Tips & Advice...

Some tips & advice...

Awareness
- ALWAYS be cognizant of your surroundings
- SOMEONE is always watching and often it is a person trying to prey on tourists

Flexibility
- Know not only when attractions close, but last entry as well (applies to British attractions)
- Know what days of the week an attraction will close (Mon-Accademia, Uffizi; Tue-Louvre)
- Plan a thorough itinerary, but be flexible
- We scheduled 3-4 events per day, but agreed to drop 1-2 if we were really enjoying ourselves

Guidebooks
- Frommer's - a good European perspective
- Rick Steve's - the NEW American standard
- Rick Steve's "Mona Winks" - great book for self-guided tours of Europe's best museums
- An English/French/German/Italian Dictionary/Handbook - allowed us to engage 1-on-1 with the locals

Guided Tours/Audio Guides
- Many folks choose this option – this is your personal preference
- We opted out since it is often a slow and time-consuming way to visit a site; plus, we saw many areas where everyone was congregating because of the audio guide; without it, we had flexibility to see what we liked and followup with the brochures later on; also Mona Winks provided us a wonderful strategy to maximize our museum visits

Clothing
- Moneybelt - a must as pickpockets are EVERYWHERE
- Lots of underwear and socks
- A pair of slacks & decent shoes for the more formal events
- North of the Alps gets cool; bring a sweatshirt or light jacket even in May

Suitcases
We had 2 backpacks, 1 carry-on, 2 roll-ons, and 2 large suitcases (1 empty and inside the other for all the souvenirs we were hauling back); this allowed us great flexibility in all of our travels

-- Al