Best European Travel Web Sites: 2006
What Web sites have helped you plan your trip? What do you like about the various sites? Anything missing that we could add to ours?
Try www.onetravel.com for researching airfares
If your travel dates are relatively fixed, I've found that onetravel.com provides lower ticket prices than other more well known sites. I haven't always gone with them but it's a good starting place to see what's out there.
Mike
El Cajon, CA USA Fri 12/29/2006
Best Website for Walks: Europe Made Easy
If you like to take self-directed walks in Europe, try the Europe Made Easy website at www.eatndrink.com. The free download page has pdfs of walks you can take (with simple directions). You can also buy the cheap walking guides. I loved the Paris walk (and there are walks for Amsterdam, Berlin and Barcelona there, too).
Lance
Chicago, IL USA Thu 12/07/2006
Recommend sidestep.com for low airfares
I highly recommend http://www.sidestep.com
Great website to find low airfares - it searches all the travel and airline sites. Saved me over $200 on a flight last year by finding an alternate airport - one about 30 minutes away but worth it.
traveler
NJ USA Sun 12/03/2006
Low-cost airlines
When I'm travelling through Europe, I use website: http://www.flylowcostairlines.org/
It's a search engine for low-cost airlines' flights and it saves me a lot of time.
Bendie
Europe Fri 12/01/2006
Travel Videos-
Travel Videos!
http://www.travelistic.com
It has the best collection of travel videos anywhere and a great layout. Check it out.
Will
New York, NY USA Fri 11/17/2006
DerTour Hotel Booking site
I just stumbled across this website while searching for a hotel in Munich.
http://www.dertour.de/
I knew I really wanted to stay at the Hotel Platzl, but at 200E per night for a standard room from their own website I knew that was an impossibility.
But searching at DerTour I found the Hotel Platzl for my 3 nights including breakfast and taxes for a total of 476 Euro instead of the hotel's rate of 600 Euro. That's a whopping savings.
The website is all in German, but you can navigate fairly easily...enough to see prices. When it came time for me to actually book I sent them an email and booked it that way. Not speaking or reading German I was afraid to type in a CC number and press the OK button.
Tim
USA Fri 11/17/2006
Best European Travel Web Sites
I have just booked hotels for nine weeks in Europe, beginning in April. I booked all my hotels on booking.com, alongwith checking out tripadvisor.com for their comments as well. And, since we are driving from place to place, I went to viamichelin.com and they have a place on their site to calculate the time and gas costs from location to location. It went fabulously! So I now have every night booked, as well as knowing what the gas will cost and what roads to take... Ain't the internet wonderful???
Sammy
Santa Rosa, CA USA Sat 11/11/2006
Discount show tickets
For discount show tickets, in Broadway & Off-Broadway, Las Vegas and London, try www,broadwaybox.com
TheaterFan
NYC, NY USA Wed 11/01/2006
RE: Search Engines
Kayak is just one resource. It is important to look at all of your resources, INCLUDING Expedia and Travelocity. I just tried to book a flight RT from Denver to Frankfurt in January. Expedia offered a fare of $509, all on one airline, taxes and fees included. When I tried Kayak, they showed I could get the flight for $485, but with multiple airlines. When they took me to the booking website it turned out to be $1134!!! So, don't forget Expedia. Or Travelocity - they offered $514.
Lee
USA Tue 10/31/2006
Search engines
Forget Expedia, Travelocity and the rest, use Kayak.com
geoff
carbondale, CO USA Wed 10/25/2006
Travel agents vs. the Web
There are budget airlines, including Southwest, that do not list their prices on other websites. You can get as good a price at Southwest.com as a travel agent can. I take some pride in beating Rick's recommended travel agent by $200 for a flight to Europe.
There may still be an airline consolidator that only sells through travel agents. That is the only chance a travel agent has to beat a web savvy traveler who can take the time to do the searches.
You can try your own consolidators at Airsaver, BargainTravel.com, AirlineConsolidator.com, and 1-800-Fly-Europe.
