was a stickshift, and Jeff doesn’t do well with stick.

So we set of for Amboise, using our Michelin roadmap, and made it to Amboise, and through it’s narrow, winding streets, to our hotel with no problem. We were staying at Le Clos d’Amboise, a beautiful cheateau-hotel built in the 16th century (http://www.leclosamboise.com/UK.asp). It was close to the center of town (within easy walking distance), but felt pretty secluded, thanks to the large, beautiful grounds. The old horse stables had been converted into more rooms, the grounds were beautifully landscaped with heady-smelling roses everywhere, and there was a pool in the rear of the property, though it was too cool still in May to be usable.

Our room was a double comfort w/ shower for 98€ per night. It was a gorgeous, *huge* room, with a sparkling, modern bathroom, a cute sitting area with desk, a large comfy bed, and a massive (obsolete) fireplace. Of all the hotels we stayed in during our trip, this was by far our nicest room – and the cheapest, too! I’d highly recommend it, with only one small quibble – when checking in, we were informed of the breakfast times in the morning, but weren’t told that they weren’t included with the room rate. We ate breakfast at the hotel only one morning, but we weren’t expecting to be charged for it until we noticed the breakfast charge listed on a plaque in the room along with the room rates. Breakfast was 10€ each. No big deal, and the onus was on us anyhow to know whether breakfast was included since we’d seen the website, but still, it would have been nice if they’d told us anyway.

After settling into our room, we took off in search of dinner. We had changed into some nicer clothes and were so looking forward to our first French meal of the trip. We adore French food. But as we walked down the main streets of Amboise, we were completely puzzled. It was a ghost town, at 8pm. Every shop was closed (to be expected), and almost every restaurant was too (not expected). We had always eaten late in Paris, on our last trip, at 9 or 9:30, but we wondered if the custom were different in Amboise. Were we trying to eat too late? Was something else going on? We were starving, and starting to get worried, as it looked like we wouldn’t be able to find any dinner, when finally, we turned a corner and saw an open restaurant with lots of people eating outside on the sidewalk. There was only one other restaurant open on the street, with only a few people eating there, so we decided to go with the busier place. We didn’t have many options, and besides, if that many people were eating there, it couldn’t be bad, right?

Ha! This was perhaps the worst meal of our trip. The restaurant was Anne of Bretagne, and the food was awful. I had onion soup, coq au vin, and fondant au chocolat. The onion soup tasted like water; the coq au vin was overcooked and tasteless, and the fondant au chocolat was a very weird texture, and tasted like some school cafeteria dessert. Jeff was equally unsatisfied with his food, though I didn’t write down what he had. We quickly discovered that the reason the restaurant was busy was that it was filled with tourists – every single table seemed to be speaking English. The waiters even seemed to be in on the joke. When our server brought our bill, he asked us if the food were good. Out of politeness, we kind of said “sure” but didn’t rave about it or anything. Then he asked us if it were the best food we’d ever eaten with a smirky little grin on his face. Jeff’s expression and tone of voice said much more than his simple “Um, I wouldn’t go that far” reply. As we’d eaten dinner, we’d been subjected to overhearing the conversation from an Ugly American couple sitting next to us. They were older, and while I can’t recall exactly what they said, they bothered us with their sweeping (negative) generalizations about the French. Worse, they were actually satisfied with their food, even though they had the same things as us. (Of course, they later mentioned how they couldn’t wait to get back to the US and have familiar food like McDonalds again, sooooo…) Anyhow, the bill came to a disgruntling €65, and we walked back to the hotel feeling pretty dejected. What was going on in Amboise?

Back at the hotel, as I was brushing my teeth, I accidentally broke one of the hotel’s pretty water glasses. They were glass tumblers with little swirl patterns, and one tumbled off the narrow little shelf above the sink as I reached for the toothpaste cap. Zut alors! I cleaned up the broken glass, put it in the trashcan, and went to bed, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

