European Travel in Aug-Sept

Sounds good to me. Plus dag and nimh are around there, both of whom I'd just about dissolve to meet.

A good (sort of) friend was a kid in Vienna in pre war years, in a family that moved the grand piano for the summer, to the summer house. He ended up in the netherlands, his father having died, perhaps fortuitously since he was jewish, with his catholic mother, and took only industrial type classes (I don't have the right word for those).

I can only recommend again the book by Claudio Magris, Danube, for specifics along the river - but of course others here know much more than I do.

I'm interested in the notion of renting a car. How hard would it be? What kinds of logistical things would I need to plan for when crossing borders with a rented car, etc? I think I could see a lot more places like this, and it would put a unique spin on things.

As for cities, I'm mostly interested in people. Museums are great, but the treasures of all my travels have been the people I meet. I'll probably use couchsurfing.net to secure logging when I can. It could potentially help with the language barrier as well.

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Rent a car?
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April, May, October, generally pleasant - but late Feb early March was when there were less or almost no tourists and we had the best rooms in pensiones and waiters remembered us next time in small trattorias, and we got to go through Villa Lante, us and the guide, who whined about the wind, and when tucking into a caffe at 6 a.m. had the hod carriers gathering for their wakeup slug of grappa.

You guys going to give us a clue what you are talking about?

renting a car : many cars are still " stickshift " - i believe ; are you ok with that ?

crossing borders : most borders within europe have disappeared .
i believe you can cross from germany into belgium into france , into italy - without stopping for border control .

details from walter and any up-to-date travel book .

I took bus tours three times in my life.
To see wildflowers in california; I got nauseated (back of bus) and highly irritated. That was the last time.
To go to Chichicastenango in Guatemala. Worth it. I suppose the market a cultural mixed bag, re tourists, plus there were goosestepping soldiers that year, which I then didn't comprehend.
A trip to Tenochtitlan (sp) near Mexico City, the bus not my idea. Well, it wasn't for Chichi either, but I couldn't have gotten up there by myself.

You can put me down for anti tour.

I might substitute Torino for Milano. I train changed there, and have family associates there, but never stopped and looked around, in part avoiding the family associates. Still, check it out.

on car rentals - I think the biggest question would be parking in cities - availability and affordability

That was a movie, but I forget the title. Probably, If it's Tuesday, it must be Brussels - but maybe it wasn't the title. Comedy, guessing the early sixties.

We rented a car in Firenze to tool around tuscany, back before it was this glom magnet.
A friend rented a car right out of the milan airport, what a bath of live or die driving for her. On the other hand, if you live, you get it. I found it useful to watch italians drive first. They are pretty swift and watchful, and I didn't take them as generally bad at all. But, you can be a toad in the road - don't jerk around, they see you and predict where you are going.

Couch surfing relatively recent - I haven't done it, but I've seen a lot of positives about it. (I follow travel websites.)

i came close - but no cigar !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_It's_Tuesday,_This_Must_Be_Belgium



where is art ?

And in a village, you just pull up. So you pick your choices.

Ha, I knew that, I just forgot..

But back to Milan or Torino, I don't think those should be first choices, fine as they may be.

I can drive a stick shift car. My car is a stick shift. I've also driven on both sides of the road if that becomes an issue.

Couch surfing is fun. I've couch surfed with the amazing Barry the Mod, and the charming Pentacle Queen. In addition to people I pseudo knew, I also stayed with strangers. Very fun. Better than hostels.

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I suppose couch surfing can go wrong (oh, wait, the next best seller) but I've read about it as generally going well. It is perhaps more of a sane move for a lone man than a lone woman, depending on the lone woman's karate ability. While I snort about that, I take it there is a good community re couch surfers.

Think I can do it in two weeks in a car: Euro road trip??

I can get cheap flights into Berlin from Washington.

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They've both been accused of being the other by someone in the political threads...that's what they are referring to and why Cyclo was so joyous about the news that he (Cyclo/Failures) would be doing some traveling.

When BBB, my brother and I went to Scandinavia, we had a car at our disposal for traveling all over Sweden before having it shipped to the states.

If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. If you don't have a lot of time and aren't physically able to do a lot of walking, a tour bus is the next best thing.