Eurail Passes: To Buy or Not to Buy

As I mentioned in my Paris post and probably others, Eurail passes are a mixed bag.  It's unclear if we actually made up the amount of money that we paid for ours, although based on very rough estimations, we think we may have.  I'm not sure I want to run the numbers, though.

The passes are wonderful for hopping on and off regional trains at will, which we did many times. Without one, we may not have just hopped over to Pisa for a few hours.  It was also nice not to have to wait in lines to buy tickets every time we wanted to catch a train.  Some of those ticket lines were long!

Also, Switzerland has some lovely benefits for Eurail pass holders, namely that a pass covers the ferries in both Interlaken and Lucerne.  Woot!

However, there are a number of downsides:

1.  People aged 26 and older are not able to buy a second class pass.  We had to buy a first class pass, which was over $400 more per person (and that's with the discount you get for buying one 'group' pass for two people instead of two individual passes!).  I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed first class.  It was easy to get a seat because it was so often empty, and it frequently had some cushy benefits.  But not being allowed to buy anything else seems silly.

2. France severely limits the number of seats available for Eurail pass holders.  It would seem it is especially limited in first class.  We were told there were no first class seats available on a train that we noticed was very empty when we boarded.  And first class was usually much more empty than second class.

3. France charges a lot of money for reservations.  We paid 54 Euro (for the two of us) for a 3 hour first class train ride from Paris to Basel (Switzerland).  However, we did get breakfast, which was pretty exciting to me.  We paid 109 Euro for the first class "super reclining seats" on the overnight train from Spain to Paris.  As a point of comparison, we paid 6 Euro for local trains and 20 Euro for longer trains in Italy.

4. Making reservations for future train rides is an extreme pain in the arse, except in Italy where you can make reservations online using your rail pass (France allowed online reservations, but you couldn't tell it you had a rail pass).  As I mentioned in the Paris post, we spent 2 hours trying to make reservations for a Swiss train.  Not fun.  After Austria (or maybe even starting in Austria), we avoided all trains that required reservations.  Of course, that was easy to do since few trains require reservations in those countries.

5. Eurail ticket offices are not easy to find (thanks, France) and sometimes are even closed and long gone (thanks, Spain).

6. The pass itself is ridiculously flimsy!

This shows the front side.  I folded part of it to hide personal details.

Back side of the pass.   This is the full size of the sheet.

The official pass part is two little pieces of paper stapled to a much larger piece of paper that folds many times over.  There's a huge section where you must write down every train you take.  If you don't, ticket checkers may fine you or tear up the pass (supposedly).  This makes sense for those who have passes that can only be used for a certain number of days.  Ours was continuous, so what does it matter?  I skipped writing down a few of the small train hops, but wrote down the rest, mostly for our own records.  Only a couple of ticket checkers looked at it on the over 80 trains we rode.  Not to mention, the space provided isn't long enough for all the trains, so here's the very official piece of paper on which we recorded the remainder:

7.  If something happens to your rail pass (stolen, lost, etc), you must report it within 24 hours, and they will not replace it.  Your only option is to keep all receipts and records of any money you spend on trains, and they will supposedly reimburse you.  This made me paranoid, so I kept ours in my money belt the entire trip, which is why it looks rather wrinkled.

In the end, I am glad we had one.  Not having to buy tickets was awesome.  However, for a shorter trip, or one that includes fewer countries, it may not be worth it.  Especially if you'll be spending a lot of time in France, where reservations are ridiculously pricey, or in Italy, where trains are actually really cheap without a pass.

Popping Over to Pisa

While we were on the train to Viareggio, we realized that it continued on to Pisa and that Pisa is just a short hop away.  So, for our first act of spontaneity on this trip, we decided to just pop over to Pisa and see the famous leaning tower after our stop in Viareggio:

And because we thought the niece and nephews might get a kick out of it (and because everyone else was doing it, and hey, peer pressure!), here I am, holding up the tower:

Paul also liked the Triforce pattern above some of the arches - this goes out to all you Zelda fans (you know who you are... Ryan...):

This is our last blog post of Italy.  It was sad to see Italy go, not least of which for the fact that I understand Italian quite a bit better than French.  If you're curious to see a nice map of the stops we made in Italy, check out our "Where are Kate and Paul?" map. 

Viareggio

This post is for my grandpa, who was stationed in Viareggio during WWII.  He had told me about Viareggio before we left for our trip, but it wasn't really on our itinerary.  Then, I called him from Italy using Google Voice, and he said we should go there.  So we did.