May 30: We ate breakfast at the hotel, which was decent enough but far too heavy on carbs – I love carbs, but when you’re paying 10€, you hope for a bit more than bread, bread, more bread, croissants, and yogurt. We were also slightly uncomfortable with the American bashing that took place between the other two couples in the dining room that were eating at the same time. One was Australian, and they asked the other if they were American. The other couple replied, “Oh, no, we’re Canadian – you don’t have to worry about us!” and then proceeded to speak rudely about Americans/the war in Iraq/etc. Jeff and I were puzzled. I mean, we’re liberal democrats and dislike W. as much as anyone, but still didn’t appreciate the bashing right in front of us. And then we realized why they didn’t think to ask us where we were from – they must have assumed we were French? When we’d come in, we’d greeted the maid/server in French, and when she asked us what room we were staying in (in French), I’d replied in French. I’d never ever imagine that we could be mistaken for French, but we’d spoken to each other so quietly during breakfast, we were sure they couldn’t hear us speaking English, and I was wearing a scarf tied in an ornate little knot around my neck… Or, of course, they just might not have cared if we were Americans or not. (Side note: we passed them on the grounds of the hotel several times over the next few days. The first couple of times, I smirked inwardly and said “Bonjour” to them in passing… at check-out, they were standing nearby as I spoke English to the front desk lady, who asked where we were from, and I replied “the United States” loud enough for them to hear. They blushed and turned away.)

After breakfast, we set off for Chenonceau. We found it easily, and I looooved driving my VW, whipping through round-abouts and enjoying the scenery. The chateau was beautiful, and the grounds were amazing. It’d sprinked on us a bit, but cleared up by the time we finished touring the inside of the castle. The wet air, the sounds of thunder in the distance, and the cloudiness, only made the chateau and grounds more atmospheric. We really, really enjoyed ourselves. We did, however, run into the Ugly American couple from dinner the night before. We spoke briefly and went our separate ways.

We were starving and decided to drive to Chinon for a late lunch. Chinon ended up being a bit farther away than we thought it was, but we still arrived in time for lunch, or so we thought. Chinon was a ghost town again. Hardly anything open. We managed to get 2 espressos from a little café, but they weren’t serving food, and the caffeine kept us going until we finally found a grocery store to buy some snacks. We’d been looking forward to a nice lunch, and instead, sat in our VW eating Pringles chips, a couple of pastries, and drinking cans of juice. Afterwards, we walked around Chinon a bit more. I’d been so excited to see it, having heard about its medieval streets and buildings, and knowing its history with Jeanne d’Arc, etc., but it was hard for us to be terribly excited about it when we were the only people around. Finally, it began to rain on us again, and we walked beneath our umbrella back to the car, to go back to Amboise. We’d wanted to make sure we got to Amboise early enough tonight to be able to eat someplace better than the disastrous Anne de Bretagne.

Alas, we got a bit lost on the way back to Amboise from Chinon. We ended up going through St. Pierre des Corps again and I felt confident once we reached there that I could get us back to Amboise, since we’d just made that trip the day before. At one point, though, I ended up on an extremely narrow dead-end street. I had to pull into someone’s driveway and back out to turn around. In doing so, I kind of “tapped” another car that was parked on the street. Now, I’m normally a very safe driver – no accidents, no speeding tickets, but I am notoriously bad at reversing, especially in a large-ish car I had not yet learned to judge. We got out of the car to check on the other car, but luckily, we hadn’t left a single scratch. Thank God for bumpers! I would have tried to find the owner or left a note if we had damaged it, obviously, but we made 100% sure it was okay so, shaken but relieved, we took off for Amboise.

Back at the hotel, we asked the nice man at the front desk if he could recommend a restaurant for us that night. He spoke such little English that it was difficult to communicate, but with his bit of English, my bit of French, and a lot of hand-gestures, we managed fine. He called several restaurants for us. Closed, closed, closed, full, etc. We tried to ask why everything was closed, but he couldn’t tell us. I’d researched French holidays in May, and hadn’t seen any for those particular days… Finally, he offered to try to get us in at the Chateau de Pray, but he warned us it was a “gastronomique” and quite expensive. At this point, we would have killed for some good food and didn’t care how pricey it was. Luckily, the manager at the Chateau de Pray agreed to make room for us, but only if we could get there FAST. We ran to our room – I’ve never changed into a dress faster! We were out the door 5 minutes later. When we got to our car in the parking lot a block away from the hotel, though, I had to actually get out of the car and have Jeff reverse it for me. I’d nearly hit another car, because it was such a tight parking lot, and I was too shaken from my experience earlier that day. Jeff made fun of me a bit, but I wasn’t taking any risks.

