Photo Blog: London

No amount of photos could do London justice. It just might be the most beautiful city I've ever seen. There is so much history, and so many beautiful buildings. Everyone should go to London at least once.

Buckingham Palace, just before the rain began to fall.

Bridge in Hyde Park

Building in Hyde Park

Parliament at sunset

Parliament & Big Ben in the Day

London Eye

Random House: I happened by it on the way to a thrift store. Perhaps someday I'll work here...

Kensington 

Have you been to London? What was your favorite part? Share your experience below!

Taking the Train in Italy: Step One - Buy Your Ticket!

As an American who had previously never traveled by train, the intricate train system in Europe was very intimidating to me when I first arrived. Now that I've used it quite a few times, I think it's truly amazing! I might even take the train in the U.S. in the not so distance future to compare experiences.

There are three ways to buy train tickets in Italy:

1. Online at trenitalia.it

2. At the train station through the ticket vendors (real people)

3. At the train station through the self serve machines

TrenItalia

There are pros and cons to buying online. Number one, if you're going to buy online, it's best to plan your trips in advance, up to two or three months. That way you can purchase the less expensive economy tickets. You can have the tickets sent to you, or retrieve them most of the time from the self serve machines at the stations. If you wait too long to buy online, only the expensive tickets will be left and they can be significantly higher than economy.

Vendor

Buying the tickets from a real person has an obvious advantage: you can talk to them, ask questions, and figure out how the system works. I did this on my day trip from Venice to Florence, and while I wish I'd bought the tickets in advance to save money, I'm glad I was able to talk to someone in English about how the Italian train system works. For the high speed trains, typically 1st and 2nd class tickets are all that's available at the train station. Economy is the cheapest, and sells out online quickest. 

Self-Service

Buying tickets at the self serve machine is great. You don't need to wait in the long line, as you do for the ticket vendor. Also the machines I used all had an English option when you click the British flag at the start. This makes it extremely user friendly for tourists. You can easily buy a regional train ticket (very affordable) or high speed ticket to pretty much anywhere on the same day, or for a future date. I highly recommend this option for shorter trips.

High Speed versus Regional

Not to point out the obvious, but if you want to get somewhere quickly, the high speed trains are going to be the way to go. They travel super fast, and don't stop at most stations. When I took the high speed train to Florence, the train only stopped three or four times and took just under two hours.

On the other hand, I took the regional train from Venice to Verona, and it also took two hours because it stopped at every station along the way. However I only paid 7.50 euro each way for the regional train, and ended paying 45 euro (2nd class) each way for Venice to Florence. When traveling only for the day to a far away place, it definitely makes more sense time wise to splurge on the high speed. If you're like me, then you're only in Italy for a short period of time and you don't want to spend half a day on a train when you could just as easily be taking in all of the sights.

What About Everywhere Else in Europe??

As far as I can tell from taking the train in other European countries, the process is very similar. There's simply a different website for online purchasing, and all of the stations I've been to have had the self serve machines. In general, if you're able to plan your itinerary in advance, then buy the tickets ahead of time online. Just beware of the sites that charge a premium because you're booking through them instead of the actual train service (I.e. eurorail). If you're like me, and don't care to plan ahead, then plan trips that are short distances and can be taken on the regional lines. When I went from Luxembourg to Trier, it cost me 9 euro for a round trip ticket, which I bought in person at the ticket vendor window on the day of the trip (regional train). I only used the online booking system to find out the train schedule.

I hope this article was helpful for other new travelers.

Travel safe!

Photo Blog: Bilbao, Spain

Wow! Bilbao is so beautiful! It is a little city in Basque Country, Spain and I hope to come back and travel to the surrounding areas some day. Although it did rain, I was able to make the best of my dry morning before heading indoors to stay warm. With a map in hand, it's very easy to navigate around Bilbao. Below are photos of the areas I visited in the day I was there.

Overview of Old Town

Guggenheim

Photo Blog: Barcelona, Catalonia

I spent about 3 days in Barcelona. What a lively and beautiful city! It's certainly international as I hardly ever had to whip out my broken Spanish to communicate. After visiting Alicante and Sevilla, everything in Barcelona seemed wider and taller. It's a wonderful city that mixes the old with the new, and as you will see from the photos below, thousands of tourists flock there every day.