Our main goal for Viareggio was to try to find things that were there when my grandpa was.  We found a church that had a plaque indicating that it was built long before then:

And this shop/restaurant along a road near the beach:

This pier may have been around as well:

It says "Viareggio in te son nato in te spero morire"

Other than that, we mainly checked out the beach.  I don't know what it was like when my grandpa was there, but Viareggio is definitely a resort town now.  The huge beach is lined with reserved areas to which the many hotels have staked their claims:

And finally, a leisurely walk on the beach:

A Roller Coaster Vineyard Ride

The Cinque Terre is well-known for its wonderful hiking paths between the five cities.  However, when we attempted to take one of the paths from Manarola, we discovered it was closed.  After locating the information office, we were informed that only one of the sections was open - between Vernazza and Monterosso.

Trains run frequently between the cities, and our Eurail pass lets us just hop on, so we caught the train to Vernazza and found the trail.  It turns out that this is the most strenuous of the paths - by a lot.  Some of the others are nice paved level paths along the water, which is what I had in mind.  This path, however, was not.  Instead of a leisurely stroll, we got quite the workout.  However, there were some great photo opportunities.

Me among the grapevines. (this is at the very beginning of the trek, before we knew what we were in for):

The city of Vernazza (I love the colorful umbrellas):

The ocean - so lovely!

And finally, a view of the rollercoaster vineyard ride:

These tracks were everywhere on the hills in the Cinque Terre.  We didn't see any actively in use, but a picture of what the vehicle that uses this track would look like can be found here.  Pretty neat!

Beautiful Vistas in Manarola

We spent 2.5 days in Manarola, a city in Italy's Cinque Terre.  On one of those days, we day-tripped to other locations - more on that in future posts.

In Manarola, we had a sea view room:

On our first evening, we went for a little walk.  Which turned out not to be so little after all.  Hiking in unfamiliar locations can wind up taking longer than you intend because you find yourself saying "but I'm sure there's a great view (or some other great thing) just around that bend!"  This was one of those walks.  Here's one view:

And another one - taken when we were happily bouncing back down the hill:

And another view - of the town of Manarola:

Paul also took a great panorama with his phone:

After a delicious and well-deserved dinner of pesto lasagna (seriously must make this one at home!) and lobster spaghetti, we enjoyed the view of the sea at night:

Paul also got a good shot of the town:

Chefs Extraordinaire!

Paul and I are now master Italian chefs!  We took a 6 hour cooking class on our last day in Lake Como and are ready to wow everyone back home with our mad cooking skillz!

Okay, so that might be a slight exaggeration.

On Thursday, Chef Moreno Maglia picked us up from a piazza near our hotel at 10am.  By 10:30, we were at his restaurant, Il Caminetto, enjoying cappuccinos (have I mentioned yet that the cappuccinos in Italy are amazing?) and cookies.  By 4:30, he dropped us back off at the piazza.  So, maybe not 6 full hours of cooking, but a long day nonetheless.

Chef Moreno smushing the potatoes for the gnocchi

There were ten people in the class: us, two Wisconsinites, two Canadians, and four Australians (one of whom was an academic librarian!).  It was fun to spend some time with other folks, chatting, watching Chef Moreno cook, and eating delicious food.

The class wasn't overly participatory, so the only hands-on experience we got was rolling out and cutting up gnocchi dough.  Paul and I both gave it a try:

Roll that dough, Paul!

Chef Moreno showed us how to make three dishes:

1. Gnocchi with a creamy zucchini sauce:

2. Tagliatelle in a tomato sausage sauce:

3. Porcini mushroom risotto (turns out the key ingredients to this one are loads of butter and cheese - delicious!):

The ingredients were surprisingly simple (well, beyond issues like the need to get low pasteurized cream and such, which I'm sure would be a challenge in the US), yet the food was amazing.  The endlessly flowing wine didn't hurt either!

We also had a simply amazing pumpkin gnocchi dish at a restaurant in Lake Como the other day that I will be very tempted to try to replicate.  It's clearly a lot of work to make homemade pasta, but where gnocchi is concerned, it's completely worth it.  The homemade gnocchi we've had is many times better than that which you can purchase in a store in the US.

The Lovely Lake Como

Lake Como is bellissimo!  No wonder so many people vacation there.  Unfortunately, our visit coincided with what locals told us is the coldest spring in a hundred years or more.  Normally, it's 75-80 there, I think.  We considered ourselves quite lucky on the third day when we neared 65 degrees.  The other days were more in the 50s and very low 60s.  It was also cloudy and rainy the first 1.5 days, although the rain mostly stayed away while we were out and about.

