<p>“Speak loudly and firmly, and say gar-son a lot to the waitresses (it means sweetie, but they like it).”</p>
<p>please, please tell me you are joking (garcon (gar-son) means “young boy”
just an fyi [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garçon]Gar”>Garçon - Wikipedia]Gar</a></p>
<p>I forgot about Barcelona - it is amazing. Stunning architecture, museums, great food & wine, nice beaches, and Olympic sites to mention just a few. Enough to spend 3-4 days, then a short train ride to Madrid. (never been to Madrid, however). Only knock, English was not spoken as widely as I thought and while my HS Spanish came in handy, the primary language there is Catalon. </p>
<p>That said, I think there’s more to see in Northern Europe in a shorter time frame.</p>
<p>We found Pompeii and Florence to be very memorable. We traveled around by train in Italy and that in itself was memorable since we didn’t speak Italian. My limited Spanish helped though.</p>
<p>How many days will you have? You might want to visit the United Airlines web site and view “vacations”. You can use your mileage for the airfare and choose one of their vacation packages. These packages usually go for 9-15 days and you can group two to three large cities within the trip. For example Rome, Paris, London. They take care of your hotel, transfers, and intercity transportation. Within the package you can add tours in and outside the city. Though I tend to be a completely independent traveler, I do know that when you are new to a city or any other locale, it’s nice to have a representative meet you at the airport, transfer you to your hotel and set up all your incidentals. That way you can flex your itinerary as much or as little as you want.</p>
<p>Big city fan here. Paris (fab to the max), Rome, London. Visit Rick Steve’s site and you’ll get a ton of wonderful tips for your trip.
A bit of French (even HS level) can go a long way. Brush up on local customs (via Rick Steves) and it’ll be great.<br>
Make sure you make reservations to any big museums or exhibits BEFORE you leave home.
Many popular exhibits require advance tickets (not for price but for date and time.)
Edit: Sorry, going only to Italy? I LOVE Italy. It’s all good.
Rome, Florence, the food. All of it. Still gotta make those prior museum reservations.</p>
<p>Check out Rick Steve’s site on travel tips. There are pick pockets etc., you need to be aware (not scared) at all times. Travel smart and you’ll have a good time. Waist belts are an absolute must. It just goes with the territory.</p>
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<p>That’s a great hint! Sounds appealing. We’ll dig into that more. So far I’ve gotten as far as “Planning & Booking” ==> “Vacations”. (For initial checks, I’m looking at landing in Paris). Not sure yet now frequent flier miles or varying cities would factor into it. But having fun! </p>
<p>Also looking at Rick Steves info. We like his show, and his guide book that we used for Ireland trip Nwas excellent. </p>
<p>I very much appreciated the heads up about smoking on European cruises. We would not enjoy that.</p>
<p>The cruise line I’ve heard of to stay away from, as far as smoking goes, is Costa Cruises. Allowed in most public rooms, lots of Europeans, and they smoke alot. If you cruise and stick with cruise lines like NCL, Princess, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, you should have no problems. They only have a couple of designated smoking area. I’d just look up the smoking policies online if you’re not looking at the standard cruise lines.</p>
<p>Costa and MSC are ok. They have sections for smoking and chain smoking :-).</p>
<p>Favorite tour for motorheads - Munich / Stuttgart / Wolfsburg (sp?) to see the BMW, Benz, and VW museums.</p>
<p>We went on Mediterranean cruise on Celebrity Cruise Line. It was a great time. We started in Rome and had stops at other Italian ports and in Greece and Turkey. </p>
<p>20 years ago H and I did a Bed and Breakfast trip through England and Scotland. It was spectacular.</p>
<p>Hmmm… debating whether to try to include Paris in the trip. Choices, choices. Can’t do everything, and we suspect a return trip would include Paris.</p>
<p>What is the best European trip over Christmas and New years? Don’t mean to hijack the thread - but wondering if anyone has any suggestions for that time of year? thanks …</p>
<p>I have been fortunate enough through my work to have visited Europe dozens of times through 3 decades. My favorite romantic, scenic, relaxing places are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Italian hilltowns of Tuscany and Umbria. Rent a car and have a blast hopping from little town to town (they are very close together). The biggest town I would visit would be Siena (avoid Florence). Lots of amazing food. Cortona, San Gimignano, Assisi, Montepulciano … the list goes on and on. It does get hot beginning in June.</p></li>
