7 Tips For Touring Europe By Train

by Libby Zay on

Hitting the open road might be the most iconic way to see the United States, but riding the rails is certainly the most romanticized way to journey across Europe. And who wouldn’t enjoy taking in the views as you sweep past rolling vineyards in Spain or ride the rails across water to reach Venice? As you plan your travels across Europe, here are some tips and tricks that will make sure your dream trip runs smoothly.

Plan Ahead: Rail Pass or Single Tickets?
The first big decision you’ll have to make is whether buying an unlimited rail pass or purchasing as you go is the best option for your trip. The former is a great choice if you’re planning to hop around to a lot of places, while the latter is a better decision if you’re not covering a whole lot of ground. No matter which method you choose, being strategic about how and when you buy tickets can save you a lot of money in the long run. Purchasing tickets online in advance is cheaper, as is buying tickets the day of at train stations, but with either option, you might have to sacrifice some flexibility.

Rail Europe, a company that combines schedules and fares from more than 50 rail companies, makes it easy to buy tickets all across Europe. Still, it might be worth your while to shop around and buy directly from the companies within the countries your traveling (such as Trenitalia in Italy or DB Bahn in Germany). Shop around, as it could pay off big in the long run.Get to the Station Early
This one might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t allow enough time to merely get to their train. Be sure to arrive early enough to be able to get your tickets validated, decipher the signs at the station and find your gate. And just because you’re going to a small station doesn’t mean you’ll have an easier time getting to your gate. Smaller stations are not only less likely to have English signage, but some are notoriously maze-like. This would be a good time to point out that you should be able to lift your luggage, as some stations don’t have elevators or escalators. If you don’t think you can lift your luggage up and down several flights of stairs, it’s time to learn to pack lighter!

Study the Seating Guide
Another thing you’ll want to allow time for is checking out the seating guide, which is usually posted at the end of the platform. These guides tell you which class each carriage will be, and where the dining cars or silent cars will be. Even more importantly, you’ll want to make sure the train car is going to your final destination. On some routes trains split in two, with one section continuing in one destination and another section hooking up to another engine to go to a completely different place. Taking the time to look at the seating guide will ensure you don’t make these types of mistakes. If you don’t see or understand a guide, double check with the conductor or an attendant that you’re in the right place.

Pack Some Snacks
Besides packing some things to do to bide your time (an iPod, a deck of cards, a magazine, etc.), it’s a good idea to pack something to snack on during long trips. This is especially true if you are passing through one or more countries, because each country often comes with a different snack and beverage service. On many trains in Italy, for example, free soda and snacks are offered multiple times (even on short trips), but once the same train crosses into Switzerland passengers are asked to pay outrageous prices for bottles of water and candy.

Since snacks vary and might come in unrecognizable packaging, an easy way to ask for something is by specifying whether you want something “salty” or “sweet.” Which brings us to the next point.

Don’t Assume the Stewards Know English
This is a common mistake amongst American tourists, and it is often met with rolled eyes and annoyed looks. In each country you’re traveling to, make sure you know how to ask if the steward speaks English. Learning some simple phrases – please, thank you, excuse me, etc. – can make the experience much more enjoyable for you and the people serving you.

Lock Up Your Luggage
On the train and at the station, take precaution with your baggage. Whether you are traveling with a backpack or a suitcase, it’s a good idea to get a lock for your luggage. You may even want to pack a separate bag that is easily accessible inside your main bag, allowing you to take anything you really care about with you to your seat when luggage is stowed. Sometimes, you’ll be able to place your luggage in overhead bins where you can keep your eye on it, but other times you might need to place your luggage in racks at the front or back of the train car.

If you’re making a lot of stops on your trip, some train stations do have places where you are able store your luggage for a few hours or the day for a fee. This allows you to leave your bags at the station and explore, and the attendants are usually used to English speakers storing things (again, it’s nice to approach the porter using the most-used language of the area you’re in). Although this system tends to be reliable, it’s still a good idea to keep a lock on things and keep your valuables with you – or leave them at home to begin with!

Have an Exit Plan
European trains are known for their efficiency and adherence to strict timetables. That being said, many trains don’t wait for long periods of time at stations – especially those in small towns. After stopping, the conductor looks to see if anyone is boarding or departing, and if they don’t see any action trains can take off within a matter of seconds. With the knowledge in mind, it’s important to note that some doors on trains do not automatically open and require you to push a button (or use force) to exit. A good rule of thumb is to sit somewhere that allows you a vantage point to watch how passengers are exiting the train. That way, you won’t get stuck.

[Photos by Libby Zay]

The World’s Best Gyros?

by Dave Seminara on

The Italians have their pizza, Mexicans have tacos, America is the home of the cheeseburger, the Germans dig their sausages and the French eat crepes. In almost any country there is one ubiquitous food staple budget travelers can count on for inexpensive sustenance. I recently spent six weeks in the Greek Isles, where the Gyro is king.

