Europe Trip Research

Sites/Books I used for research

• Rick Steeves Series

(Rick Steeves: Paris, Rick Steeves: Venice, Rick Steeves: Florence, Rick Steeves: Rome).

I got all these from my local public library. It's great if you get the latest edition; but its totally ok if you get an older edition as well. The latest edition is helpful to find out the fees at various monuments etc but you can find it out online. I would say that Rick Steeves helped make our trip absolutely fabulous and saved us a lot of money in audioguides. I found free downloadable audioguides for must see locations for all cities I was planning to visit, on his site, downloaded those on our ipods and used them as audioguides. I can't recommend them enough. He also has maps for each of these audioguides.

http://www.ricksteves.com/news/travelnews/0602/italy_downloads.htm
http://www.ricksteves.com/news/travelnews/0602/france_downloads.htm

We also took his books with us on our trip and we would carry his book for the city with us everyday and followed his tours in the book if there was no audioguide.

• Tripadvisor (www.tripadvisor.com)

This was probably the best resource for practical information; Things like: best time during the day to visit this museum; how to avoid crowds, where do I leave my luggage at the train station, etc. , is a certain area safe at night? best gelato, etc. I used the forums for each city extensively to get more details about each city. Just type 'Paris forum' or 'Rome Forum' in the search and search through the forums. Most of your questions will already be answered; if not ask your questions and someone will provide answers; usually within 24 hours. Note: The advisors on these forums are sometimes passionate art lovers, so questions like: How can I do Louvre in 2 hours? will cause a flurry of angry answers like: Why dont you just buy a book about Louvre and enjoy it from your bedroom :). Truth be told, you can hardly see 1/5th of the museum in that time. You will want to stay for more time. But these guys are really very very helpful.

• DK Eyewitness Top 10 for each city

Again, got these from my local public library. These are good books to check out what are must sees in each city and then must sees in each monument etc. But I didnt find any additional information in these books that werent already covered by Rick Steeves.

• Google Maps

I created my own maps for each city listing all the places I planned to visit in that city including good places for lunch/dinner/gelato. Then I got directions from one point to another and printed these out and took it with me.

• Transport Maps/ Schedule

I printed out the Paris metro map (pocket size), Rome metro map and bus map, Venice vaporretto map, Florence bus schedule. Get the free maps from your hotel. They are usually good enough to go around the major attractions.

• Websites for Museums and monuments

I went to the official site for each place I wanted to visit to check their timings; just to be sure. Even though Rick Steeves gives you this information in his book, it is always good to check. Inspite of this, sometimes you will find that the timings are a bit off, but not by much.

• Hotel Accomodations

I booked my hotels through hostelsclub.com and venere.com. The disadvantage with hostels club is they charge you 10% when you book and that is not refundable. So if you find a better hotel somewhere else it becomes difficult to switch. Venere is a pretty good site, you can cancel your reservation about a week before the actual stay. Another good site is http://www.ratestogo.com/ which gives good last minute deals, but you can only book about 28 days before the actual date and this could be late. All our hotels were in the range of 55-95Euro per night. I paid 95Euro only in Venice and the last day in Paris. The other hotels were about 55-60 Euro per night total including tax etc. for 2 people. Most prices for hotels are displayed for one person. I also wanted the flexibility of having a bathroom in the room instead of shared of others at the hotel. If you get a shared bathroom, the room rates can get even lower.

Tips to save money/time/valuables

• Schengen Visa

You need to apply for the Schengen visa about 1 month before you are to enter the Schengen states. You need to go to the consulate of the country where you will be spending the most amount of time. So, even though we were going to Paris first, we had to go to the Italian consulate because we were going to be in Italy for 4 days. Before you go, check the consulate site, they do a pretty good job of listing out exactly what documents they need. In order to apply you must have your flights/trains booked atleast for the point of entry into each Schengen state. e.g. Our first entry point for France was Paris and for Italy was Venice. You need to atleast have your travel bookings confirmed for these places. You also need to have your hotel reservations confirmed for every city where you will be spending the night. Another important thing, you need to have a letter from your insurance company stating that you are covered for medical expenses upto a certain amount in these countries. Dont assume that just showing your insurance card is enough. Call your insurance company and ask them for the letter and they will send it to you within a week. It may not have the amount and may miss some details but as long as you have a letter you are fine. We saw a lot of people were sent back and asked to come again because they didnt have one document or the other. Make sure you follow their directions to the T and you should have no trouble getting the Visa.

When we went for our Visa, the Italian lady at the counter seemed to be in a pretty bad mood, shouting at people who were talking loudly and rejecting visa applications because one or more of the documents were missing. On the door, they had written that they wanted the documents to be presented in a certain order. I followed all instructions like a good girl and she was very nice to us and didnt give us any pain. Thanks to my mom, I am pretty organized. :)

• Avoid crowds

Go to museums on a free Sunday in Paris. Hehe. Supposedly, it gets pretty crowded at most museums on a free Sunday and this being a recession year, I expected huge amounts of crowds, but we hardly stood in line for 10 minutes at most places. But seriously, try to find out the best time to visit a certain place to avoid crowds, also read through Rick Steeves to see if there are some tips to avoid the line.