<li><p>The Dordogne Valley of France and environs. Can be combined with a trip through the Loire. Also can get hot starting in June but not always.</p></li>
<li><p>The Highlands and Islands of Scotland, it rains a lot, but its part of the charm. If you catch some clear days, its incredible, especially if you like hiking (but it can be strenuous!).</p></li>
<li><p>The Southwestern corner of Ireland: Dingle Peninsula, Ring of Kerry, etc. Rains a lot there, too, but, like Scotland, its part of the charm.</p></li>
<li><p>The Romantic Road and Bavarian Alps of Germany. However, if you are from the South (like my wife) you may find the Germans to be very off-putting due to their abruptness (and that’s putting it mildly).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In all of these places I have found myself saying, “wow, I saw this in an IMAX movie!”</p>
<p>There are no significant language barriers in these locales except for maybe Scotland 
(Ok, also in some parts of Bavaria.)</p>
<p>You do have to drive on the “wrong side of the road” in Scotland and Ireland and deal with roundabouts, which seem to freak out some Americans.</p>
<p>Karen Brown’s and Rick Steve’s guides are my favorites. You will need to do some serious guidebook prep to get the maximum enjoyment from these places.</p>
<p>Our family did go to Ireland in 2003. It was a wonderful trip, so I’ll add feedback in case it helps others.</p>
<p>We went late June. It was very short trip (5 nights)… but the Celtic tours driver/guide was terrific. It was awesome to be in a bus, not dealing with the driving. As an added plus, we were high up and could see over the hedgerows.
<a href=“http://www.celtictours.com/[/url]”>http://www.celtictours.com/</a></p>
<p>We didn’t know there was an option to add an extra day in Dublin prior to the tour. We probably would have done that.</p>
<p>@Matermia: London at Christmas is a blast: mulled wine at an evening tour of Hampton Court Palace, Panto in the West End, Christmas concerts at St. Martins in the Fields (nobody does brass and choir like the Brits), snow in St. James Park, decorations on Regents Street. There are tons of special activities. New Year’s eve in London is a big deal.</p>
<p>Just got back from 3 weeks in Spain. A warning - if you rent a car and drive, the highways are great but the cities - particularly the interesting parts of the cities - are an absolute driving nightmare. After 4 days in Sevilla my wife and I reluctantly concluded that it was impossible to get from anywhere we were to anywhere were going without violating various laws. (The good news is no one appears to enforce them anyway.) I loved Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Sevilla, Segovia and Avila (and the Cordoba cathedral is a must-see.) We took a “vacation from the vacation” for a long goofing-off weekend in Lagos, Portugal. As side-trip to Morocco from Sevilla is also an option, though we didn’t do it. The fun parts of the cities are the “old towns” where the streets are too narrow to drive. Everyone comes out at night (10 PM-ish) for dinner, drinks and general merriment. Spaniards know how to party. Fewer people speak English than you might think, especially in the South.</p>
<p>And it’s warm. :)</p>
<p>Consider looking at some of the trips on this site:
[Rick</a> Steves’ Europe: Plan Your Trip](<a href=“http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/plan_menu.htm]Rick”>http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/plan_menu.htm)
They have some amazing itineraries for their tours. Though I personally enjoyed having someone do all the planning, research, buying of tickets, organizing the best of meals and the best tour guides for me, some people like to do it themselves. I have a good friend who buys the Rick Steves country guide, and looks at the guided trips he has online. They do the entire itinerary that he plans out, and stay at the hotels he recommends, and goes by his good, well thought out advice. Though I’m too lazy to do that, she gets the best of his ideas without the group travel and the cost.</p>
<p>"please, please tell me you are joking (garcon (gar-son) means “young boy”
just an fyi Gar</p>
<p>Je comprend! But she was referring to a waitress, even in the bad old days when calling a waiter “boy” was ok, you would NEVER call a waitress that. Nowadays the French (waiters and waitresses included) expect to be addressed as madame, monsieur, or mademoiselle. Even waiters consider the term garcon rude.</p>
<p>So far I’m feeling like a trip with no rental car. Or perhaps minimal days for a sidetrip that involves no city driving. </p>
<p>The kids will be home next week. Although they won’t be available for this trip, it will be fun asking for their input. We’ll probably bring up some Rick Steves youtube videos on the TV. DS has already been to London/Paris/Switzerland/Germany/Venice on a hs music trip. It’s my turn!</p>