We drove to the Chateau de Pray, just outside Amboise, and were briefly panicked when the maitre’d told us he did not have our names. We explained that our hotel had just called, and he asked around, to one server after another, trying to determine if they’d spoken with our hotel. Finally, he found the person our guy had spoken to, and we were seated. Whew! We then proceeded to have one of the most memorable, delicious, yet uncomfortable meals of our lives. We’ve eaten in some *very* nice places before, but this was a bit stiffer than most places we’ve been. Service was impeccable, but also a bit uncomfortable. The room was extremely quiet, and I felt self-conscious, watching my posture, hoping my table manners were acceptable (trying to remember not to keep my hands in my lap, which isn’t proper in France). We also had a bit of a snafu trying to figure out which utensil to use for one of the courses. It looked like a cross between a spoon/knife/and spatula, and we weren’t sure if that was the right one to use for the course we were working on, so we avoided it, only to have the waiter remove it with our dishes – thus telling us, too late, that it had been the right one and we’d made a mistake in not using it. We already felt like the odd people in the room anyhow, having been squeezed in without a reservation, and the formality of the service just added to that. I should mention that we were dressed appropriately, though. It wasn’t a jacket-and-tie kind of place.

As for the food… Oh. My. With one or two exceptions, it was exceptional. We had the 57€ prix fixe, along with a half bottle of brut rose champagne for 39€. The amuse-bouche was an asparagus foam with salmon crème infusion. Incredible. Jeff and I both tasted it, and just looked at each other silently, wide-eyed. The theme of that night was “I don’t care for this… usually.” Meaning that, in the right hands, we probably would have loved any sort of food served to us, even things we usually didn’t much like. The second course was langoustine and raw scallops on a small bed of greens. The langoustine was jaw-droppingly good. I could have eaten that for my entire meal, and this is a non-seafood-lover talking. I like seafood more than Jeff does, and even he loved his langoustine. The third course was sea bass with asparagus – again, amazing. The fourth was a palate-cleansing rose champagne sorbet with a couple of griotte cherries. The fifth was lamb. And this is where everything went downhill.

The lamb was almost impossible to eat. It was so fatty, and so tough, and so hard to cut with the ineffectual knife they’d given us, but we didn’t want to be rude or appear uncultured, so we choked down as much as we could. In retrospect, we really should have sent it back, or just not eaten it, because it was truly that bad, but we were too uncomfortable to do that. I literally had to use water to help me swallow pieces that were unchewable. We left quite a bit on our plate, but made enough of a dent to be polite. Next came the cheese course. The waiter came around with a huge cheese board, picked 3-4 selections based upon what we said we liked, and handed them to us. I’d told the waiter I didn’t care for goat cheese, but 2 of the 4 cheeses he gave me were goat cheeses. As he prepared to walk away, he told me that I should try it, that maybe I just hadn’t tried good goat cheese. I’m game to try anything once, so I gave it a shot, but couldn’t handle it. I really, truly just don’t like goat cheese of any kind. So the cheese plates were a bit of a bust. (During the French portion of our trip, we found we liked strong blue cheeses, like Roquefort, some hard cheeses, and we could only tolerate the runny/semi-soft ones, like Brie, for example, if they were mild. We never did find a French Brie that was mild enough for us to love.) The final course was dessert, and this was just okay. It was some sort of coffee-vanilla mousse cake that was very large and also too rich after such a meal as we’d had, along with a scoop of dark chocolate ice cream, and this was really quite good, but again, seemed a bit rich given the circumstances. The bill came to €159, without tip. On one hand, we were so grateful that we’d been able to eat there, and we felt like the good courses made up for the bad ones such that the meal as a whole had been worth every penny, but we also wished that the last 3 courses could have measured up to the first 4.

It’s a beautiful restaurant, though, and the chateau itself was very charming. It, too, is a chateau-cum-hotel, and we would have loved to have stayed there (though I’m guessing it would have been quite a bit more € than Le Clos d’Amboise!).

Back at our hotel, we noticed that housekeeping had removed not only the one broken glass in the trashcan, but all of the other glasses too, and replaced them with plastic-wrapped plastic cups. Hmm. I mean, I understood that I’d broken a glass, and while it was a pretty glass, it clearly wasn’t anything expensive, so it was a *tiny* bit offputting that I now couldn’t be trusted with ANY glass. But oh well.

The next day, we set off for Chambord. Just as we were pulling in the parking lot, it began to downpour on us again. So we pulled out our umbrella, and toured the inside of the castle. It really is quite empty inside, and what few furnishings there are are not original to the chateau, so it was a little disappointing in that respect. Overall, we weren’t wowed by it. We had some bad crepes from the vendors just outside the chateau, and headed back to Amboise to pack, spend some time at the internet café we’d seen on the way out of town that morning, and get ready for dinner. We’d made reservations that morning to eat at L’Epicerie, which was finally open after being closed the 2 days prior. A different man was working at the front desk on this night, and he spoke English well enough to tell us that everything had been closed because of a bank holiday, but now it would be back open. I had specifically looked in my guidebooks when planning the trip to make sure we wouldn’t be in the Loire during a holiday, and hadn’t found anything, but apparently, I hadn’t been thorough enough. Sure enough, Amboise was much busier that night, and all the restaurants were open, and the French people were eating late, as per usual. It saddened us a bit, that we probably would have enjoyed our time in the Loire Valley a lot more if it hadn’t been so dead, but we were also happy just to finally know why things had been that way. The food had been so terrible because most of the places that had stayed open were ones that catered to tourists, that had no real incentive to serve great food to people just passing through.

Our meal at L’Epicerie was great, and we can highly recommend this restaurant. The servers were very warm and welcoming, and the food was good and reasonably priced. Funnily enough, we *again* ran into the same Ugly American couple here.. they joked with us about it, asking where we’d be the next day. Anyhow, I had onion soup (delicious if a bit sweet), veal in a Fourme d’Ambert crème sauce (YUM), and a shortbread cookie with apple and rhubarb compote. Jeff had: leek-celery cream soup, confit de canard with potatoes fried in duck fat (mmmmm), and 3 sorbets to finish. Cheese was also included in the price of the prix-fixe, and we had a much better experience here, with a woman who more thoughtfully selected some cheeses from the board for us, than we’d had at the Chateau de Pray. Finally, we’d also shared a great St. Emillion wine for 25€. The total, without tip, was 69€.

Having had a delicious, comfortable (not stuffy in the least) French dinner, that ended at a proper 11pm (we love the European habit of late dinners), we felt much more like we were truly in France, and all was right with the world. We were happy to end our Loire segment on a high note. We know we could have fit a lot more into our few days in the Loire, running from one chateau to the next, but we really didn’t want to. We enjoyed just driving and walking around, and we weren’t keen on trying to fit in as many sights as possible.

Overall, we didn’t enjoy this segment of our trip very much, but I know this is probably in part due to the bank holiday, to the rain, and to the bad food. It’s also, however, because it felt a bit too-touristy for my liking. When we were out and about, it was English, English everywhere , and bilingual menus too. We did, however, love the freedom of a rental car and probably would rent one again, only this time, we’d explore Alsace or the Dordogne.

Next: On to magnificent Paris, where we spend a magical week gaping at its beauty, enjoy mostly fantastic food and wine, become addicted to BERTHILLON, stay in an incredible apartment, and deal with family drama.

yk

Enjoyed very much your detailed report on Amboise. We will be heading there this October and will be staying at Le Clos d’Amboise also (but the cheaper rooms).

If I understand correctly, it's not too far to walk into the town from the hotel, right? I'd prefer not have to drive into the town for dinner at night.

tara3056

yk: We found it easy to walk from the hotel to most of Amboise, though if you wanted to walk all the way down to the riverfront/bridge area, it's a bit of a hike. Honestly, it all depends on how much walking you consider to be easy/difficult. By the time we got to Amboise, we were accustomed to walking a lot and had no problem walking all over, down to the riverfront and back. That said, I can't imagine that you'd have a difficult time walking to and from dinner each night, so long as you picked a centrally-located restaurant.

tara3056

Oh, and I wanted to mention that we'd originally wanted a cheaper room at Clos d'Amboise, but they didn't have any available for our dates. We saw some of them, though, when the maids were cleaning and had the doors propped open - very nice! I think you'll be very pleased, especially for the price!