By my own informal calculation, I think I ate about 30 gyros while in country. I’d hate to have my cholesterol checked, but I’d guestimate that my level went from 210 to about 250 while in Greece. So my arteries might be very clogged, but I had some awfully good gyros and never spent more than €2.5 anywhere. In fact, I’d say the average price of a gyro in the Greek Isles is a paltry €2, making them a must eat treat for anyone traveling on a budget in Greece.

I got sick of eating gyros at times – I even resorted to eating at a couple of crap Mexican restaurants – but if you want something fast and cheap on the Greek Isles, there aren’t a lot of other options. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish one gyro place from another but there was one establishment called Thraka (charcoal in Greek) in Chania on Crete that stood out from the pack.

I knew I had to try it the first time I walked past the place, which is located just past the Old Town on busy Chatzimichali Ginnari street, just down from a pet shop. While every other place had a smattering of customers, Thraka was packed with locals devouring gyros, souvlaki and kebabs. Aside from the cheap, mouthwateringly delicious gyros, you can also get a three skewer plate of souvlaki for €5 and kebabs for a ridiculous €1 each.

What makes the gyros at Thraka special? For me, it’s the quality of the pita, the meat and the tzatziki. And the fact that you leave full after spending €2 is an awfully nice bonus. My vote for world’s best gyros actually goes to a place called Samos, in Baltimore’s Greektown, but like all gyros in the U.S., they go for twice the price you pay in Greece. Check out the video but be forewarned – you’re going to want to run out and get a gyro when you see it.

Kulusuk: Sneaking Into Greenland

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Over the last decade, Greenland has opened up to increasing numbers of tourists. The Danish territory, with new powers of political autonomy as of 2009, inspires adventurous travelers with its extreme weather and dramatic geographies. Greenland is also incredibly expensive to visit, as there are no roads connecting towns and settlements along the coast. To get from town to town, one must either fly very pricey Air Greenland or travel by boat.

The easiest and least expensive way to visit Greenland is to book a day tour from Iceland to the Eastern Greenlandic island of Kulusuk, which is a 110-minute flight from Reykjavík‘s domestic airport. The day trip is not cheap. It runs €533 ($654) though August 20, and from August 21 through September 8 it is priced at €477 ($585). The day trip gives participants a guide-accompanied walking tour from the airport to the village, about an hour of free time wandering around the village, a tour of the village church, a brief discussion of Greenland and a viewing of a folk dance performed by a Greenlandic man, translated by the guide. The tour itself lasts around five hours.

The tour finishes up with a boat ride through an iceberg-laden bay back to a bit of shoreline adjacent to the airport. This boat ride, an inarguable highlight, costs an extra 150 DKK ($25).

The tour guide is an Icelandic man who’s lived in Greenland on and off for years. At the start of the tour, he gestured toward the glaciers and peaks across from the airport and told us that there were countless mountains and lakes in Greenland that had neither name nor number. Greenland is the world’s 12th largest territory, and the guide’s teaser of an introduction hit home just how vast a place Greenland is. The guide also provided information about Greenlandic life and culture. To my neophyte ears, his summaries struck me from time to time as a bit too absolute for inclusion in such a brief tour.

We made our way slowly to the village of Kulusuk. With around 300 inhabitants, the village is a small yet frankly fascinating place. There are brightly colored houses, a supermarket stocked with Danish goods, a post office and a church. The terrain is rocky. A picnic table at the top of a hill within the village permits a gorgeous panorama, which includes views of enormous icebergs. There is also a souvenir shop on the island, manned during my visit by the son of the tour guide. Villagers mostly leave visitors alone, though a few salutations were exchanged.

The tour is offered from early June through early September through Air Iceland. Though expensive, I found it to be worthwhile as a very basic introduction to Greenland. At the same time, I concluded the tour wanting more information about Greenlandic life and culture and craving more opportunities for exposure and immersion. By the time the Air Iceland plane had landed back in Reykjavík I had already plotted a visit to capital Nuuk for a blast of “urban” Greenlandic life.

For passport stamp collectors, this day trip is a special joy. Though there is no official passport control between Iceland and Greenland, vanity entry and exit stamps are offered free of charge to passengers.

[Images: Alex Robertson Textor]

A Conversation With Michael D. Higgins, The President Of Ireland

by Dave Seminara on

Ireland’s president has been a poet, a factory worker, a statesman and a traveler. At 71, he’s still very much the crusading liberal interested in social justice issues in Latin America, the Middle East and around the world. He grew up poor in Limerick and followed a meandering career path that eventually led him to politics.
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These days, he’s an Ambassador and champion of Ireland who wants Americans to visit the Old Country. I’ve been interested in all things Irish since studying abroad in Galway in 1993 and had a chance to speak with him earlier this year about why he digs the Midwest, how his liver survived St. Patrick’s Day in Bloomington, and why the demise of the Celtic Tiger economy in Ireland is a good thing for Americans who want to visit Ireland this year.

