Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - My Advice for Other First Time Europe Visitors

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At the risk of turning Mr. XX into Mr. ZZZZZZZZ, I'll continue here. SHOES AND RELATED TOPICS: I was told I would do a lot of walking on this trip. Little did I know what that meant exactly. For about a month before we left I got up in the mornings and walked for a few miles. I also bought good shoes (Josef Seibel and Ecco). As insurance, I brought some Dr. Scholl's moleskin and a small pair of scissors to cut it with. Boy was I glad. One night in Paris we walked 3 solid hours (10pm to 1am) after a day we already spent on our feet. I developed a sore spot on the balls of my feet. I was able to apply moleskin for a couple of days and wear the other pair of shoes and all was well. When people tell you that you're going to walk a lot, they mean "more than you have ever walked in your life." Unless of course you're a postman or something. I'm convinced that Europeans are skinnier than Americans because they walk so damn much. Which, by the way, I think is a good thing, even though I'm bitching. We also climbed about a million stairs. Really. About a million. Be prepared. And the walking is hard. In Rome there are a lot of hills. Seven to be exact. Everywhere there are cobblestones or some sort of uneven paving. If you're going to wear heels, be prepared to call a taxi. One of my traveling companions was a 74 year old grandmother. She was incredibly resilient, but one night after a long day on our feet, I brought her some Ibuprofen tablets at the request of her son, who was another of my traveling companions. When I handed her the Ibuprofen she said "Can I put em on my feet?" Then she said "I'm glad we're going to be on a train tomorrow night because we can't walk anywhere." Okay, that was funny. Or maybe it's only funny if you've walked half way across Europe and you're tired. Next installment: TAXIS. I know it's pretty exciting. :o)

TAXIS: In London we found it very easy to catch a cab. There were four of us with luggage. However, the ubiquitous Black Cab is neatly designed. The front passenger seat is missing so the driver can store luggage up front. The passenger compartment has two fold down seats which face the back bench. In our case, three of us sat on the bench and one on a fold down seat, and luggage was placed in the space for the other fold down seat. Taxi prices in London seemed reasonable. It was very easy to flag down a cab anywhere you saw one. When we needed to make an early morning train or plane connection, we were able to just walk outside our hotel and flag down a cab. Very easy. Paris taxis. Not so easy. We had no luck flagging down cabs in Paris. We had to find a taxi stand. Then the cab driver in front of the Louvre was totally pissed when he realized there were four of us and he would have to remove items from his front passenger seat. When we caught a cab at the train station taxi stand, we had to stand aside until a vehicle big enough to carry us and our luggage came along. Even then we had stuff piled up in our laps in the back seat. In Italy our luck with taxis was pretty good. In Rome we still had to look for taxi stands, but we were able on one occasion to simply flag a taxi down. All the taxi drivers in Italy were very nice. On a couple of occasions we had to take two taxis because one wouldn't hold us. We had no problems with the hotel calling cabs for us, catching cabs at the train station (look for the taxi stand or ask someone), or having the restaurant call us a cab. One thing I would advise is make sure you have the address of the place you want to go written down somewhere. For our trip I had a small spiral notebook (4 X 5 or so). Each city had its own little tab. I just wrote the name on a plastic post-it tab and stuck it on the page. For each city, the first page was the name of the hotel, address and phone number. I would do my best to give the taxi driver the address in the appropriate language (using a phrase book) and then show him the page. Worked just fine. In London and Paris we had great luck with the Underground/Metro. We were lucky enough to have people in each city who could kind of show us the ropes. I wouldn't recommend either if you have a lot of luggage. When in Paris we took a side trip to Versailles. We went to the train station near Musee d'Orsay to catch the train to Versailles. I couldn't figure out how to read the overhead electronic signs and there was no one there to explain it to me. So I was standing there, turning in circles, looking perplexed when a very nice gentleman approached and asked, in French, something or other. I told him, in my really bad French, that I didn't speak French. He then said in English, "Do you need help?" I nearly hugged him. He kindly explained how to read the board and gave us the info we needed to catch our train to Versailles. We thanked him profusely. Remember, he approaced me, unsolicited, to offer help. And he was French. And very nice. Okay.

I found the same problem with the train platforms. They don't seem to post them until they're sure the train is really going to arrive. And, the other problem was finding the train. The train from Naples to Venice (Mestre) was actually the Trieste train, because that's where it ends up. I guess it's a little less confusing if it's Eurostar, since there aren't that many; the regular trains are very confusing!

TAXIS AGAIN: I forgot to mention that in Paris and Italy, it's a good idea when ordering a taxi to tell them you need a big one if, like us, you need a big one. Some of the taxis were small station wagons and small vans which worked for us, but the cars would not have held the four of us plus luggage.

Despite the minor problems we had with the train stations, I found train travel to be relatively easy. Some of the problems we had were self-imposed by my impatience and just plain not knowing what to do. I did find people working at the train station willing to help if they could. My job was to seek them out. So do your research. Read your ticket closely. Ask questions. Watch the electronic signs. Talk to the person at the door to what you believe to be the train car you are supposed to board. Almost everyone I encountered at train stations in France and Italy spoke some English. I had learned some Italian prior to our trip and one of my traveling companions spoke some French. Just smile, ask politely and people will help you. That was my experience.

Belinda: I like that you have organized your tips & problems with headings. After the excitement has died down on this thread, may I make a suggestion? Compile all your tips into a well-organized, easy to read Word doc and make it available via the web. Leslie Strauss (a regular on this board) can give you more tips on that. You have some great tips and they should be saved somewhere for distribution long after this board is gone!