Chip
Iowa USA Mon 10/09/2006
Travel agents vs. the Web
In general I am a very big fan of the internet, but I have to agree with Rick regarding travel agents- they really can save you money on airline tickets. I think it is because they can search so many airlines at once. My non-technical roommate recently asked me to help her search the internet to see if she was getting the best possible deal from her travel agent for a flight from LAX to Chicago. We looked at all of the sites that I could think of- orbitz.com, cheaptickets.com, expedia.com, travelocity.com. None of them could beat her agent's price. Turns out the agent had found a good price on Southwestern, and for some reason it just did not show up on the major web sites. Go figure.
Stephanie Ray
Fillmore, CA USA Fri 10/06/2006
Highly Recommended Web Site
I have found www.tripadvisor.com an excellent, unbiased source of traveler recommendations.
Stephanie Ray
Fillmore, CA USA Fri 10/06/2006
Travel Web Sites
Alternative Reservations
During my travels to Europe I found a great website called venere.com that had excellent service, great user ratings and pictures with maps of locations. On this website, you can book all types of different accommodations such as B&B's Town Houses, Residences, and Apartments. I think this site is a great travel tool. You can use this promotional code 9CPGUQT at check out and receive 4% off your order. Super Travels,
H
USA Wed 10/04/2006
Thon Hotels: Excellent chain, horrible web site
We had an excellent experience with the Thon (formerly Rainbow) Hotel chain during our trip to Norway and Benelux this past summer. The hotels were mostly well managed, centrally located, and, in conjunction with the Thon's Skanplus discount card, (which provided a special rate, plus a sixth night free), very affordable.
However, the Thon Hotel website (www.thonhotels.no) should be avoided at all costs. Although informative and aesthetically pleasing, the website is functionally a mess.
Fortunately I made most of my reservations directly with the hotels, which is advisable, but on one occasion I reserved a room through the Thon site with the Hotel Bristol Stephanie in Brussels. Due to a change in travel plans I had to cancel the reservation, so I contacted the hotel directly. The Hotel Bristol Stephanie, showing a complete lack of custom service, refused the cancellation unless it was made through the Thon Hotel website. So I tracked down an internet café, went to the Thon site, spent 10 minutes trying to find the cancellation link, canceled the reservation, but received no verification number or printable cancellation page. Basically I had to hold my breath and hope that the transaction went through.
Needless to say, it didn't. The full charge was on my credit card, and subsequent emails to Thon representatives produced nothing.
For a hotel chain that tries and mostly succeeds at being a cutting-edge, up-and-coming chain, to have such weak internet capabilities is inexcusable.
Theron
San Rafael, CA USA Tue 09/26/2006
Switzerland
I researched and planned my trip with MagicSwitzerland (http://www.magicswitzerland.com). We just came back from a 10 day vacation and we were very pleased with the hotel selection and the coordination of our vacation. Highly recommended!
Felix
Crippa, NY USA Fri 09/15/2006
Places to see before you die
There's a great site I found featuring must see places around the world called: http://www.seebeforeyoudie.net
You can add your own places and photos, rank places and post your comments.
cheers,
Jack
USA Sun 09/10/2006
Paris apartment PARISBESTLODGE
I would heartily recommend Parisbestlodge (www.parisbestlodge.com)to friends visiting Paris. Thierry, the owner, was friendly and very prompt returning messages and clear about procedures. I was impressed with the website and found the information very helpful. Our apartment near the Place des Voges felt like a nice home away from home for our 10 days there. I came with my college son and my sister to visit a daughter who is studying in Paris for the year. My other daughter also joined us part of the time. The price was more reasonable than 2 hotel rooms would have been and it was great to have internet to keep in touch (my husband was in Japan), a place to fix some food and relax over morning coffee, and the ability to do laundry (although took much longer than American machines). Both the sofa bed and loft bed were very comfortable and the boulangerie nearby was delightful. We had a great meal at Cafe Baci a block away, and also enjoyed the Provencal restaurant, Chez Janou, nearby. We used the metro which was convenient and visited several of the interesting museums nearby. Staying in this apartment was defintely a positive experience.