We had a lovely view from our hotel room at Eremo Gaudio, a former hermitage, in the town of Varenna:

This hotel has its own private funicular.  We were in a room on the bottom part but took the funicular up to the top part twice for the wonderful views from the terrace:

There are a variety of ferries that you can take to other parts of the lake.  I was amused by the ferries for transporting vehicles.  It's pretty amazing to watch a large bus drive off of a ferry!

On our first full day on Lake Como, we took a ferry to the nearby city of Bellagio - it's a little bigger and has a lot more touristy shopping.  From the ferry, we admired the views of the Alps.  The photo belowwasn't actually taken from the ferry but shows some of the Alps hiding in the clouds.  I think at this time of year, there should not be any snow on them - ha!

In Bellagio, we purchased windbreakers/water resistant coats.  It's certainly been windy and rainy.  Plus, with plans to visit the Alps, we felt we'd get good use out of these.  Also, we match:

I would like to mention that I picked the coat first, and then Paul decided he liked it, too.  He said he was already planning on a black coat anyway, but I think he's just making excuses....

We also found a cute little library in Bellagio.  It's only open from 5-6:30 in the evening (wow, how do you like those hours?) though, so we didn't manage to go inside:

Walking away from the main shopping strip in Bellagio gave us some really great views - of the flowers growing along the rock walls leading to the water (this photo is taken looking downward along the wall into the water):

And of the scenery:

On our second day in Varenna, we took a cooking class, which I'll write about in another post, and went for a hike with yet more views of this gorgeous mountainous lake:

So far, there aren't a ton of places from this trip that I feel I must return to in the future, but Lake Como is definitely my top pick.  Especially if it were warmer.

Also, we've discovered that Italians take their hot chocolate seriously.  That stuff is thick and chocolate-y!  At first, I was kind of sad that they only filled the mug halfway, but then I learned why - can you see the thick drip of chocolate dangling off the spoon?

That's what I look like when wired up on chocolate, by the way (or when Paul uses the flash in a dark room).

And lastly, they have some peculiar tree-trimming habits in Lake Como.  They cut off the large branches and leave only the water sprouts, which I've always called suckers.  However, while looking up the term, I learned that suckers originate from the root of the tree.  These are water sprouts, since they are shooting up from large branches.  Who knew?  This isn't the best photo of it, unfortunately, but hopefully you can see how the very thick branches are covered with leaves from the water sprouts:

Venice, City of Getting Lost

Going to so many new places means that Paul and I get a little lost from time to time.  Google Maps has been a huge help with that.  Paul caches local maps, and we can use those without data on his Android phone.

However, Venice is still tricky, even with a cached map.  Streets make sudden 90 degree turns or dead end into canals quite frequently.  That really just adds to the fun, though.  We spent 1.5 days getting lost in Venice - over and over - and it was great!  Paul particularly liked when we stumbled into empty squares like this one:

Most tourists spend all their time in about 20% of Venice, which means that you don't have to go far to get away from all of them.  Paul and I certainly took advantage of that.

The other fabulous thing about Venice is that it has public parks.  In Florence, we tried quite hard to find one in the evenings, but everything was gated off or closed (and had charged admission earlier in the day). Venice has a variety of small public parks, so amidst getting lost, we could stop and just relax in the sun for a while.  The weather in Venice was gorgeous - mid-60s to low 70s and sunny.

St. Mark's Basilica is one of the main attractions in Venice, so we dutifully took some pictures.  You can see the reflection of the Basilica in the water that is slowly coming up from underneath the square in this photo.  Sometimes the whole square floods, but this is pretty much the most water we saw:

Inside, the Basilica is covered in mosaics with gold backdrops.  You weren't supposed to take photos but everyone was, so I cheated, too:

We also made sure to check out the dueling orchestras on St. Mark's Square in the evening.  There are three of these 4-5 person ensembles at restaurants around the square.  You can pay a lot of money to sit at one of the tables - OR, you can join the crowds moving from ensemble to ensemble as they take turns churning out lovely music:

And, of course, we viewed the infamous Bridge of Sighs that convicted criminals crossed on their way to prison.  Supposedly, they sighed as they took in their last glimpse of Venice.  You can also see some of the many gondolas taking tourists on a ride through the canals.  We opted not to take a gondola ride.