• Rick Steeves audioguides

As I mentioned before, using these can save you atleast about 4-5Euros per person per museum, while making your visit interesting. We took guided tours at the Colosseum based on recommendations and I compared the information they gave with the information Rick Steeves gives and it was the same.

• Moneybelt/Wallet

I had heard of pickpockets in all these cities. Rick Steeves does a good job of scaring you. Being from Bombay, I know how to take care of my belongings but I did not want to take a chance. I had heard of reports on tripadvisor where people had lost these passports to pickpockets. I did not want to waste time going to consulates and worrying about our passports/extra credit cards, extra cash, so I got a moneybelt. It was worth the 13$ to have that peace of mind. (Eagle Creek UnderCover™ Deluxe Security Belt). I had this hidden under my clothes when travelling between cities and kept it locked in our luggage in our hotel.

Wallets go in the front pocket, guys and as an added protection we ties a rubberband around it so that it is difficult to remove. We split the cards and the money so that we dont lose everything at one time. We always travelled with one credit card and one ATM card between us. BTW, we did see a pickpocket in action in Rome. :)

• ATM and finance charges

Probably, the thing I was most proud about finding out. My bank, Bank of America, charges me 2% in foreign transaction fees for using their credit card and debit card outside the US. It also charges me $5 for every ATM transaction outside US, except with certain banks like BNP in Paris, where it charges me 1% for ATM transactions and waives the $5. However, BOFA does not have any affiliations with banks in Italy. I also found out that if you use your debit card with a VISA logo as your ATM card then VISA charges you an additional 1% transaction fee. So you end up paying 3% in foreign transaction fees. I guess the same applies for all big banks.

I also found out that my husband's bank: Addison Avenue Credit Union does not charge me any such fees. (2%) and if I get an ATM card without the VISA logo then I wouldnt get charged the 1% by VISA for cash withdrawals. I got my ATM card, same day from my local branch. We used this to get cash everyday. We always got current market rate. So, I would advise to use your local bank or create an account with a bank which gives us such rates. You may decide to skip this altogether. It will save you just 50$ or so.

Also, dont forget to let your bank/credit card company know that you will be visiting these places so that they dont block your transactions.

• Paris metro carnet

I had estimated that we would require a minimum of 20 metro tickets in Paris, so we bought a carnet of 20 tickets. They come in bunches of 10 and can save you a few euros and a lot of time because you dont want to stand in line each time you want to use the metro.

• Museum Pass

-Paris
These are valid for 3 consecutive days and allows you entry to a lot of museums in Paris. At some places it will even save you standing in line. Because of the free Sunday and we werent planning to climb the Notre Dame and Arc De Triomphe, this didnot help us.

-Roma Pass
You can visit 2 sites for free and at other places you can get some discounts. This also covers metro and bus tickets for 3 days.

-VeniceConnected.com
You can get tickets for Doge Museum at a slightly discounted price on this site if you purchase them a week in advance. But let me warn you, Italian sites are notorious for rejecting US credit cards for no reason in particular. These sites are very random, they rejected my card for 2-3 days until they finally accepted the card on the last day. Argh!! May not be worth the savings.

• Trenitalia.com

If you can get your tickets in advance from Trenitalia.com for travel within Italy you can get a 15% discount, but the same credit card problems can creep in on this site. Fortunately for us, my husband's cousin was travelling to Italy a couple of weeks before us so we asked him to get us our train tickets when they got theirs. This saved us some time standing in line to get tickets.

• Advance bookings

I would highly recommend making advance reservations at Uffizi and Accademia. Best way to make these reservations are through phone. Call them and get the 6-digit reservation number. Its does 4 Euro extra per person to make these reservations; but it can save you 1-2 hours standing in line. If you find that the lines are moving fast and you can get in within 10-15 minutes then just dont pick up your reserved tickets and save 4 Euros. But in our case, we needed those reservations :) I am glad we made those reservations. You have to give them a time period (e.g. 2 people at 4:15pm)

Also the Borghese Gallery in Rome requires you to make a reservation for your 2 hour time slot. Reserve by phone and take your reservation number with you.

• Dress Code

Almost all basilicas (Vatican in particular) require women to have their shoulders covered and both men and women need to have their knees covered (so no shorts). Do not waste time going all the way there and then finding out. They do sell disposable shawls for 1 Euro out there just in case you need to cover your shoulders.

• Water

Tap water in all these cities was drinkable. In most places we carried our water bottles and got them filled in restaurants etc. Especially in Rome, the water in the fountains is also drinkable and cold. Refreshing. But if you are sensitive to tap water, dont take chances.