I am traveling to Europe on July 24th, and will be visiting Spain, France,and Italy. It is my first time, so I appreciate this advice. May I ask if someone can confirm whether a Swiss army knife is allowed, and if so, should it be checked or carried on? Also, I would like to hear from people who've spent about 2 weeks in the countries I'm visiting. What did you take that you really didn't need, and wouldn't take again? Will wearing shorts really cause us to be out of synch with others? It may be very hot in this area. Thank you.

Is it a knife? Yes it is. Then, of course, it would go in the CHECKED Luggage. My Goodness, use your brain; they just let people start carrying nail clippers and files back on board and your curious if they'll let you on with a knife? That is of course unless your idea of fun is having a terminal cleared and everybody sent back through security again.

Blimey, No reason to be so sharp in your response. It is rather narrow minded to assume that everyone has recent first-hand experience with air travel, much less experience with recent changes. Isn't this a place to ask a question? Thank you for the information, but no reason to make it sound like I must be an idiot, which I asure you I am not. A simple answer would have sufficed, rather than taking the opportunity to be unkind.

Sorry. I tend to be an ass from time to time. You are right. A simple answer was all that was needed. My appoligies.

Blimey, Apology accepted. The important thing is that you did give me the answer, and potentially saved me from causing the security fiasco you described.

Thanks, Belinda, for your informative posts. I'm not a first-time visitor, and I did indeed find some useful stuff here -- Can you tell us more about the man's LLBean jacket (you said 'or somewhere', so could you check for us?). I never thought of purchasing a small man's blazer! Don't suppose you'll tell us what size woman's clothing you wear? I really think that was such an inspired idea! J.

I checked the ll Bean website last evening after reading this post, and it turns out they have the same jacket with zip security pockets inside in the ladies travel clothes section as well. $20 cheaper too.

Okay, I checked the blazer it is an LL Bean Traveler men's three-button microfiber size 38 short. I looked into getting the women's however I don't think it has as many inside pockets and that was important to me. The styling of a man's jacket is of course different than a woman's. I like the boxier shape as I have kind of a big butt. In women's clothes I wear a size twelve. The small man's jacket would only work for bigger gals like me. :o) I really like this jacket. It never looked wrinkled even after I slept in it for 8 hours on the plane. I wore it over sweaters in London and t-shirts in Italy with dress slacks or jeans. It was great. PHONE CARD: I forgot to mention the phone home thing. I bought an AT&T 600 minute calling card at Sam's for a little over $20. It worked great throughout our trip, but I only used it from our hotels. I had no problems except it took me a couple of tries to figure out that first you dial the local access phone number which is listed on the insert you get with the calling card and then you call the AT&T 800 number listed on the insert for international calls. Then you follow the instructions. The insert folds up the size of the card and I kept both in my leg wallet. We did have trouble using pay phones in Paris and Rome. In Paris you have to use a phone card that you insert in the pay phone. So we went in search of a phone card which we bought at a wine shop as the tobacco shop nearby was already closed. We went back to the pay phone on the street, but couldn't use the phone card without some other card you have to insert into the pay phone first. A very nice guy waiting to use the phone offered us his card to use while we made our call. Someone who understands Paris pay phones can no doubt explain this better. My guess is we screwed something up. The guy who loaned us his phone card was really nice and we later saw him again at the train station when we were leaving for Florence. How random is that? So we went over to thank him again. Turns out he was Italian and he was waiting for his girlfriend to board a train to Milan (I think). I had brought some little key chain souvenirs from my home state of Texas for just such an occasion and I was able to give one to him to thank him for his kindness. He was very gracious and we later saw him putting his keys on the keychain. It was a pewter finish key chain with an insert that spun around with a bronze colored armadillo on it and a bronze TEXAS emblazoned on the top. I know. Pretty tacky. He came over to tell us bye when his girlfriend finally arrived. In Rome we used a pay phone at the Vatican museums. We had to purchase a Vatican phone card to use the pay phone. There was a machine that dispensed the phone cards. You have to tear off the perforated corner before you insert the card. That's about all I have to say about phones. Safe travels to ya.

This is really an amazing report for someone who is a first timer. I was given a Van Heusen windbreaker for fathers day by my wife and noted that it has zippered inside pockets. "Yes, dummy, " she said. "It's for the trip."

Belinda, I have really enjoyed reading of your adventures. Even though I have been "across the pond" many times, I still find myself stupified now and then with the how-to's of everyday travel. You certainly ran across some nice people, and your idea of taking key chains is great--do you think Las Vegas would go over? Now, where do I get them...:-)

Just a point; between May and October if you travel in a black blazer or windbreaker in Italy you will suffer from heat stroke.

Hey Sue. Got my key chains at the Houston airport. If you don't live in Vegas, guess you'll just have to take a weekend trip. I've only just now figured out that to actually "separate" my paragraphs I have to hit Enter twice. I still plan on posting an actual trip report about all the neat stuff we saw and did, but I'm still trying to get photos in a book. All 600 of them. Yikes!! Fortunately my partner kept a daily travel log during the trip. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to remember where some of the photos were taken. "Okay, this is London, but what is that?" I do have each pack labeled as to its city, date and its order in the series of 25 rolls. I've decided to put them in a photo album along with our little souvenir things like match books, business cards, receipts, postcards (particularly of pieces of art in each museum). My hope is that will make it a little more interesting for people looking at our photographs. And, by the way, not all 600 will make the cut. We are also going to include little blurbs about what the photo is of so we don't have to stand over people's shoulder and tell them what they are looking at. I know this sounds kind of over the top, but we have a lot of friends and family who really are interested in how the trip went. Or at least I think so. :o)