Liz
USA Fri 09/08/2006
Bookings.de great for European Hotels
I used bookings.de to secure rooms in Dresden, Nuremberg and Rothenburg OT on our recent trip. I found it to be the best site for a number of reasons:
1.There are no booking fees, unlike Orbitz and others.
2.You can cancel up to 18:00 the day of arrival - other sites had durations as great as 72 hours or else you would get charged for a night.
3.Excellent wide selection and low rates
4.Great navigation - there is a map that shows all the hotels by icon, so you can easily see where a hotel is in relation to the city center, main train station, etc.
5.It works! All of our reservations were in order for the quoted rates and the hotels were as described in the profile and user reviews.
Steve
Arlington, VA USA Fri 09/08/2006
small tours in Italy
Jenny:
Check in with Context Rome: www.contextrome.com. They do six person maximum tours and the guides are Ph.D. level architects, art historians and archeologists. They also have context Florence, Naples and Paris. We did the Paletine hill last year and are booked for a wine walk, Pompeii and the Duomo in a couple of weeks.
Martha
Sonoma, CA USA Sat 09/02/2006
backdoor tour companies/websites
We are traveling to Italy in mid-September. Can anyone suggest some good (non-tourist trap/cattle herding) tours that can be booked online? I've checked out accidental tourist in Florence. I am looking for the same type in Rome, Florence (town) and Siena areas.
Jenny
Oakland, CA USA Sun 08/27/2006
Extremely Reasonable Rates For Hotel and Airfare
I have utilized Gotoday.com for three trips to Europe: London, Munich, and Rome. Excellent service.
Jeff
NJ USA Sun 08/27/2006
Airfare to Germany
The German Holiday Airline LTU @www.ltu.de consistantly offers some of the cheapest airfares to Germany from a few US destinations. Taking our family to Germany last May, we saved about $170 per person. We did have to make our own conections in New York, but with only one bag per person, even that was easy.
David Christensen
Burley, ID USA Tue 08/22/2006
European carrier-Smartwings cancelled flights
Smartwings cancels many of their flights- do not use them if getting to your destination is important to you! Google "cancelled Smartwings flights" and hit I feel lucky to see how often this happens. We wish we had done this BEFORE b/c they cancelled us w/o notice (they lied about that& took over 3 weeks to refund the money) and left us to buy a ticket on another airline for 10x the price. I'd be happy to hear from others with bad experiences with them.
Klyn
San Rafael, Ca USA Sat 08/05/2006
Airfares
I love to shop for my airplane tickets at www.bestfares.com. They also show fares from nearby airports. If you can travel on Tuesday or Wednesday, you can find some great rates. It's best to check daily with them as they post new fares all the time.
KW
Cataula, GA USA Sat 07/22/2006
Cheap German Airline
Live near Las Vegas, NV or Ft. Myers, FL or Orlando, FL? Try Condor (www.condor.com) for great rates to Germany and other european destinations. Condor is a charter airline owned by Lufthansa and offers cheap flights and wonderful planes.
Last November, my wife and I flew non-stop from Frankfurt am Main to Las Vegas for 77 EUR each!!! Because they're a charter airline they often have great last minute deals to and from Europe.
Good luck and happy travels.
BK
Phoenix, AZ USA Fri 07/21/2006
The following sites were very helpful in planning my last trip to Italy.
http://www.venetia.it/index.htm
http://www.gatortravels.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/19991018211536/http://twenj.com/index.htm
Linda
LA, CA USA Fri 07/21/2006
Uk flight to prague
Last month I wanted to travel from Manchester to Prague to stay with a friend from University. I found this site really useful for getting the flight ticket http://www.travelsupermarket.com/travelmerge/travelsearch.aspx?package=4 a useful site that let me buy the seat online and saved me some money that I used while on my trip
Jane
Manchester, UK Mon 07/17/2006
Airfare
I've spent countless hours searching for flights from the west coast and the cheapest I could find was on www.cheaptickets.com - I purchased my ticket today. :)
Lisa
CA USA Fri 07/07/2006
Cheap Airfare
I found cheap airfare at Kayak.com it's a search engine that searches all of the travel websites i.e. travelocity, orbitz, delta, united etc. you can also choose a city of orgin and select Europe as your destination and choose a month of travel to show you the cheapest airfare if your very flexible.
