Getting Set for our Best of Europe 2018

I always go into Wikipedia and read in depth about every place we visit.
When I have found out where we will be staying, I go into Google Maps and get acquainted with the neighborhoods streets, restaurants, public transit, etc. When I hit the ground, I usually know where I am going.

You might want to make museum reservations that are not part of the tour ASAP. Popular museum reservations/time slots sell out quickly.

We did BOE and got there 4 nights before. Visited Mauritshuis and Delft one day. Wanted a bike tour, but they weren’t offered daily, so planned on doing on our own. Weather was Cold and rainy so we went to the Resistance Museum and loved it. Get reservations for Van Gogh as we thought we bought them from a service but we still had to wait in line for over an hour.

We stayed in Paris after for a few days, then went to Belgium on the Thalys—nice train.
Don’t book all your free time—enjoy the places. We enjoyed hiking in Cinque Terre and Switzerland. We also opted to hike partway back from the Neuschwanstein Castle and really liked it (the bus took some back to the hotel, then came and got us). Remember, if you fall in love with a place, you’ll go back.

Thanks, all, for the tips. I hadn't thought about booking for the Van Gogh; last time we were there we pretty much just walked right in.

I'm trying not to overbook, because we love just wandering around and keeping our options open. But I'm allowing us more planned activities, because for so many years we traveled on such a tight budget we didn't do anything except wander around. We've decided it's time to lighten up a bit, and allow ourselves to loosen up on the purse strings. A little. :-)

So I'm thinking no more than one pre-planned activity in each city.

This is our second time to do this tour (DH wanted to repeat to celebrate a milestone anniversary), so we know what a wonderful time is in store for us.

Okay, RSE: The check is in the mail!

Jane, you probably are aware of this but it might be a while before you hear from Alessandro. He usually waits until he has at least 4 participants before it's a "go". Of course it's been a year or two since the last one we took and things may have changed. We have been more than once and on more than one tour with him; they are great fun and so is he! Don't despair, his tours are popular, yours will most likely be fully booked and you'll enjoy the heck out of it.

Andi, when I first emailed him last fall, he told me to check back in 2018. I re-sent my old email, with an updating note, and haven't yet had a response. However, I have noticed on some old threads that he is often slow to respond. If I haven't heard anything in another couple of weeks, I'll try again. I figure if he's short of participants I can offer to try to find folks on our RS tour.

Thanks for the observation, however, and the review. I'm really looking forward to his tours.

All I can say is Wheeee!!! You all are going to have so much fun. I want to re-do this one as well. There was so much to see first time around and I was new to touring so wasn't totally organized that a second whack at it would be good.

I happened to be looking at the BOE tour supplement book today - I am not even sure how it got where it was, lol but it fell open to Beaune. I missed SO MUCH STUFF there! Wow. If you don't have your old supp. book I'd be happy to scan and email the pages or copy and snail mail any to you you'd like. Unless you've got your new one already?

Are you going on the tour to Neuschwanstein again or was once enough? When we stopped there on the GAS tour I skipped it and walked around the Alpsee which was beautiful, not crowded and gave me some nature time.

When does your tour start? Our BOE started May 20th.
Jerry

Pam, I think it's kismet. I was clearing off a pile of stuff in the living room, and at the bottom was ... our old BOE Supplement! So I started rereading it last night. And you're right; we missed a lot last time. Of course. There's never enough time on any tour to do or see it all.

We did the Neuschwanstein Castle last time, and frankly, I was underwhelmed. Your idea of the Alpsee sounds good. I'm an outdoors person, and some quiet nature time sounds good.

Jerry, our tour begins in mid April. The earlier date may limit our choices in Switzerland. I was checking easy or moderate hikes in the BOE book, and many of them are recommended for later in the year.

So what was the BOE supplement?

It's a small, spiral bound pamphlet that covers places on the tour that were not covered in the BoE guidebook. I think the newer guidebooks do cover many of these. The supplement I have, from 2011, covers the Doge's Palace and St Mark's in Venice, 13 pages on St Peter's in Rome, 11 or so pages on Beaune in Burgundy, and detailed coverage of some of the Paris sights - the Orsay, for example, and a Versailles tour

You definitely want to pre-book your Van Gogh tickets. The line was absolutely horrendous and we were thankful we had pre-paid for our tickets. We were even let in about 45 minutes early because we underestimated our schedule and arrived early.

Our pre-tour day was spent on 2 half day tours which we booked through Viator. The first one was to Zaanse Schans (Windmills), Volendam (cheese), and Marken (wooden shoes demo).....and the second tour took the afternoon and evening in which we visited Delft for Delftware and The Hague. I was very happy we chose to do these tours. It made for an extremely long day but boy did we learn a lot!

In Venice we also did a concert at one of the churches....very good! Oh, heck, here's the link to my scrapbook from that tour.....
Steve and Kathy's Excellent European Vacation

Kathy, what a coincidence! I just viewed your scrapbook from another thread! Thanks a lot, and you did a great job with the scrapbook.

And thanks for the tip on booking the Van Gogh. I'll stare at my calendar some more...

"We did the Neuschwanstein Castle last time, and frankly, I was underwhelmed. Your idea of the Alpsee sounds good. I'm an outdoors person, and some quiet nature time sounds good."

Jane, this was very easy to do. On the return visit I just let my GAS guide know so he didn't purchase a castle ticket for me and then just walked to the end of the street by the lake and headed around. It was really beautiful back in there. I think you supposedly can walk to Reutte from around there. My BOE guide had mentioned he would lead anyone who wanted to walk from the hotel to Neuschwanstein if the weather was good but it was pouring buckets so that got cancelled.

Thanks, Pam. I was just thinking about that, having read Judy's latest installment. I don't mind the walk up to N'stein, but I didn't care much for the guided tour last time and from her description it hasn't improved.

By the way, I certainly wouldn't fault anyone who wanted to go. It may not be "real," but it does have its own story and its own place in history.

I'm just not interested in seeing it again if there are other choices.

Actually that was exactly what I thought as well. To me it's definitely a site you want to see once, even when you know the background. The iconic views from Mary's Bridge are so gorgeous but the one visit was enough.

--->off to read Judy's latest installment!