Gaudi House

Gaudi Architecture

Outdoor Escalator to Park Guell

A Gaudi Structure in Park Guell

Park Guell

Thanks for following my journey. Stay tuned for my photo blog for Bilbao, Spain.

Photo Blog: Sevilla

I took hundreds of photos in Sevilla because I was there for four days. Below I will share a few of the touristy places I went. Man was it hot there! It was in the high 80s and mid 90s all week and it doesn't cool down much at night. I learned the importance of siesta in Sevilla, its almost required to deal with the heat. Overall, I absolutely loved Sevilla and hope I can return someday for a longer stay.

View from Seville Cathedral

View from Seville Cathedral

Plaza de Toros

Inside Alcazar

Inside Alcazar

Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana

Have you been to Spain? Tell me about your experience below!

A Friendly Warning: Do NOT Fly on RyanAir

Photo Credit: Telegraph

I wanted to share my experience traveling with my two friends on RyanAir. RyanAir claims to be a budget friendly airline that flies to many destinations around Europe. However, they have hidden fees EVERYWHERE and from my experience, their goal is to get every dime out of you on one trip, without care to whether or not you'll ever fly with them again. I sincerely cannot imagine anyone flying with them more than once. Although I'm going to share with you what happened to my friend on a flight from Sevilla to Barcelona, we witnessed many other passengers on the same flight go through the same thing. Even if it hadn't been my friend, seeing it happen to strangers would have been enough to deter me from flying with them ever again.

Why? RyanAir does not have Customer Service Representatives. They have bullies. 

Photo Credit: Ruthann

As you know, when you're traveling, you don't usually have access to a printer unless you go to a print/copy/shipping shop. Almost all airlines are aware of this, and while you can print your boarding pass before coming to the airport, they can supply you with one at the check in desk.

RyanAir does not do this. In fact, they have a scheme set up to ensure that people who have not a printed copy of their ticket will have to desperately shell out big bucks to get on the flight.

Both of my travel companions did not have a printed copy of their boarding passes. One had saved hers on her iPad to show at the gate, as she had done in the past for other airlines. The other had only booked her flight days before and did not realize it would be necessary to print it out. I had booked my ticket before flying to Europe and had printed it. Since one of my friends had the PDF version on the ticket on her iPad, she was able to find a service desk in the airport to print it out.

My other friend was not so lucky. Although she had checked into her flight online the day before, she did not print out her ticket. When she got to the check in desk, she was informed that RyanAir CUTS OFF ACCESS to printing tickets 4 hours before flights depart and that she would have to pay 77 Euros ($100 USD) to print out the ticket. After a long battle with the check in attendent and RyanAir customer service (both of which showed no empathy and seemed quite used to the situation), she ended up having to pay the fee or risk being stranded in a city where she knew no one. By the way, the flight only cost 54 Euros.

Later, at the boarding gate, the attendants measured almost everyone's carryon. You could not take a purse, if you had one, it was to be placed in your carry on baggage. Therefore, people had to take clothing out of their suitcase, and put it on to board the plane.  EasyJet has the same 1 carry on rule. They do not humiliate people the way RyanAir does.

Overall, the airline left an awful taste in my mouth. Just don't fly with them. You will regret it. I recommend EasyJet or Vuelling Airlines, as well as other airlines on edreams.net.

Best of luck in your travels,

Danielle

Photo Blog: Alicante, Spain

At the start of my trip, I went to Alicante, Spain for a day. I visited the Santa Barbara Castle and took some photos of the city skyline. Check them out below!

Panorama from Santa Barbara Castle

Alicante Coast: Mediterranean Sea (not SB castle!)

SB Castle Viewpoint

SB Castle Viewpoint

SB Castle Viewpoint

SB Castle

SB Castle

SB Castle

I love climbing up somewhere high to get an overview look at a city. Every city in Spain I visited gave me that opportunity, and I'm excited to share my photos with you as I travel along.

Have you visited Spain? What was your favorite place? Let me know in the comment section below!