Stephanie
OR USA Fri 07/07/2006
Cheap Sleeps
www.hostelworld.com is a great site for finding hostels and budget hotels in Europe.
LD
Shoreline, WA USA Tue 07/04/2006
budget flights to Europe
In the past I had found that most desirable flights, i.e. non-stop flights out of say N.Y. or Boston, were slightly cheaper bought direct as opposed to through travelocity, etc. But I just found a new sight, 1800flyeurope.com. The best price I had found for a r/t, non-stop flight to Amsterdam from Boston in december was $720, 1800flyeurope was less then $600 including a 3 day car rental as part of the package price. They saved me over $500 on four tickets. You can also book 3 nights hotel to recieve the best rates.
matt
little compton, RI USA Sat 07/01/2006
cheap airfare
right now the cheapest place to find airline tickets (that I have found) is cheaptickets.com.
USA Mon 06/26/2006
Italy Travel Blog
Amore Travel Guides had great information for our trip to Italy. Jackie Willey, the blog writer, lived in Italy and regularly travels to Italy. The site gave us tips about Italy, train travel and places to see:
Amore Travel Guides www.amoretravelguides.com
Betty
St Pete, Florida USA Mon 06/26/2006
Find must see places to see before you die
There is a new website where you can find must see places around Europe, and even share your experience by posting pictures places you liked the most - www.seebeforeyoudie.net.
Mike
Chicago, IL USA Wed 06/14/2006
Italian bed and breakfasts
I happened on a website in Rick's Italy book that I investigated, www.cross-pollinate.com. They have rooms and apartments in Rome, Venice, and Florence with shared baths and private (ensuite) baths. Each listing has pictures that are accurate, details, and language of host. We just returned from our trip and I would highly recommend this site. The hosts were very helpful, the accommodations in residential areas so they were quiet, and just as advertised. The people at cross-pollinate.com answered all my inquires promptly. I would HIGHLY recommend Ca' Maria in Venice. It is a newly renovated three room apartment with full kitchen (we went to the Billa supermarket for food and ate in for a change) just off the main street that crosses Venice for only 57.50 Euros per person per night. Christian meets you at the vaporetto stop (2 stops from the train station) and walks you to the apartment giving you information about close banks, shopping, local sights... Ciao
D. McBride
Rifle, CO USA Sun 06/11/2006
Flights to Londoon
I've been trying to plan a good trip to England for about a month now, I just found this website that helps me find good flighs by city at great prices. Check out flightsbycity.com!
Dusty
Winnipeg, MB CAN Fri 06/09/2006
Europics
Allright, let's be honest here, Rick Steve's guides need pictures. I discovered to my delight however that you can have a great preview of what you're going to see by going to the mega-photo website www.flickr.com and typing in the name of your destination. The fact that the photos are by amateurs and the natives of your destination lends it authenticity. Play around with it, you'll be hooked for hours.
Bryan F
CA USA Wed 06/07/2006
Valle San Giovanni
Website about the small town of Valle San Giovani near Teramo in Abruzzo. http://www.vallesangiovanni.com
Stefanaccio
Teramo, Abruzzo Italy Tue 06/06/2006
Blog about Italian culture
If you are interested in learning some insights on the Italian culture, check out the blog:
http://www.ItalyFromTheInside.com
Paolo Tosolini
Bellevue, WA USA Mon 06/05/2006
Winter in Greece
Before booking a rental for our Christmas holiday vacation this winter, I visited several sites. (Sorry if these have been mentioned before!)
Our first choices were villa rentals on Santorini or Crete. I spent some time on www.santorini.org and www.greecetravel.com. Both have a wealth of information.