But we did ride one of the vaporettos (public transit boats) down the Grand Canal while listening to a Rick Steves audio tour.  It was lovely to see Venice from the water:

And no blog post is complete without a photo of us.  Paul commented that it looks like we've been superimposed onto this photo.  Really, it's just because the camera used flash - I swear!  We're standing on the Rialto Bridge - one of the three main bridges over the Grand Canal.

Odi et Amo, Firenze

I visited Florence (Firenze in Italian) in high school.  I don't remember a lot about it, but I do remember I didn't particularly like it.  I was curious to see what my impression would be this time.

Turns out, just about the same.

We arrived in the train station and found our way to our hotel.  On the way, we discovered that we were in Florence for a gelato festival!  +1 point!

Then, we discovered that the space above our hotel (it's in a large building) was under construction - not particularly wonderful, but they only worked on it from 9-5, so we were not around for much of the noise.  Our hotelier was welcoming and friendly and more than happy to answer our questions.  This equals out = no points.

Next, we went in search of food.  On the way there, I got bird poop on my pants (my best guess is that I walked into it as it was falling out of the sky).  -3 points, Florence.

Rick Steves recommends a small grocery store near the train station for the quick salad/pre-made foods section.  Clearly, the store owner has caught on and has jacked up the prices.  It cost us 15€ for some extra salty, extra al dente pesto pasta; some pickled eggplant; and two small roll things.  We were also grumped at multiple times by the employees, who seemed pretty fed up with foreigners. -4 points. 

To comfort ourselves, we partook in the gelato festival.  For 10€, we got 5 dishes of gelato, a gelato inspired beverage, and a tote bag (the gelato was redeemable over several days).    +4 points

It's always a sad thing when the gelato is gone.

After that, we let Rick Steves take us on a tour of the city and regale us with fun facts and corny jokes.  We started at the enormous basilica:

And checked out the famous baptistery doors:

Afterwards, we wandered around for quite a while, during which time someone dumped bread crumbs out of a window and onto my head.  Awesome.  What the heck, Florence!?  -2 points

It's not quite as bad as being spit on at the Colosseum, I suppose.  Yes, I got spit on - apparently some teens thought it would be hysterical to spit off a high spot, and I was lucky enough to be right below them.  It landed in my hair and on my cheek.  Lovely.

But I digress.

We went back to our hotel and consoled ourselves with some limoncello that we purchased in Assisi.  Limoncello is one of my new favorite alcoholic beverages.  In fact, I'm drinking some now as I edit this post! (Maybe unwise?  How's my spelling/grammar?)

On Friday morning, we found the food market.  Everyone was super friendly, we found lots of great foods for making meals in our hotel room, and had delicious cheap sandwiches.  +5 points  

Here's a sample meal from our food market bounty (I'm peeling an orange).

After dropping the food off at our hotel, we went to the Uffizi.  This was a mixed bag.  Boticelli's Birth of Venus is truly lovely in person, but no photographs are allowed at all, and a large chunk of the museum was closed.  We saw nothing by Raphael, which was disappointing. And it was rather expensive, given how much was closed.  -2 points.  I did cheat and take a picture of the Ponte Vecchio (bridge with lots of jewelry shops on it) from the Uffizi though:

We went out to dinner.  The plates were huge, but for whatever reason, we weren't given free watermelon for dessert like everyone else.  -1 point

Saturday it rained and rained and the high was 59 degrees.  Brrrr.  I won't deduct points for weather, though.  We went to the Galileo museum, which was good overall, although we both would have liked more explanations of how things worked, not just who acquired them and when they were constructed.  +2 points

Some science-y thing from the late 1500s.  More info here. 

Hopefully, Paul will write a more complete post about some of the stuff in this museum - there really were some very cool things, like the above armillary sphere built when people still thought the earth was the center of the universe.  All those wooden circular belts you see would have moved. Really impressive!

Then, with a recommendation from our hotelier, we found a coffee shop where we could actually sit for a while and read, taking refuge from the pouring rain and cold weather. Paul says, "It was super close and awesome!" +2 points

Tomorrow we leave for Venice, city of expensive lodgings. :)

So, odi et amo ("I hate and I love," in Latin, from a poem by Catullus) Firenze. For those of you who did the math, I think Florence came out with a +2 score overall.

I should probably add a few points for the spectacular sunset we had the pleasure of viewing one evening:

A bit darker:

And of course, sunset plus Kate and Paul: