We just returned from a glorious two week visit to London, Paris, Florence and Rome. Four of us traveling together. My first time. I planned the trip using this message board, assorted guide books and various websites. I booked our plane travel, train travel, hotels and museums in Florence via the internet. I think I learned a few things I can share with others who are planning their first trip. Realize that all these things are subjective and others may contradict me and that's fine. Everybody is different. Here goes:<BR>THE JEAN THING: Jeans seemed pretty common in London and Paris. Less so in Italy, but casual pants were common. I only saw shorts on tourists, but hey if you're a tourist what's wrong with that? My advice is wear what you are comfortable in, but dress with respect for where you are visiting. If I had this trip to do over again, I would pack one pair of dress black pants, one pair of khakis, one pair of blue jeans and one pair of black jeans. But that's me. We had to pack for two climates, cool and warm, so we took a little more clothing than we otherwise might have.<BR>THINGS I'M GLAD I TOOK: I packed my Swiss Army knife and wine bottle opener in my suitcase which proved to be quite handy during picnics on the overnight train and in our hotel room. In Paris we bought really good cheese from a stinky cheese shop, bread from the bakery guy and wine from the wine shop and ate it on the overnight train to Florence. We also bought pastries from the bakery guy. The French know how to do pastries. It went really well with the Eurostar coffee (espresso) served by the really nice lady in charge of our car. In Rome we bought wine, cheese, sliced bread, and assorted olives from a small grocery store before we boarded the train from Rome to Paris. The olives were a good call on our part. There were spicy green ones. Yummy. The guy in charge of our car, Alessandro, turned up his nose at our Montepulciano (sp?) wine, but brought us seconds of his sparkling Italian white wine. It was really good and started with a "P" which is all I can tell you. So you can see we needed the knife to slice the cheese and the bottle opener to open the wine.<BR>The other thing I was really glad we brought was several packs of those antibacterial handiwipes that come in little flat packages. This is not because I think Europe is dirty or whatever. It is because they are incredibly convenient when you don't have the opportunity to wash your hands. I also had a little travel roll of toilet paper which I only had to use once in a bathroom at the Ufizzi.<BR>SECURITY STUFF: We used leg wallet type "money belts" instead of around the waist or around the neck ones. They are a little awkward if you are wearing pants with narrow legs and they are a little awkward to get into when you want a credit card, but overall they were a good idea. I also bought a small men's travel blazer in black from LL Bean or somebody. It was a life saver. The interior pockets are zippered and one is long enough to carry all your travel documents. I wore the jacket anytime we were traveling on a plane or train because I could put our tickets, reservations and rail passes in the long interior pocket. We also bought little Master Lock travel locks for our suitcases. The ones that come with the suitcase are generally crap. The Master Locks survived the plane ride, multiple taxis and the trains.<BR>I had a great time and can't wait to go back. We did the sort of "overview" trip, with 3 days in London, 4 days in Paris, 3 days in Florence and 4 days in Rome. Some people think this is a good idea, some don't. I enjoyed it although it was a tough travel schedule. In the future, we will focus on areas for a week or two at a time.<BR>This was just the first installment. More later. I hope someone finds this helpful. Thanks.

was it Prosecco? <BR><BR>glad you had a great time. I have many fond memories of sharing picnics, wine, you stories... on trains.

Hi Belinda,<BR><BR>Thanks for sharing your “first time" with us. It brought back memories of my first trip to Europe although I went without your organization. I also always travel with my Swiss Army knife and corkscrew. The Swiss Army knife was an absolute necessity the night my mother and I were locked in our hotel room in Plockton due to a faulty mechanism. I just unscrewed the entire door handle and we got out!<BR><BR>Wishing you many years of happy travels.<BR><BR>Adrienne<BR>

Great ideas and suggestions re money belt and long, inside pockets. Am going to the U.K. next week and although it is far from my first time, found your ideas really helpful.<BR>Will go and sew a pocket into my vest right now!<BR>Looking forward to the next part of your report.

If not Prosecco, perhaps Pignoletto?<BR><BR>Thanks for the tip on the LL Bean jacket. Sounds handy.

Thanks for the kind encouragement.<BR>MONEY STUFF: I tend to be a little paranoid about preparation and this trip was definitely not an exception. I called my credit card companies to let them know I would be using my card overseas. This was a good idea. For the trip I carried a VISA, a MasterCard and an American Express. (Did I mention I tend to overdo things?) I tried to change my ATM pin from 6 digits to 4 digits, but my bank doesn't issue 4 digit pin numbers. I was able to use my card with the 6 digits as long as the ATM machine bore the same ATM network symbols as my card, ie Pulse, etc. I took $200 in British Pounds and $500 in Euro with me in cash, just in case. Also carried American dollars to pay the cab fare home, etc.<BR>PROBLEMS AT THE TRAIN STATIONS: In Paris we were catching the 7:30 pm overnight Eurostar to Florence. We had a Rail Pass and reserved sleeping compartment tickets. As this was our first time to use the Rail Pass we needed to have the person at the ticket window validate it, or whatever exactly it's called. They write the date of your first trip on it. I had read that an overnight trip starting after 7pm counts as only one day on the pass and that the next day's date should be entered. Okay. Armed with that little bit of info I looked at my Rail Pass after the ticket window guy wrote on it and said, "Huh?" We were leaving Paris 5/31 and arriving Florence 6/1. He wrote "31/6/02" on two of the Rail Passes and nothing on the other two. (For those who don't know, the convention in Europe is to put the month first, day second.) I'm no genius, but I was pretty sure this probably wasn't correct. After checking with a traveling companion, I got back in line. When I got to the window I pointed out very politely what I believed to be the problem (same guy). He said "Oh, yeah" or something equivalent and promptly changed it to "1/7/02". Did I mention we were arriving on 6/1/02? So I politely pointed out that July 1st probably wasn't what we wanted either. He laughed, scribbled over the two wrong dates and corrected it. Okay at this point I'm totally paranoid that I'm going to be thrown off the train for having a scribbled on Rail Pass (was in fact not a problem). He correctly wrote the date on the other Rail Passes.<BR>More train problems later.<BR>belinda

