Because once you start, you just can’t stop? Because you’ll want to pop into every single shop you pass for a ‘coffee and a sit down’ accompanied by teensy little cake. It’s not just the pasta that gets that Pavarotti shape going.
In Scandinavia you have the equivalent ‘kondittori’, which is basically a giant shooting gallery for cake junkies disguised as a bakery and coffee shop 
. Long walks or sub-zero temperatures are required to burn off the ensuing calorie overdose.
Minor Advice From A Tightwad Traveller.
Do all your addresses for post cards up on labels before you go. That way the Postcard from Rome won’t be so irritating when you have to fill out the 32nd Wish you were here* card. Buy a shitload of postcard stamps at once so you don’t have to worry about them again on the trip.
Learn the basics of the langauge of the country you are going. Don’t be afraid of mistakes. Any effort made in front of a local will be tolerated nicely. They appreciate the effort. Learn how to say, " I speak lousy Italian and even shittier english…" Meine Deutsche ist nicht so gut. Meine english ist nicht zu gut either. It is ok to mix english in where ever suitable. Life is like a mad lib with charades.
You may want to invest in either two way radios (possibly $40 or so, borrow them as well.) or see if your cellphone will work from Europe ( even if you can only text message each other) in the event you become seperated. Sometimes you can upgrade your cellphone plan for this to work. (If you can, take a charger.)
If you don’t have cells or twoways, every morning you need to decide a meeting point & time in case you become seperated. Wasting hours looking for someone and worrying is not anyway to do a vacation, my friend.
A 35mm with a hefty memory card is your best friend. wow, have times changed. Investing in two sets of rechargeable batteries and a charging unit will save you loads of cash.
The one routine we are religious about when traveling is that we eat breakfast at the hotel ( usually a continental meal.) every morning, rather than scrounging about looking for some place to eat. There is comfort in routine. The rest of the day we wing it. (Take along a couple of empty ziplocks to stuff with the wonderful rolls and breads from breakfast. These are excellent quickie snacks when you need it.)
Make copies of your passport and keep them in your luggage. Also, it would probably be prudent to leave a copy of everything ( passports, credit cards, driver’s liscense, health care cards…etc…) with a Parental Unit back home.
Find out from your insurance what the procedure is for medical needs whilst overseas. While you may not have the heart attack while you are over there, it can make the difference between suffering through the cold you caught on the flight over and going to a local doctor to find out it is a raging sinus infection, might make your trip far more enjoyable.
Avoid the McDonalds et al while traveling. Are you in Rome for a Big Mac or local cuisine?
Most Important: Comfortable Shoes. This is not the time to buy new shoes the day before the trip and break them in on your vacation. Sore feet ruin many a day.
Coding problems in the above post are the fault of the poster. It is not your eyes.
As I suffer from migraines, I highly recommend taking whatever is your headache medicine du jour over there with you to save you the hassle of figuring out the drug store or apotheke just to get rid of a headache/hang over.
[Applauds]
Damn right. Make sure you have worn everything you are taking with you for extended periods of time before leaving and that it is all comfortable and pleasant.
And practice your walking. Pound those pavements.
I was in England this summer, and my ATm card had a $2 charge per transaction for being out of their network, and then I think 1% of the money taken out. For each transaction. Ask your bank/credit union. The credit card will be about the same, but Citigroup is notoriously the highest charging for transaction fees. Try to use one that isn’t a Citigroup.
McD’s might suck, but they have very accessible bathrooms, and in some cities they are hard to find. In Paris, the one on Champs Elysee is reeeeeal nice. Ice in the urinals and everything. I made good use of their bathrooms, because sometimes you feel weird walking into a place without buying/using their services.
I’m a ‘member’ over here, http://www.virtualtourist.com/ And feel free to go there and look for hotels, do a search for the city. Very knowledgeable about the cities you might be staying in.
And like i said, be prepared for crowds, especially Venice. So many beautiful photo ops, but they were always ruined by hordes of tourists. But my 2nd fav spot in the world(behind Paris), don’t miss it.
