We went to Europe for about 3.5 weeks back in May. As part of the journey we went on a Rick Steve’s 14 Day Best of Europe tour which was absolutely AWESOME. The tour included Paris, Beaune (France), Switzerland, Austria (near German border), Venice, Tuscany region (Florence), and Rome. We also spent 4 days before the trip on our own in London/Paris and 6 days after in Germany.

Here is our list of Favorites:

Favorite Moment: Gondola ride in Venice with the beautiful musicians echoing off the canal walls

Wow Moment: Walking around the corner and suddenly seeing the Eiffel Tower (for the 1st time) between two buildings.

Favorite Activity: Biking 3,000 ft down the Swiss Alps from Murren to Lauterbrunnen

Favorite Big City: Paris, there is just so much to do and it is so beautiful.

Favorite Small Town: Tie between San Gimignano, Italy & Lauterbrunnen Switzerland

Friendliest People: No one was unfriendly to us, but surprisingly the French were the nicest of all!

Best Meal: There were tons, but the best was this little shop in San Gimignano, Italy that had the best gnocchi I’ve ever had. They also had a wonderful red house wine. Neat little place with only one waitress and one cook- neither spoke a single word of English but loved to smile!

Best Place to Get a Beer: Hofbrauhaus in Munich, no question. Community tables, 4,000 people, great beer in liter mugs, and an oom-pah band. Come on…

Best Place to Enjoy some Wine: Sitting out behind our quaint inn looking upon the rolling hills of Tuscany

If I Had to Live There: Munich Germany, what a great city- lots of greenery, bike paths everywhere, and great beer!

Absolutely Must Return To: Paris, the Swiss Alps, and Tuscany

We are very glad we did the Rick Steve’s tour as it was an extremely stress-free way of traveling not to mention we had a great tour guide (full of great info) and a surprisingly young & fun group. The tour was filled with built-in free time so we still enjoyed plenty of great moments on our own as expected. It was perfect for a first trip to Europe as it helped give us confidence to travel on our own if we should choose. Although to be honest we enjoyed it so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if we did another Rick Steve’s tour somewhere in Europe.

Favorite Moment

Gondola ride in Venice with the beautiful sounds from the musicians echoing off the canal walls

Wow Moment

Walking around the corner and suddenly seeing the Eiffel Tower (for the 1st time) between two buildings.

Favorite Hotel Room View

Hotel Oberland in Lauterbrunnen Switzerland. Unfortunately this view was from fellow tour mates  Cathy & Cynthia's room, not ours :(

Favorite Small Town

Tie between Lauterbrunnen Switzerland

...and San Gimignano, Italy

Favorite Big City

Paris because there is just so much to do and it is so beautiful everywhere you look.

Favorite Place to Get a Beer

Hofbrauhaus in Munich, no question. Community tables, four thousand people, tasty beer in liter mugs, and an oom-pah band. Come on…

Favorite Meal

There were tons, but our favorite was this little shop in San Gimignano, Italy that had the best gnocchi I’ve ever had. They also had a wonderful red house wine. Neat little place with only one waitress and one cook—neither spoke a single word of English but loved to smile!

Funniest Moment

No doubt about this one. The snowball to the crotch in Switzerland, thanks to Kristy on our tour. You have to see the video for yourself, I put it on YouTube click here to view. 

If I Had to Live There

Munich Germany in a heartbeat. What a great city with lots of greenery, seemingly more bike paths than roads, and great places to eat! It just seems to have a great energy to it.

Oh and they have some pretty decent beer too.

Final Thoughts about the Trip

(yes this is really the end)

Culture

We loved seeing all the different cultures and comparing them to what we experience here in the US. For example in France it seems like everyone slows down to enjoy life (maybe too much?!) as park benches were filled all over Paris and diners easily last over 2 hours. In London we found service in pubs & restaurants to be worlds apart from what we are used to back home. The bar tenders weren’t talkative, overly pleasant, or fast. Of course we never saw a single one tipped by any patrons, so that may help explain why. The lack of, or at least lack of decent tipping didn’t seem to affect service in any of the French or Italian restaurants as we usually had really good experiences there.

