18 Days in Europe: Our Adventure Begins

Jamie and I just returned from our amazing European adventure, and we can't wait to tell everyone about it!

The plan is to write one post for each day of our trip, so that we can share our travels with family and friends. I'm also hoping to get back into blogging this summer, as I want to share more recipes I've been making and other summer travels... let's hope that happens!

Without further ado, let the story of our European Va-cay begin!

The Planning 

Let me start by saying that we have been wanting to take this trip for a LONG time. Jamie and I love traveling, and travel frequently, but neither of us had ever been to Europe before this trip. Six years ago, we were lucky enough to get to travel to Japan to visit my uncle. We found traveling in Japan to be so cool, and ever since then we've wanted to explore more parts of the world together and have been dreaming of European travels.

For multiple reasons (including the plethora of PBS channels on MIT cable), Jamie and I started watching Rick Steves together about three years ago. His shows gave us an idea of what we wanted out of a European vacation, and inspired us to keep dreaming of the perfect trip. 

Early this Spring, we found an AerLingus flight from Boston to London, returning from Milan back to Boston for only $800 round trip, which we thought was a great deal. We decided that we would travel to London, Bruges (thanks Lisa!), Paris, Nice, Venice, and Milan in early June. 

To plan, we scoured the web, read Rick Steves' books, and talked to friends and relatives to get advice on how to get the most out of our trip. We knew it would be expensive, and we hoped to get the most out of every dollar. Due to our careful and purposeful planning, we succeeded in making our trip a great value! Our entire trip cost ended up at approximately $2850 per person -- including ALL transportation (even our flight there and back), lodging, food, attractions, and other expenses. Essentially, this number includes every dollar/euro/pound we spent while abroad (even including soap and tissues from the pharmacy). 

I researched hotels, restaurants, and some attractions while Jamie researched transportation and other attractions. We ended up being able to find the best lodging in most cities at small bed and breakfasts, which we loved! They were so comfortable and conveniently located. To find the values I found, I searched on international bed and breakfast websites, which I discovered by learning that in France, they call bed and breakfasts "chambres d'hotes". Our lodging costs averaged out to less than 77 Euros/night (approx. $97 USD/night), which we found to be a great value for the locations in which we stayed. It was important to us that our lodging was close to the city center, to public transportation, and to the city bikes, as well as clean, tasteful, and equipped with a private bathroom.

To find the best transportation deals, we bought our train tickets as soon as the schedule opened up (usually 3 months out), and researched which days the plane tickets would be cheapest before deciding which days of the week we would travel.Our transportation costs came out to around $1150 per person, including our base flight. 

For food, we took recommendations from friends as well as TripAdvisor, and for the most part we weren't disappointed. We tried to strike a balance of gourmet and casual meals, while keeping to a modest budget. Many times, we were glad that we had made reservations in advance, as in some cities it is difficult to get in to the most popular restaurants. We very much enjoyed learning about the McDonald's menu in other countries, as in France, fries come with "pommes frites sauce", and in Italy, side salads come with crunchy breadsticks and EVOO! On average, we spent 55 Euros/day on food (for two people) which is approximately $69 USD/day. 

There are so many web and technology resources available for European travel, many of which we found to be extremely valuable on our trip. These included TripIt, TripAdvisor, MapsWithMe, and more. TripAdvisor has an awesome app which we used on our Kindle Fire that has offline maps and reviews of restaurants and attractions. This was a great tool whenever wifi was hard to find! Additionally, after much trial and error, Jamie figured out how to use GPS on his iPhone without the risk of international charges (the trick was to take out the SIM card so that Airplane Mode could be off without the risk of charges). GPS became useful many times when we couldn't figure out where we were on the map. 

The Trip Begins!

Our trip began on a Thursday afternoon in July. We succeeded in packing light, carrying only two large backpacks and a messenger bag! Our wonderful neighbor Kevin volunteered to take us to the airport for our 7:25PM flight. We ended up leaving our apartment at 5PM, which would on a normal day put us at the airport 2 hours before the flight. However, Cambridge was a crazy mess that afternoon and after 45 minutes, we had traveled about 2 miles and were moving so slowly that we weren't sure if we would make it to the aiport in time. So, we jumped out of the car, ran to the T, and put ourselves at the mercy of public transit (praying we would make it on time)! After a stressful T and bus ride, we made it to the airport with 5 minutes to spare for our bags to be checked. Lucky us! We went through security, boarded the plane immediately, and it felt good to be on our way!

6 hours later we arrived in Shannon, Ireland, where we found out that our flight to London would be delayed due to weather/traffic at London Heathrow. After waiting a couple of hours, we finally made it to London, where we arrived at 11AM London time and began our first day in London.