My husband and I have always loved to travel, as it is a form of continuing education for us, and have seen much of the US, along with trips through parts of Asia and Africa. We decided our next trip would be to Europe, and although we originally planned to focus on specific regions, like Italy, we decided to do a global overview trip to see the highlights and experience a variety of cultures. We used Rick's "Europe's Best 2 Month Trip" as our springboard, although we made several changes before arriving at our final route, which started in London, then through Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, France and the low countries, Eastern Europe, Italy and Iberia. We planned for nearly 2 years by watching Rick's videos, reading travel guides, taking careful notes, and pre-booking/reserving our hotels, tickets and transportation (EurAide was extremely helpful in making our train reservations as we traveled on nearly 100 trains with 8 night trains). We wanted to make sure we had as much done ahead of time so we could relax and enjoy the trip (especially because we were taking our 6 month old baby with us). Additionally, my recently retired parents joined us as well.
We had a FANTASTIC time to say the least. All our pre-planning paid off tremendously as we stayed within our budget and enjoyed every day hassle free (no wasted time standing in lines!). We packed carefully so that all of our things fit into one large backpack, which my husband carried, and I carried our day pack and the baby in a front carrier. As a first time mom I was nervous about traveling so far for such a long time with an infant, but the time that we got to spend together as a family was invaluable. He was a great traveler and was happy to look at the world from his carrying pack. When he got tired we'd just turn him around and enjoy snuggling him. He loved to watch any animals he could spot (thankfully pigeons were in abundant supply) and enjoyed trying a wide variety of foods. He also helped break the ice with the language barrier as everyone smiled and wanted to interact with him.
Some of my favorite things were the small details I didn't expect like all the fresh flowers in window boxes and on almost every café table. Church bells rang in every town each hour and the cows in Switzerland actually had bells! We also had a good time trying lots of local foods: meatballs, escargot, fish, fries, pizza, chocolate and lots of desserts. The big cities were great – London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona and the Scandinavian capitals have so much to offer. We enjoyed a sunny day cruising the fjords in Norway, buying cookies from cloistered nuns in Madrid, hiking the Cinque Terra, climbing Brunelleschi's Dome, packing a picnic to Murano in Venice, sacher torte and opera in Vienna, tons of gelato, a cooking class in Tuscany, driving wine routes in Burgundy, and on and on and on. We had a magical cruise along the Seine in Paris at sunset and Old Town Tallinn was beautiful. But the small towns were my favorite. I loved the castle towns in Germany and the storybook villages in Austria and Slovenia were even better in person. We arrived at the train station in Hallstatt and took a ferryboat across the lake at sunset. It really felt like we were sailing right into a book. Cesky Krumlov was fantastic during a local festival and the spires of Prague from the Charles Bridge at sunset could rival any city's skyline. Hiking in Switzerland was a magical day. We had blue skies and could see the Alps all around us. My husband carried the baby for our hike and he LOVED it! We took the gondola to the very top of the mountains and back down a little way, then walked the rest of the way back to Murren. It will be a day I will never forget.
It is incredibly difficult to sum up the whole trip in a few paragraphs, but we just want to thank Rick and his staff for aiding us in planning a trip of a lifetime. It would not have been the same trip without Rick's invaluable advice!