Chris and Pam’s European Vacation

It was six years since our last trip “across the pond,” so my wife and I decided to take another sightseeing vacation to Europe this summer. Our last trip in 2011 took us to Ireland, Scotland, England and Paris, France. This time we decided to explore central Europe and visited six cities in Germany, Italy and Denmark.

This will not be a travelogue per se, like Rick Steves might do. But, it will consist of some personal observations about the experiences we had. We began our 17-day journey in Berlin and then saw Munich, Venice, Florence and Rome. On our way home, we had an overnight stop in Copenhagen.

Overall, I would rate the trip as a success in terms of what we hoped to see and do. But, I picked up a respiratory infection in Florence and missed a lot of the sights in Rome. Because we were at the end of our trip, I decided to spend a lot of time resting at the hotel in Rome rather than risk getting sicker and delay our return home on schedule.

We planned our trip with a travel agent at a local AAA office named Diana. She had planned our trip six years ago and we were pleased to have her help again. We did not want to be part of a tour the whole time, but she did book us on some day tours and a handful of evening activities that turned out to be wonderful experiences. Suffice it to say, I think we will contact her again for our next trip in a few years.

BERLIN AND THE WALL

After a “red-eye” flight from Chicago to Stockholm, we went through immigration and waited for our flight to Berlin. Arriving in Berlin in late afternoon, the airport terminal was unbelievably cramped and crowded. Fortunately, Diana had scheduled us with a private driver for the 45-minute trip from the airport to the center of Berlin where we stayed.

Our driver Kennan was of Lebanese descent, but had been born and raised in Germany. He gave us some tips about things to see in the city and we briefly discussed the situation involving immigrants from the embattled Mideast. He was a very pleasant guy who spoke very good English. The traffic was, in a word, horrible but he got us to the hotel safely.

We stayed at a hotel a couple of blocks from the famed “Checkpoint Charlie” that was the gateway between the U.S. sector of West Berlin and East Berlin. At the end of World War II, the Allied forces and the U.S.S.R agreed to partition Germany into two parts. Since the capital Berlin was in East Germany, the Allies insisted on access to the city and it was agreed to divide the western side of the city into three sectors controlled by England, France and the U.S. while the Russians controlled the eastern part of the city.

A small, white guard booth in the middle of the street is all that remains of the checkpoint. There is a two sided marker with a picture of an American GI on one side and a picture of a Russian soldier on the other. Also, there is a sign that warns you that you are leaving the American sector in three languages, English, French and Russian.

In 1960, the East German government built the famous wall dividing East and West Berlin and it stood for nearly 30 years until the East German government fell in late 1989, the two Germanys re-united and most of the wall was demolished. There is a small piece of the wall remaining near Checkpoint Charlie and a section about 100 feet long still remains in front of a nearby museum chronicling Nazi atrocities during the Third Reich. But, most of the wall is gone and I didn’t see much difference between the former eastern and western sections of the once-divided city.

The commentary on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus stated that more than 70 percent of the buildings in Berlin were destroyed by Allied bombers during World War II. So, except for the obvious structures like the Brandenburg gate and the Reichstag building, most of the city looks much like a modern American city. One remnant of the war that struck me was the remaining portion of the Kaiser Wilhelm church on a street now lined with upscale shops and restaurants. What remains of the tower, mostly charred with the top of the steeple blown off, stands next to a modern office building. Once there were two of these massive towers at the church, but the other tower and the main part of the church were destroyed.

We visited the famed Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial a few blocks away. At Brandenburg Gate, I saw dozens of police on patrol and several German soldiers in combat fatigues carrying automatic rifles. We saw similar security throughout our trip at places where crowds of tourists gathered and at airports and train stations.

Before we left the U.S., I checked online to see if the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra would be performing while we were in Berlin. I purchased a couple of tickets online and we heard a wonderful performance of a Mendelsohn violin concerto and selections from Prokofiev’s ballet “Romeo and Juliet” our second evening in Berlin.

I am not an expert on classical music, but I am a fan of the Cleveland Orchestra and we hear them several times each summer. Cleveland is very proud of its acclaimed ensemble, but the Berlin Orchestra was just sensational. It was a great evening of music.

ON TO MUNICH

Next stop was Munich, roughly 300 miles south of Berlin. We wanted to take the train to see more of the countryside, but the train tickets between Munich and Berlin were nearly twice the price of tickets of discount airline Berlinair. I was prepared for the worst on this airline based on online comments, but the plane was clean and the flight crew was professional and courteous.