One interesting thing we found time and again is how we’d hear popular American music everywhere we went. Brits singing karaoke of Justin Timberlake at a pub, Modern Rock tracks blasted out at of a Venetian bar, and countless local German bands playing hits from the 70’s, 80’s, & 90’s at a festival in Weisbaden. The interesting thing about that festival is they must have had about 5 separate stages all around the town center (it was a huge festival) and each one was playing American music however about half the people I talked to at the booths couldn’t speak much English.

Another difference that was impossible not to notice is the difference in eating habits. The Italians eat later than Americans, usually not eating dinner until after 8pm. Although the French eat even much later, in fact our first French dinner was at 11:30pm at an outdoor cafe and the seating was still pretty full even at that late time on a Tuesday night. Speaking of eating, the food overall was so wonderful over there. I felt like we ate healthier, with fresher foods, and smaller portions although the added courses to most meals probably neglected that a bit.

Hospitality

Many have asked us if we experienced any anti-American sentiments and I’m happy to say we received none of that. I can't recall us encountering one person who was rude to us. We did have one man in a bar in Austria that talked about how he doesn’t like George Bush (and he did so only after he was asked) but he followed that immediately with how much he likes America and Americans. It’s possible we were lucky or maybe it’s like the saying you get what you give and we usually had a big fat smile planted on our face the entire trip so that may have helped.

Another surprising thing is that we felt the French were absolutely the nicest people of all countries. I’ll always remember the French waiter we had at a very nice restaurant in the small town of Beaune. We barely understood a word on the menu, and our waiter knew very little English but spent time with us to explain our choices as best he could and he did it the entire time with a smile. He wouldn’t let us feel bad for taking up his time and it all ended well as it was a great meal filled with foods we’ve never heard of before but thoroughly enjoyed. On the opposite end if I had to pick the country that was the least hospitable I would have to go with England. Again we had no rudeness, but the Brits just didn’t seem to open up as much, just a feeling of less overall warmth.

Beer & Wine

Now for some important talk about the beer & wine. The beer in Germany was fantastic and because it is pure (no artificial ingredients) as required by German law you can drink away without fearing the major headache in the morning..simply outstanding!

Outside of Germany though we didn’t drink much beer, no sir as wine was the name of the game this trip. Over the last few months we were just starting to feel our way around wine, mostly we liked sweet whites—specifically Rieslings. Now I’m not ashamed to say we are complete wine addicts as this was surely a life altering trip. The wines in France, Italy, and even Germany were like nothing we’ve had before in that they were always high quality. Everything, and I really mean everything we had tasted excellent and probably 80% of it was dry reds which I mostly disliked before this trip. And let me tell you, we had a lot of wine. Between getting a bottle for most dinners, glasses of wine at lunch, and buying extra bottles to enjoy with our fellow tour members at night in our hotel rooms (not to mention all the wine tastings) we had our fair share. Considering the quality of the wine and how inexpensive it was how could you not, heck it was cheaper than coke in many places. We saw bottles for as little as €2 in French stores and we had bottles of wine at pretty nice restaurants in Rome for €6.

Similar to the German beer much of the wine over there is made under a more natural process and lacks all the additives we are used to which also decreases the chance you’ll have a headache after mass consumption. Many of those smaller wineries don't even export their wine because they want to keep things small and simple, plus it means less regulation. So yeah I’m going to really miss that wine…

This was the most amazing trip and we both fell in love with Europe. If you ever get the chance to go, don't wait TAKE IT and absorb all the history and culture that Europe has to offer. The world is a beautiful place.

Thanks for reading our journal and looking at our photos. Please do share any comments you have and check out the links below to get to our home site.

—Shannon & Jason

page 12 of 12

This is one page in a 12 page series of our Europe 2007 trip. Links to other pages:

London - Paris - Beaune - Swiss Alps - Austria - Venice - Tuscany - Rome - Munich - Weisbaden

Group Pictures - Favorites & Thoughts

Related Links:

Europe Trip Page - Our Family Site