April 24, 2003
Why bother with all these cities?...
...when it seems so much of the life of Europe is outside them?
Since putting up the draft itinerary a last week, Philip, Aoife, Joe, Claudia, and other folks have sent in lots of comments—on the blog, in email, in conversation—wondering why we're having me focus on cities so much.
A few days on, and the lads and I still feel pretty good about the itinerary. There's still tweaking to do of course. Are there places I'm missing? Plenty. Is the itinerary city-focused? Yup.
But we're focusing on cities, for a couple of reasons:
Hubs. The big cities are hubs for trains, and for travelers. It's a good way to get right in the thick of the scene, meet other folks, see some sights, you name it. It's also a good way to help me figure out where to go around town and outside of town. The places we're mapping in are also some of the top travel destinations, and it's good to see those places. Especially on your first time out—I am a newbie at this one, after all.
Jaunting. The itinerary is a little misleading, perhaps. Looking at it, you might think that I really will spend my entire 3 days in Cardiff, well, in Cardiff. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Maybe I'll see everything I need and want to see in a day, and then spend 2 days off in the country somewhere. We built in some flexibility so I could also get into the outlying areas, which I'm quite keen on, actually.
By focusing around the cities, we're thinking that I can get clued in on what's happening outside them as well, and then can train out, hang for a while, meet travelers and locals, etc.—take in more of that Europe lifeblood. There's lots in the cities, but there's much outside them too. And hopefully I'll get plenty of each.
That's my thought anyway. But I could be wrong. Am I? Let me know.
Posted by Ant at 05:15 PM
Related: Ant's Eye View, BootsnAll Travel Community, Itinerary, Planning My Eurail Summer Trip
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yes he is wrong. burn him! :)
well i only pointed out cities i thought you had put down two much time for which ALSO had nothing to do in the surroundings. basing yourself somewhere is a good idea but you still need to know if there's nothing to base yourself on (!)
My first love in traveling was getting lost in european cities and simply soaking up the atmosphere of the place...although this is more relevent to Rome than Cardiff :)
A newbie? surely not! In any case don't plan too much you'll end up changing it all after the first week anyway (joke,joke). It usually takes me 10 days to start "geddin to da groove".
Me too. That first week is spent in a haze. Travel plans go out the door. Of course, if you are doing the Eurail thing (first class!) then you need to make seat reservations in advance unless you like sitting next to the toilet the entire way.
I like going in whatever direction I feel like whenever. That is how serendipity happens; go with the flow (and other cliches).
If you are hanging around with cool backpackers and they are all going to Bruges, are you going to continue to stupid-'ol-Brussels?
Plans are made to be broken.
Plans invariably disappoint.
Plans are, at best, rough guidelines and should be ignored whenever possible.
Hiya, i'm jumpimg into this conversation without knowing the full details i.e. how many of you & wether you have bought your passes but there are 4 of us driving round europe for 3 months, 12 countries & we have found that the simple solution to this problem is to rent a car. We got an awesome deal with Europcar through drivetravel an aussie company on the net.An initial 64 days for £1000 even including road tolls, petrol etc it works out alot cheaper & flexible than rail. Also if you are not an EU resident you can lease a car through Peugot/Renault which works out even cheaper. this is with insurance, unlimited km, breakdown assitance etc.
This works out at £4 a day for the car which is a 5 person wagon with roof racks. In addition we have roof racks & tents so we save evn more $$ & has awesome flexibility. Something else to think about!
cheers
kiwibc
Comment by aoife on April 24, 2003 05:28 PM
yes he is wrong. burn him! :)
well i only pointed out cities i thought you had put down two much time for which ALSO had nothing to do in the surroundings. basing yourself somewhere is a good idea but you still need to know if there's nothing to base yourself on (!)
My first love in traveling was getting lost in european cities and simply soaking up the atmosphere of the place...although this is more relevent to Rome than Cardiff :)
A newbie? surely not! In any case don't plan too much you'll end up changing it all after the first week anyway (joke,joke). It usually takes me 10 days to start "geddin to da groove".
Comment by Joe E. on April 24, 2003 06:14 PM
Me too. That first week is spent in a haze. Travel plans go out the door. Of course, if you are doing the Eurail thing (first class!) then you need to make seat reservations in advance unless you like sitting next to the toilet the entire way.
I like going in whatever direction I feel like whenever. That is how serendipity happens; go with the flow (and other cliches).
If you are hanging around with cool backpackers and they are all going to Bruges, are you going to continue to stupid-'ol-Brussels?
Plans are made to be broken.
Plans invariably disappoint.
Plans are, at best, rough guidelines and should be ignored whenever possible.
Comment by kiwibc on April 25, 2003 11:22 AM
Hiya, i'm jumpimg into this conversation without knowing the full details i.e. how many of you & wether you have bought your passes but there are 4 of us driving round europe for 3 months, 12 countries & we have found that the simple solution to this problem is to rent a car. We got an awesome deal with Europcar through drivetravel an aussie company on the net.An initial 64 days for £1000 even including road tolls, petrol etc it works out alot cheaper & flexible than rail. Also if you are not an EU resident you can lease a car through Peugot/Renault which works out even cheaper. this is with insurance, unlimited km, breakdown assitance etc.
This works out at £4 a day for the car which is a 5 person wagon with roof racks. In addition we have roof racks & tents so we save evn more $$ & has awesome flexibility. Something else to think about!
cheers
kiwibc