Since my husband's family is in Athens, (we visited Athens two years ago and thought we'd try somewhere new) we decided the islands were impractical, so, based on information on the greecetravel.com site, we looked at Nafplio.
For other traveller's info, I've found that many rentals were closed during the Christmas season, so search early.
When searching for rentals in Santorini/Crete we found www.therightvacationrental.com which had a ton of rentals and lots of information on what to do on the islands. Through them we found their sister site, www.untours.com, which has an AMAZING number of triplogs and slideshows created by their customers. While we were initially looking for a "self-catered" trip, Untours has availability in Nafplio over the winter, so that is the direction we are going.
One of the triplogs on the site is *specifically* about a winter trip to Nafplio: Winter Trip Log
Hope this helps any other winter travellers to Greece!
Sincerely,
Jan Papakostakis
Jan Papakostakis
Los Angeles, CA USA Mon 05/22/2006
Anything missing
Hello one more time from Miranda,
Just did some digging, I think the real backpackers would like a feature like this, a simple list of accommodations in a particular country
...tip-pension-nl.txt. Latest update was: 19.05.2006, pretty up to date...
Miranda
Amsterdam, NH NL Sat 05/20/2006
Best Web Sites
Hello Rick, greetings from Holland,
I'm not related to this one (bookings.com). They offer almost every price range from hostels, cheap B&B's to luxury hotels. Have reviews from guests and the site is in several foreign languages. The features I like is the possibility to choose an accommodations from a map or close to attractions or even if rooms are fully occupied they give you an other choice in the area.
Miranda
Amsterdam, NH NL Fri 05/19/2006
B&Bs in Holland
This link is not well known, but it's
great for finding bed and breakfast deals in the Netherlands. Prices average half what a hotel costs.
http://www.bedandbreakfast.nl/DefaultEN.asp
Steve
USA Thu 05/18/2006
Cheap Hotels
HotelsByCity.com has some pretty amazing deals on Europe Hotels right now. They have a Travel Blog too with some fun travel news.
Chad
Winnipeg, MB Canada Wed 05/17/2006
Wikitravel
If you know and love Wikipedia, then you will want to check out http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page. This is a collabrative travel web site where anyone can access and even edit content on any travel destination. This is what the internet is all about! :-)
Greg
Portland, OR USA Fri 05/05/2006
Travel Web Site
Thanks for your advice. I have started using http://p104.ezboard.com/beuropetogo and I find it very helpful. I like the fact that they don't have any ads. I also like their hotel and restaurant recommendations. These seem to be first-hand experiences. They are particularly strong in England, France and Italy.
Sylvia C
Columbia, MD USA Sun 04/30/2006
Cheaper Airfare
I did a quick search British Midlands flies from Phoenix to Manchester for $688.00 and to London for close to $1000.00 . What i do is use orbitz or travelocity to find the airlines that fly to my destination and then i just keep checking those airlines hopes this helps, almost forgot Manchester is about 2-3 hours to the northwest good luck.
john
kentucky USA Tue 04/18/2006
Cheaper Airfare
Hi everyone! I will be traveling to London from Phoenix, AZ during the first week of July and the airfare is $950. Does anyone know if I should wait to buy airfare, or is $950 about right? Thanks!
Michele
Tempe, AZ USA Mon 04/17/2006
Paris Museum pass
The Paris museum pass can be bought from the ticket seller in the Metro station. It's definitely worth it if you plan on going to a lot of museums and monuments, such as Arc de Triomphe, Musee d'Orsay, etc...Not good for all places, though.
Amy
Montgomery, IL USA Mon 04/17/2006
Paris Museum Pass
Have not heard of the pass referenced in an earlier post. In 2003 I used the Paris Museum Pass (formerly carte-musees). It was worth every penny just for skipping the entrance lines and a clean bathroom.
http://www.parismuseumpass.fr/flash/hp_en.html
We visited some museums we had not planned on because they were covered by the pass - they turned out to be some of the best things we saw.
CL
Salem, OR USA Thu 04/13/2006
Paris Museum Pass legitimate?
