- Three months in we thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of our hightlights/experiences from the trip, as many have asked through emails.
- Food:
Best tastes: Lugano (chocolate gelato), Onion cake (zwiebelkuchen - Tubingen), Bretzel (Zurich), Norwegian/Danish seafood dishes, Hot wine (vin chaud, mull wein), Bread in Paris
Worst tastes: chicken "cutlets" in Moscow
- Travel
Favorite larger cities: Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris
Smaller towns: Tubingen, Aarhus
Favorite Swiss Cities – Lugano, Wengen (lots of exploring to do!)
Favorite countries: Denmark (surprising), Germany
One thing to see or do one thing in each town would be:
Zurich – Walk down the Bahnhoff (with Swiss chocolate, of course)
Interlaken – hike up the mountain and check out the villages
London – Stroll around the Buckingham palace/St James Park area
Dublin – Trinity College tour
Kilkenny - grab a beer at Morrissey Pub
Brussels - moules frites!
Stuttgart – stroll around the main plaza and walk thru streets
Tubingen – gondola ride or a Saturday market
Moscow – make sure to visit the Kremlin/Red Square area
St. Petersburg – Hermitage museum
St. Gallen – check out the church and UNESCO sight
Lugano – hike one of the mountains; reward yourself after with gelato
Berlin – outdoor exhibit at Checkpoint Charlie makes a great intro to the Berlin Wall
Oslo – Vigeland is too unique to pass up, but be sure to eat seafood before you leave.
Trondheim – see the bike lift in action
Lulea – If time permits visit the churchtown - if not the Kulturhaus
Stockholm – walk around the old town
Aarhus – catch some local music
Copenhagen – rent a bike to tour the city
Dusseldorf/Cologne – Dom Cathedral
Budapest – walk around at night near any of the monuments
Krakow – Auschwitz is 40 minutes away - but a must see
Prague – spend the time on local flavors – pilsner or tradlo
Paris – Eiffel tower at night or a sidewalk café
Take a raincheck on: Budapest baths (ask K),
Sleeper attractions: Carlsberg brewery tour, Dom Cathedral (Koln)
Cities we’d like to visit: Nice, Helsinki, Vienna,
Countries on the radar: Monaco, Portugal, Finland, more of E. Europe
Forget about the map – Moscow (street signs are in Cyrillic once you leave the Red Square area), Dublin (or anywhere in Ireland) – we spoke the language and consistently got lost.
Easy navigation: Zurich, London (common language), Germany
Experiences:
Immediate laughter - moment when someone thinks you speak their language and we both have the glazed look on our faces
Interesting people we’ve met – American travel agent in St. Petersburg (claimed to have lived with her husband in Paris post WW2 for $2/day). Our taxi driver in Krakow (he’d been to California several times and we had a fast friendship. When we asked to pay with a credit card it was a mood swing similar to a child dropping their icecream on the ground)
Friendliest people as a whole – Irish, Norwegian, Danish
Least friendly to tourists – Muscovites (language barrier definitely amplified this)
Frustration – WCs, always an experience. You never know what you will get or if you’ll have to pay. It makes for unwarranted anxiety at a time when you just want some relief…
Commerce – our biggest rip offs were easily in Moscow. The center of town was a giant tourist trap and you paid for it. Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland and Czech) brought some better currency rates for us, but we ran into a little mischief in each spot here. The Polish zloty was a nice break from getting creamed by the Euro, GBP and Swiss Franc…
Most surprising event – overall love for german experiences (all towns).
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