Trip Notes and Observations

These were just a few of our observations and notes from our trip - It might help others that are planning a trip but mainly it's for us to remember.

Walking - We walked a total of 114.5 miles! 

Reservations – Everything we booked worked to perfection from planes to trains to cars to hotels.  All hotels were booked on booking.com and cars, planes and trains directly from the websites.

Credit Card & Cash – We have been screwed over so many times by Bank of America while traveling but this time – perfection.  They have a new online system where you log your trip yourself – It sure worked for us – no fraud holds at all!  Kudos to Keybank as well – same idea and we made ATM withdrawals in every country with no problems.

Shower cords - There are cords in all the showers.  Nick read that they are for people that slip on the tile floors but that most hotels just ignore the alarms – oops.

Hotel Differences – They don’t supply wash cloths at all nor irons and ironing boards like the US does.  The only difference was the hotel in London did have an iron and ironing board.  I learned to de-wrinkle using the hotel hair dryer!  I also did laundry in the hotel bathrooms and just hung everything to dry – Rick Steeves would be proud.  I only ever saw one laundry facility in Atibes and I’m glad I didn’t have to spend time in there – like a sweat box.

Restaurant and Bar service - The service in restaurants and bars is so different from the US – they don’t hound you for refills nor bring you your check quickly at all – you have to get their attention – sometimes it’s annoying if you are in a hurry.

Tolls – We really wish we would have kept track of what we spent – it had to be at least 150-175 EUR.  Our most expensive one was 25 EUR for a stretch of highway in Italy.  Some towns/cities even have surcharges to enter and exit. 

Speed Cameras  - Especially in Italy – they are EVERYWHERE and HIDDEN.  The only way we knew about them was the warning from our car navigation system.  Plus the speed signs are super infrequent and it can go from 110 to 50 in an instant.  I would not be surprised if we don’t get a ticket or two in the mail from the rental car companies.

Car Navigation – It’s a must.  You cannot drive in Europe without it.  Garmin’s don’t give enough warning for the turns you have to take so they are easily missed and they don’t warn you of the cameras.  Spend the money and use the rental car navigation system.  Plus the navigation systems warn you of the speed changes and cameras. 

Driving in general – very stressful – we probably won’t do it again.  We would rent a car for a day but not worth the stress when you can just take a train.  Also it’s VERY expensive and just not necessary with the amazing public transit systems most everywhere.

Fruit – yes the kind you eat….So incredibly delicious and so much better than the stuff that is shipped to our part of the US.  It just tastes so much fresher and sweeter.

Currency – Euro bills look like Monopoly money British bills don’t fit in wallets very well.  The coins are freaking annoying because they are hard to read and some of them are very similar in size. 

Leftover currency – I’m bringing home a small amount of Euro (12 only) but we were brilliant leaving London and gave it all to our hotel to put against our bill – not coming home with any British lbs other than a few small coins.

Tipping – LOVED the no tipping tradition in all the countries!  Of course like I said above the services was not all that great either.  However in the larger cities they charge a service charge on your restaurant or bar bill.  We got anywhere from 12% to 15% tacked on.

Wi – Fi - Don’t believe the hype that it is pretty much everywhere – IT’S A LIE!  We only had it in our hotels and sometimes that was even spotty.  The airports – I could only get it on my laptop and very spotty on my phone – restaurants would advertising it but it hardly ever worked.

Pizza – No one cuts their pizza – not sure what that is all about.

Water – You have to ask for water (flat or sparkling) and sometimes they charge you.  Ice is non existent unless you ask for it.

Flying regional airlines – cheap but there is a reason for that – they would not let us carry on our bags and the planes are small and cramped.  However one tip – just gate check your bag and as a perk they will let you on the plane first. 

Airport Gate Assignments – One of the craziest things we have ever seen.  They don’t announce the gate assignment for you plane until ½ hr before the flight leaves.  So everyone is hanging out by the departure boards and then they make a mad dash for their gates.  Not sure of the reasoning.

TSA/Airport security – they are much stricter as far as liquids than the US.  I had to throw away stuff in the UK during our layover on the way to Paris because they much stricter rules than the US.  In Italy you cannot have someone “touching you” issues because their version of TSA pretty much touches your entire body during screening….yes it was weird.

View on Americans – We traveled in three countries, UK, France and Italy.  The nicest people to us were from France and the UK.  The Italians in general were nice but the service type workers – pretty much didn’t want anything to do with us and we felt like they didn’t like us much.  Maybe if we made more of an effort to speak the language it might have helped – will try that next time. 

On To See The Queen

We decided to leave La Spezia early in the morning to road trip up to Lake Como prior to catching our evening flight to London from Milan. 

We were not disappointed as Lake Como is one of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen.  It reminds me a lot of Lake Chelan in that it’s a really big lake, surrounded by mountains and is blue, clear and clean.  The difference is that it’s inhabited on both sides and you can drive all the way around.  There are beautiful little resort type towns all during the drive.  We were only able to drive from one end to the other on one side because of the time it took with the narrow, winding roads.  There was a ferry type boat just like the "Lady of the Lake" in Chelan too!  We definitely decided that this will be a destination for us some day!

We boarded our flight to London on Alitilia Airlines (all regional airline) and as some of you might have seen on my Facebook status the spawn of Satan sat behind me.  Unbelievable that this mother let her child kick my seat the entire 1.5 hour flight to London.  I glared at her several times with the “Barb Look” which obviously did not translate into her language.