You studied at Indiana University in the ’60s and later on you taught at Southern Illinois University. Tell us about your experiences in the Midwest?

I flew into New York, stayed in a youth hostel in Times Square and then took a Greyhound bus all the way out to Bloomington. Everything was closed when I arrived, but the people were very warm, very generous. Bloomington was beautiful, especially in the autumn because of all the trees.How did you end up studying sociology in a graduate program in Indiana?

An Irish professor had toured in the U.S. and was then trying to recruit Irish students to study there. I was accepted at Berkeley, but Berkeley had allocated all of its scholarship money, while Indiana had not, so because I could get a fellowship there, that’s why I went to Indiana. I went in late summer, 1966 and was attached to an empirical based program called the Indianapolis Area Project. I was there for a year and a half. It was a training program for young social researchers. I was looking at attitudes toward religiosity amongst different social groups.

I had good results in school but because of my family’s (financial) circumstances, my brother and I worked in a factory, so I did that. And then I was a clerk and was writing and then I borrowed some money and went to work in England for a time.

You studied in the U.S. at a time when there were a lot of protests against the Vietnam War. Did you take part?

It was an interesting time to be in the U.S. I would have been very strongly critical of the draft, but your permission to study in the U.S. was dependent on staying out of trouble.
You had to be careful. If I was correcting exams in those days, if you gave someone below a C, it changed their draft status. So I would call in students and say, ‘Look, do you want to have another go at this paper?’ It was an unorthodox approach to teaching to say the least.

Did you envision back then that you’d go into politics?

I wasn’t only interested in sociology. Politics might have been at the back of my mind, but matters literary interested me most at that time. I read Allen Ginsberg. I wasn’t used to having to wake up early for 8.30 a.m. classes. It was a huge cultural experience for me, but one that I very much enjoyed.

What did you enjoy about the Midwest?

I played handball; I was brought to basketball games. I was invited into everyone’s homes; there was hardly a day when someone wasn’t inviting me somewhere.

If you were a single Irish man in Bloomington around St. Patrick’s Day you were massively at risk. It was very demanding, but my liver survived it all. I enjoyed the Midwest; I had the warmest feelings about it.

Were you drinking Guinness in those days?

Guinness? Oh no, you’d be very foolish to order a heavy drink like that. I liked to go to Nick’s English Hut. I think it’s still there.

Have you been back for a visit to Bloomington?

I went back as Minister in 1996 but school wasn’t in session. I’d very much like to go back again, but these days I have to travel with an enormous apparatus so it isn’t easy to plan.

In your inaugural speech last year, you said that Ireland needed to re-engage with the Irish diaspora around the world, and you’ve been trying to champion Ireland as a tourism destination. Why should Americans visit Ireland now?

They would find Ireland a great value right now. In my memory, I’ve never seen such values on hotels and guesthouses and so forth as there is right now. It’s also great value because part of the excesses of the Celtic Tiger years has been blown away.

And those with Irish roots can go back to learn more about their ancestry.

By now the original census materials from the 19th and 20th centuries have been put up online and digitized. So it’ll be possible for people to trace where their ancestors came from – even on a brief holiday.

There’s incredible warmth towards people who come from the United States to experience Ireland. And it’s a beautiful country to visit and the people have time to stop and talk to you. With the Celtic Tiger, there was a certain emphasis on getting things done, but now we’ve gone back to the best of ourselves and I very much welcome that.

(Photos by the Irish Labour Party and Irish Typepad on Flickr)

Traditional Scottish Music At A Pub In Kirkwall, Orkney

by Sean McLachlan on


I always feel like a trip isn’t over until I’ve stopped writing about it. My wife feels the same way. So we were a bit down when I finished my series on our visit to the Orkney Islands.

To cheer ourselves up, I decided to share a video with all of you of an excellent cafe/pub/music venue in Kirkwall called The Reel. In summers they have three or more concerts a week of traditional Scottish music. While it’s certainly not the only such place in Orkney, The Reel has become justly famous for its atmosphere and the talent it attracts.

When I trolled Youtube for a video to share, I discovered this one. The concert looked familiar, and when the camera panned to the left, lo and behold there I was in my yellow sweatshirt with a pint of Orkney beer! I don’t remember anyone filming that concert, not that I was paying much attention to the crowd.

My wife isn’t in this shot. She was nice enough to take our son back to our rental apartment and put him to bed while I stayed until the end. Yep, despite the light streaming through the windows it’s actually nighttime, at least 9 p.m. Orkney summer days are wonderfully long!