French and Italian people tend to eat dinner later than we do. Most Americans would consider 9pm pretty late for dinner, AFAIK. But we encountered a number of restaurants in Italy that opened then for dinner, and when we ate at 9pm, we felt like the old people who eat dinner at 4pm here.
Don’t bother taking a hair dryer. I’ve yet to get one to work with a 220-volt adaptor. If you need one, buy one there.
Your cell phones probably won’t work there, unless you’ve got GSM phones.
If someone back home is going to call you, tell them to keep it short, unless they want a nasty surprise on their next phone bill.
Pasta may not be considered a main dish there, but we generally ordered just pastas and got enough to eat.
Just to be on the safe side, I’d take along some OTC medication for yeast infections/jock itch. Asking for medicine for an embarrassing personal problem takes on a whole new dimension when you have to do it in a language you don’t know very well.
In addition, at least in Italy, the pharmacies I went to did NOT have rows of medicines that you could figure out what they did from the pictures and the wording. All the medicines are behind the counter and you have to ask the pharmacy person. So I had to try out my rudimentary Learn-Italian-in-40-minutes-a-day Italian (good book, btw) to say “I need something for my brother. He has a pain in his stomach.” Clerk “[italian words I don’t know] Ihgpoisn jldsfjlk jlsdf or Antacid?” "Me: “Yes, antacid!” Clerk: “He should take one jkhdfh hjkds a day. Do not kjkjh jhkh dsrtvv more than once a day. Jhgdsjfh jhjkhds kuykjbn kshkjh lkjkljlk lkjlkjl iuoretuio klkjlk dsjk. Jkjhkj mnkljhlk kmlkj!” Me: (looks blank). Clerk sighs and rings me up.
Absolutely. You’re not going to blend in with the locals no matter how you dress, so wear something loose and comfortable, including comfortable shoes.
That really depends on what you like to eat for breakfast. You’re probably not going to find a filling pancakes-and-sausage style breakfast anywhere other than your hotel (if there) or McDonald’s. If you’re not much of a morning person or breakfast eater, and a pastry and coffee will hold you till lunch, then your plan will work well (that’s what Mr. Neville and I did). If you’re not a morning person, be aware that your hotel may stop serving breakfast before you’d like to be up and ready to go.
Drinking wine with your lunch is a fairly common thing there. If you like wine at all, you should try that at least once, especially since you won’t be driving. (But if you’re following my plan for avoiding jet lag, don’t order wine with lunch your first day in Europe) You should also go to at least one wine bar (if you like wine as much as I do, add “per day” 
). You will be able to get some great glasses of wine for amazingly low prices.
Don’t order Coke or other soft drinks, unless you really need to. They tend to be much more expensive than coffee, beer, or wine, and most restaurants will give you a really tiny glass by American standards.
Always say “hello” to the shopkeeper when you go into a store, especially in France. They consider it rude if you just walk in without speaking and start looking at stuff, like we do here.
As far as the money thing goes, don’t use traveler’s checks. That’s just one more hassle you have to deal with before you leave, and there are usually quite enough of those. Use your credit card instead of cash wherever possible- you will probably get a better exchange rate than you could with most other methods. Do get cash, but get a lot of cash at an ATM as soon as possible after getting into the country, rather than getting it piecemeal during the trip- that will save on fees and time wasted looking for an ATM instead of sightseeing.
When my wife was returning from 6 months working in the Caucasus and needed a vacation, we did a similar itinerary: I met her in Paris (where she needed to depart from anyway), then took the TGV to Italy. 3 days in Florence, train to Venice for three days, train to Rome for three. Then TGV back to Paris for our flights out. We definitely thought Venice was the highlight, although Florence and Rome were terrific. Taking the TGV instead of flying was a plus—much more interesting and not that much slower.
We did everything with our ATM cards. Regardless of fees, the exchange rates going this route were always better than those found in exchanges or certainly hotels (eek)