hi fellow travellers,

i now have a plane ticket and itinerary for my oft postponed 23 days in Europe. i'll list my itinerary and ask first for hotel accommodations. i can spend between euro 75 -150/night (inclusive). i need a quiet room with private bathroom and access to public transit. as an architect i wouldn't say no to some style or design and history but most of my time will be spent out and about enjoying city street life. i am travelling by myself and this is the norm for me. i've also spent multiple trips crisscrossing the continent. i speak reasonable italian, spanish and minimal french beyond my english ability

i will list by nights (of accommodations needed)

sept 3 YYJ-YVR-AMS
sept 4&5 Amsterdam ( i'm there to see the onview conservation of Rembrandt's "The Night Watch"!)
sept 6,7, 8 and 9 Hamburg ( my first visit)
sept 10,11,12 and 13 Berlin (second visit)
sept 14,15 and 16 Frankfurt (first visit)
sept 17,18,19 and 20 Turin ( first visit)
sept 21 and 22 Bergamo ( first visit)
sept 23,24 and 25 Milan ( third visit)
sept 26 MXP-AMS-YVR-YYJ

Thanks for any suggestions

any sights to see that you enjoy especially in the cities i've not been before are also welcomed

i will travel by train between all locations except frankfort-turin

cheers
AndrewDavid (Victoria, BC, Canada)

Frankfurt is a good hub for nearby destinations so a few days is a good idea to see the whole area. What are your interests? Are you a museum goer? A shopper? A pub visitor? Do you crave pre-war architecture or do you like modern vistas? September is a very nice time of year to be there, the weather is mild and the days can be beautiful.

Lavandula

booking.com (or similar)


Amsterdam is crazy expensive, nowadays.

dear lavandula, i don't think of frankfort for pre war architecture. i do know there is an interesting line up of museums in buildings of various interesting styles. if foul weather i'm more museum than pub crawl.
i wonder if it is possible to get out on the rivers for a day . i believe countryside and riverside architecture of historic nature are well viewed from the water. any suggestions?

also any suggestions for a hotel?
thanks
AndrewDavid

menachem, ah yes i've been to amsterdam a few times and in the past had friends to stay with. this is just a quicker visit to see the conservation of the nightwatch and to recover a bit from jetlag, although i hope to sleep on my long night flight YVR-AMS.
i did get on booking.com last night and took a room at the savoy hotel. do you know it?

thanks
AndrewDavid

Hi AndrewDavid, yes, you should take a cruise on the Rhine. You could do this from Mainz or Bingen or Rüdesheim depending on the side of the river you want to leave from. I would take the cruise no further than Koblenz. You would catch a train to those destinations from Frankfurt. The Main is not a pretty river, hence the travel on the Rhine. Yes, there are little pockets of old architecture still about (old Sachsenhausen, the old town in Frankfurt-Höchst, the reconstructed Römerberg) but Frankfurt isn't really a place for old architecture any more.

In Frankfurt you should visit the Museum riverbank. It is on the southern bank of the Rhine and easy to walk to from the main tourist areas. There is a whole row of interesting, world class museums there. I haven't been for a long time but I enjoyed the museum of communication and the Städel (art museum), but you should probably also visit the architecture museum with your interests.

I'm not really the right person to recommend a hotel in general for Frankfurt as I used to live in Wiesbaden and nowadays either stay there or Mainz (also good recommendations) but I like the Adina chain from stays in other places, they do serviced apartments very well. Also a tip about the area near the railway station - it used to be a no-go zone but has cleaned up significantly in the last few years so don't be worried about staying nearby.

Lavandula

I know the location very well (Cornelis Troostplein) Easy transport to the centre of Amsterdam as well, because of the new metro extension, which has a stop at Ferdinand Bol/Ceintuurbaan. The area where you're staying is the scene of one of most famous Dutch novels ever, Gerard Reve's "De Avonden". Frits Egters, its anti-hero lived just around the corner.

https://www.themodernnovel.org/europ.../reve/avonden/

The bit of biography in that link is the author repeating Reve's mystifications.

Sarphatipark is on your doorstep.

hi menachem, thanks for the positive location endorsement. i opened the link to Avonden and have just placed a hold on the book on the Greater Victoria Public Library (GVPL) website so should be able to dip into it before i arrive
cheers
AndrewDavid

ps has there been much information out about the conservation of "The Night Watch"?. have you seen it? i believe the project began quite recently

Yes, the project just began. But there isn't a lot about it in the press, though there was decent coverage at the start of it. Haven't seen it yet, but will go in a couple of months when the work is a bit further along.

That hotel used to be a police station, and I've been in it once, after a demo, haha.

The Fourth Man, by Paul Verhoeven is an adaptation of another Gerard Reve novel. I wonder what you'll make of De Avonden. Its writing sucks you deep into a particular kind of Dutch ennui.

hi menachem
de Avonden is a slow read but once one immerses oneself it's quite interesting. unfortunately i won't finish until it needs to be returned to the library ;-(
cheers
Andrewdavid