If airport security randomly screens your luggage after you've checked-in and they decided they want to go through it, how do they do that if you have a padlock on your luggage? Do they cut it off? Is it legal to do that??

As far as the locks on the luggage go - I don't know the answer to your question however I assumed that when I checked my luggage at the counter if the locks were a problem, somebody would say something. My understanding is that checked luggage is stringently x-rayed now, but I don't know how often it is opened and looked through.

Hey Flygirl. Prosecco sounds right. Thanks. I've been wishing I had written down the name. It was really good. Alessandro's comment on our bottle of wine which we had paid 16 Euro for was that it was too cheap and we bought it at a food store. He said we needed to pay at least 25 Euro to get a good bottle.

&lt;&lt;&lt;(For those who don't know, the convention in Europe is to put the month first, day second.) &gt;&gt;&gt;<BR><BR>Belinda, don't you mean that we put the day first and the month second? Well, thats how it works in the UK, not sure about the rest of Europe.....<BR><BR>What other train problems did you have?

Gee whiz, I'm an idiot. Yep, Karen, I did mean day first followed by month. It's amazing I was able to tell there was a problem with the Rail Pass in the first place.

Belinda, I love overview trips as I think I have travel ADD and can't stay in one place for very long. I also like train rides so moving around is fun for me. I consider it part of the experience.<BR><BR>Sounds like you had a grand time. My husband likes to wear his jeans and pack his dress pants.<BR><BR>Prosecco is great and I still buy it here to drink.

Since September 11th, you can not take swiss army knives on airplanes in the U.S. If they find it, they will make you throw it out.

MORE PROBLEMS AT THE TRAIN STATION: These are minor, but here goes. In Florence we had to catch a train to Rome at 7:00 a.m. We arrived early and were told that we wouldn't know the platform for our train until about 30 minutes before departure. We checked back and were told to go to platform 12. Which we did. Turned out we our train was at platform 12ES. Next door to platform 12. Our train was a Eurostar. Seems minor but let me tell you, one platform off may as well be twenty. It's still the wrong train. We discovered the correct platform by continuing to look at signs and ask questions of any and everybody who looked official. Everybody was very nice. Just not always accurate. The other problem we ran into was at the train station in Rome when we were leaving for Paris on an overnight train at 7:30 pm. We arrived in plenty of time to catch our train. Once again, you don't know which platform your train leaves from until about 30 minutes before departure. By the way, there was a poster with the schedule information. It said our train would be leaving from one platform, but it actually left from another. We just asked questions and watched the electronic signs until we figured it out. I'm sure Italians are much more relaxed about this process. Okay the problem in Rome was this. Before boarding a train you have to stamp your ticket. At the end of each platform there are these yellow machines mounted on poles or something. You have to stick your ticket in their and it gets stamped. One time it stamped some writing. Another time it just took a bite out of the ticket(this was the correct result). Well I couldn't get the machine at the end of our platform to stamp our tickets and it was boarding time. Other folks were using the machine successfully. So I had to track down someone who could tell me whether it was okay to stamp our tickets at any machine, not just the one at the end of our platform. Turned out it was okay. We got on the train just fine. It is also common to arrive at the train station and find no seats. We just found a secluded spot in the station, circled our luggage and sat down. No problem.<BR>More later. belinda<BR>p.s. I do plan on posting an actual trip report. This is just my advice column. I spent two whole weeks in Europe. I' an expert don't you know.

Belinda,<BR><BR>Your reports are very interesting. Is there any chance that on future reports you could include paragraphs? It would make your reports much easier to read.<BR><BR>Richard

Belinda,<BR><BR>Excellent info for many of us first timers who are about to embark on our own adventures.<BR><BR>Cheers!

Richard - I'll be happy to break my posts into paragraphs. Sorry bout that.

VERY helpful report, Belinda! Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

Jeans, Swiss Army knives, handiwipes, leg wallets, master locks, credit card pins, train station problems, more train station problems. At some risk I shall suggest creation of a first-timer board. But looking on the bright side, reading this report will put me to sleep between Eng-Braz and USA-Germany. Thanks heaps!!!

Hey xx, guess what. I put the "Other First Time Europe Visitors" in the thread title so as not to bother folks like you. You can thank me later.