My boyfriend and I will be in Paris in early June. He's never been, and we'll want to visit a lot of museums and landmarks. I've found websites such as http://www.paris-pass.com/ which advertise Paris Museum Passes for the major monuments. My family has had troubles with these in the past (false advertising, etc). Does anyone know if this is legitimate or of any museum passes that are good for the museum-hopping traveler?
Thanks!
Chrissy Working
Reno, NV USA Wed 04/12/2006
Prague tours
www.guidingprague.com - good tour company
Jenny
Huntington Beach, CA USA Wed 04/12/2006
Search engine
kayak.com is the best site thus far for finding accomadations throughout Europe. Very simple to use and has helped us secure lodging for under a hundred dollars a night.
Stan Turner
Springfield, Missouri USA Sun 04/09/2006
Live Music & Concerts
If you're planning a holiday in Barcelona and want to check out the music scene, then this site has the lot. Listings of all live music, from classical to punk, flamenco to metal. It doesn't do clubbing, just live gigs, but it has addresses for the venues and a page for ticket outlets too, plus a handy links page for English speakers. I get the impression that it is run by an English speaker, and is non commercial (no ads or pop-ups).
Ed Note: No site was added by Mick, but it may have been the very useful Barcelona Rocks: http://www.barcelonarocks.com/
Mick Ward
Barcelona, Spain Mon 04/03/2006
Bavaria and Austria
www.munichclark.com is a great resource for travel in Bavaria and Austria.
Clark
Edmonds, WA USA Mon 03/27/2006
new email of guide
In your section plan your trip st.Petersburg Russia the guide Alex Aleshetkin has new telephone 79213533091 and new email alexpetrograd@mail.ru instead of alpetro@comset.net. The provider comset stopped its existence.
Alex Aleshetkin
St.Petersburg Russia, Russia Wed 03/22/2006
Independent Barcelona website
When planning a trip to Barcelona, Spain, I came across some wonderful articles in www.bcninternet.com which helped me to choose my hotel.
They seem to be totally un-biased articles which is rare, and we stayed in one of the "romantic" hotels they suggested. We had a wonderful time.
John Moss
London, England Tue 03/21/2006
Great website for Paris.
I got a ton of great advice for traveling Paris at http://www.paristriptips.com. They only give the good stuff: hotels, restaurants, shopping, plus great current events, news, fun things to do in Paris. There is a message board I like to visit from time to time as well.
Bryan
Cleveland, OH USA Fri 03/10/2006
Travels to Ialy
Visiting Italy in Western Europe is a great idea. There are some very beautiful places in Italy which are meant to be seen, e.g. Tuscany, Florence, Rome, Venice etc... These areas are Rich Cultured, Lush Green, Away from hectic of City Life. You can have an Italian Food and Italian Wine Tasting, SPA and Pool Bathing Experience there. Italian Resorts, Castles and Villas are famous for their beauty and luxurious living style.
There are some good tour operators, which arrange customized tours for these areas and have some very awesome packages. I recommend you to consider "Tuscan Way". Tuscan Way is a tour operator which arranges predefined and customized tours for Tuscany(A beautiful and rich cultured Italian Province) and Florence regions. For more information please visit www.tuscanway.com
You can find details on their packages at: http://www.tuscanway.com/default-6_frame.html
You can also make a request for their FREE Tour Brochure: http://www.tuscanway.com/default-1_frame.html
For Pricing Details, please visit: http://www.tuscanway.com/culinaryprogramstourdates1_frames.html
Tuscan Way also offers their customized tours from following websites: 1- http://www.tuscanway.com
2- http://www.casainnocenti.com
3- http://www.villagaiacookingandwine.com
4- http://www.villacastelletti.com
5- http://www.tuscanycustomized.com
6- http://www.tuscanycookingcourses.com
John Davids
Miami, FL Italy Mon 03/06/2006
MadridMan for Madird and Spain
I recommend www.madridman.com for Madrid in particular and Spain in general. Excellent message board as well as information and links on all topics. I have posted questions there several times and have received useful answers.