After landing we had to get in line in London for immigration.  We see a very long line with one of those Disneyland type signs that says “45 minutes from this point”.  The looks on everyone’s faces should have been our first clue!  After that sign the line kept going down two more corridors!

We had to email our friends Mike and Yvonne who were waiting for us in the hotel and tell them “yeah it’s going to be a while”.  “A while” turned into 2 hours in the immigration line.  It was not fun, everyone was tired and the line cutters (“que” for our English friends) were so annoying.  I got to where I would block people from cutting and it was not funny yet kinda funny (in a Karma kind of way) when this one young girl behind me tried to cut and then dropped her Iphone and cracked the screen….oops!

It took so long we missed the last train into London so we had to take a taxi.  Turned out to be so fun.  It was a black cab (those fun cute ones) and our driver was amazing.  We basically got a mini tour on the way to the hotel and it was fun to see London all lit up at night including Big Ben and Buckingham Palace! 

We got checked into our hotel around 12:30 am.  It was beautiful (especially compared to the last one) and I was so freaking excited to see an iron and ironing board so no more ironing with a hair dryer!  In our room was a beautiful anniversary card and a bottle of Proceco from Mike and Yvonne and another card and bottle of wine from the hotel.  They had told them this was our anniversary trip….so sweet and it felt good to be so welcomed after our very long evening trying to get thru immigration.

For those that don’t know Mike – I worked for him at Wizards for years and he is from the UK.  He retired 4 years ago and moved back to England with his lovely wife Yvonne.  They live in a small village of 800 people not far from Dorchester (hopefully I spelled that correctly).  They were the most gracious and fun hosts we could have had.  It was great to enjoy this part of our trip with them.

We met Mike and Yvonne the next morning for breakfast and Nick experienced his first (but not last) of the “Full English” breakfast.  It was a fried egg, toast, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, a slice of tomato, hash browns and baked beans (yes I said baked beans).

They had gotten tickets to the London Eye (think the Great Wheel in Seattle).  The difference it holds 25 people per car , takes ½ hr to go around and you can walk around in your “pod”.  Such a great way to see the city from a different view point.

 

We then walked over to the Parliament building where we saw a member of Parliament arrive and then happened to see another one in a local bar.  This is why you have locals as “tour guides”  – as we would have never known who these people are.

Our next stop was Westminster Abbey.  I always thought it was a small but beautiful cathedral that royals funerals were held in and that William and Kate were married in.  Well many weddings and funerals have happened there but also every coronation and the place is massive.  It's a stunningly beautiful church full of history.  There are people either burie

d on site or memorialized that go 1000's of years back into history.  Off the main cathedral area are many smaller rooms that house all the memorials and even some coffins.  It was fascinating to see and very beautiful and serene.

 

We jumped on the Big Red Bus tour where you can hop on and off and sat on outdoor top area so we could see well.  It was great – we had an amazing tour guide who was funny and it was a great way to see and learn about all the local famous places and momuments.  It was the hottest day on record this summer for London so we got some sun, sweated a lot and road all thru the city.

We walked around in the evening made plans for the next day and of course enjoyed seeing some of the night-life in London.  We were close to what they call the South Bank area along the river which holds lots of bars, restaurants.  Plus it just felt good to walk around while it was cooler.

 

 The next day our mission was to go see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  We got there early and had a pretty good viewing spot.  It was AMAZING.  So precisely choreographed and the bands were great.  Apparently if there is a flag flying from the palace it means the Queen is on the grounds.  There was a flag flying but we were not sure if it was the correct flag.  Yvonne is going to research the one we saw to find out its’ meaning.  The balcony that royals wave to the crowds from during weddings and celebrations was right in front of us and we saw lots of people come and go in and out of the palace so we had fun making up stories about who they were.  One car had a police escort so we know it had to be “somebody” but we have no idea who…J

We walked back to the Thames River area and jumped on a River Boat Cruise.  It was narrated just like the bus tour so a lot of it was the same but from a different perspective being on the water.  It was hot again but didn’t feel as bad as the day before.  We all remarked afterwards though that our tan lines were far more noticible this day over the previous day – I kinda look like a raccoon from my sunglasses and Nick is as dark as ever of course!

The coolest thing ever on our river cruise was a large cruise ship came down the river and they had to raise the tower bridge for it to go thru – we have some amazing pictures and Mike remarked he had never seen anything like it.

 

We joked that Mike was the ultimate tour guide and we should have gotten him a flag to hold up so we knew which way we were headed.  It was also quite remarkable that he pulled of the parliament member sighting, the especially longer than normal changing of the guard ceremony and finally the cruise ship coming down the river so the bridge could be raised!  I guess it pays to know “people” that live in small villages - ;)

 

We went to a local Pub for dinner on our last evening which was so fun, great food, great wine/beer and especially great company. 

London was amazing in even the short bit of time we got there.  It was so fun to have our friends as tour guides, to visit and to spend our last few days on this trip in a beautiful city.  We will definitely come back here and spend more time exploring the other areas of this beautiful country.

This ends my blogs on this adventure.  I’m so thankful I did this after every city so that Nick and I have a journal of our adventure.  It was everything we imagined and more plus I got to spend all this time with my best friend and husband (all in one)…love him.

Now we are on our flight back to the US thru JFK in New York.  We have missed everyone and are excited to be getting back home.  This upcoming year holds a lot of exciting things for us.  Our daughter and her husband are expecting their first baby boy Atlas Grey and our son is getting married next summer so we get a new daughter-in-law. 

Nick and Barb

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