Steve
West Chester, PA USA Fri 02/24/2006
Two of my reference websites
I like www.guideforeurope.com for a backpacker's slant on travelling in Europe, and www.slowtrav.com for tips on how to travel with a more relaxed mindset and live like a local.
BossyKena
Montreal, Canada Sun 02/05/2006
Italy Hotels
Italian Hotels are available on www.youritalyhotel.com
a very large catalogue
Manuel
Roma, IT ITALY Wed 02/01/2006
Discover Czech Republic Website
www.discoverczech.com
(I'll spare you the obligatory "czech" it out joke)...
I randomly came across this website while doing some research on some sights in the Czech Republic. There is an itinerary planning tool that is really great (free, and you dont have to log in or anything). It gives you recommended day schedules according to the city that you are in and the average time that you should spend at each spot. I found it especially helpful with small towns like Kutna Hora and Olomouc.
Happy travelling!
Leigh Sippel
Charlotte, NC USA Wed 02/01/2006
Bayern-Takt website
People who might be traveling in Bavaria should check out www.bayern-takt.de, the website for BEG, the organizaton that oversees regional rail transportation in Bavaria.
The website, which has an English side, gives the best information I have seen on the Bayern Ticket. It includes a map of the entire regional rail system where it is accepted, as well as a list of independent train lines, municipal transit districts, and regional bus lines that accept the Ticket. The website has links to the websites for those municipalities and regional bus lines, where you can find system maps and schedules.
The website has a list of local rail ticket, such as the Bayerwald or Oberallgäu Pass, which give low cost, unlimited travel in that local area.
The website also has layout maps of every train station in Bavaria, complete with pictures, so you can be familiar with a station before you arrive.
USA Wed 01/25/2006
Belgium And Germany - Beer Knowledge ahead of time
To find incomparably fine beers in Germany or Belgium, ones you may never find at home, go first to ratebeer.com and check out the Top 100 or so for many options.
Germany has several world-class Doppelbocks (esp around Munich) and Belgium offers a 'Beer Route" around Trappist monasteries making beer like Orval, Westvleteren, Rochefort and others of note. Belgium is 'The Bordeaux of the Beer World" and there is also many a Bavarian hamlet with fine local 'micro' brews. Do not miss these attractions if you like beer!
Jonas K
Toronto, Canada Mon 01/23/2006
Houses and Flats in U.K and Ireland
I found a terrific resource in the booking agents at Great Trips Unlimited. www.gtunlimited.com
They book self-catering accommodations in England, Ireland and Scotland, but also have a lot of good information about general travel in Europe. I booked a flat in London and a house in Dingle for my family, both of which my agent had visited personally. I LOVED them both. And the folks at GTU helped me navigate the flights on Ryan Air from London to Ireland, and even booked a car for me! So if you need accommodation and advice, I highly recommend them. I also love the advice given at Fodors.com (though it is time consuming to read through) and the non-snotty advice at Slow Traveler.
Amy Silverman
Berkeley, CA USA Sun 01/22/2006
SWISS AERIAL PHOTO MAP
http://map.search.ch/
This is a wonderful map of Switzerland. Zoom in or out - find trails, buildings, places to eat or hotels. it's all there. Use it to fill out your scrapbook on your return home.
mike
KY USA Mon 01/16/2006
Web travel sites
I have just completed reservations for hotels in Rome, Florence, and Venice using the www.worldby.com website. So far, the experience has been great, but I haven't visited the hotels yet. I also cross-referenced traveler reviews at www.tripadvisor.com prior to making the reservations. Has anyone used these services in the past and have any comments?
Gail
Tulsa, ok USA Wed 01/11/2006
Best Web site for Rome info
I visited Rome in January 2005 and I got my best information on the web form the Santa Susanna Web pages. From their web page I found out about the tours under St. Peter's, the tour was the highlight of my trip to Rome.
Here is the link : http://www.santasusanna.org/ourUniqueHistory/parishHistory.html
Les
Mechanicsville, MD USA Sat 01/07/2006