Munich’s airport was modern and spacious compared to Berlin’s Tegel airport. But, it took us about an hour to get to our hotel because the airport is about 40 kilometers (24 miles) north of the center of the city.

Unlike American cities, the European cities we have encountered do not have freeway-type highways going directly to the center of the city. Residents who live outside the center of European cities and work in the central business district are much more likely to use mass transit—buses or trains—to commute to and from work because driving downtown is more time consuming than in most American cities.

Munich was much more charming than Berlin, even though a tour guide said 70 percent of the city had been damaged by bombing in World War II. He pointed out that restoring war-damaged older buildings was very important to the post-war recovery of Munich. I could see shrapnel marks and patches on the side of a few stone government buildings we passed.

Our hotel was located in the heart of the city. Nearby was a several-block-long pedestrian shopping area nearby where we saw a string quartet busking for money. We also saw dozens of policemen surrounding an anti-Muslim demonstration in front of a Catholic church. There was a big poster with a star and crescent symbol of the Muslim faith covered with a red circle and slash mark. Below the this it said: “No Danke!” or “no thanks” in German.

We visited the Bavarian National Art museum and nearby Englisher Park—a city park larger than New York’s Central Park. We had dinner at the famed Hofbrauhaus followed by a night-time walking and bus tour of the city. We went to the top of the Olympic Tower for a fascinating view of the city at night.

And while our tour guide mentioned prominent landmarks of the 1972 Olympic venue in great detail, there was no mention at all of of the massacre of eleven Israeli Olympic athletes and a German police officer by Palestinian terrorists that gripped the world at the time. Pam and I found that omission a little odd.

THE TRAIN TO VENICE

I had wanted to travel between cities by train for a more European experience and our next three intercity trips were by rail. The train ride from Munich to Venice took more than six hours and was very pleasant for the most part. The train was clean, fairly comfortable and sped along the tracks at about 90-100 miles per hour for most of the trip.

While on the train, Pam and I struck up a conversation with a German woman named Julia. She teaches English and German to students in grades 5-12 and she and Pam immediately hit it off. While I watched wonderful mountainous scenery, the two of them discussed education at length—an international seminar on classroom instruction of sorts.

About an hour from Venice, we needed to switch trains at Verona. We only had about 20 minutes for the transfer. The Verona train station was older and you accessed other platforms by underground passageways. We had two large suitcases and carry on bags, so we looked for the elevator to take us to underground passage between the tracks. The only elevator we saw was very small—tiny elevators being the rule in Europe it seems—and there was a line of about a dozen people waiting to use it.

So, I had to carry each heavy suitcase individually to the bottom of the stairs while Pam kept watch on the rest of our luggage. Then, we proceeded to the next stairway to get to the next train platform and I had to carry each suitcase up the stairs. Now I know why they call it luggage.

The Verona to Venice train was more like a commuter train and it stopped several times during the one-hour trip. When we finally made it to the central Venice station, it was a “seething madhouse” to quote a phrase I learned from my mother. As we made our way to the front of the station we found a pretty chaotic scene.

The central area of Venice, where most tourists visit, is an island. And once on the island, the only wheeled vehicles allowed are pushcarts. There are no trucks, cars, motorcycles or even bicycles allowed. You can cross one of several footbridges to get onto the island, but to complicate matters, nearly all the footbridges have steps leading up and then down the other side.

In front of the station, a man with a pushcart offered to take our luggage to our hotel for 35 Euros—about 40 U.S. dollars. I wanted take the vaporetti, a water bus that had a stop close to our hotel. But he literally chased us across the plaza to the place where you purchase tickets for the water bus.

The water bus tickets were going to cost 15 Euro and I had no idea how far our water bus stop was from our hotel, or how many bridges we would have to cross. My back was aching from lugging our luggage on and off the two trains and the two “ungentle” stairways in Verona. So, I finally relented and he loaded our suitcases on his cart. The cart had large soft rubber wheels on the back and the front wheels were on extensions that stuck out the front of the cart. When we reached the first bridge, I saw the reason for this odd design.

At each bridge, he pushed down on wheel-barrel like handles on the rear of the cart and put the front wheels on a step. For each step, he repeated this procedure allowing the cart to go up and down steps with some effort. Pam and I estimated he crossed about a dozen bridges this way during the half hour it took to get to our hotel. We did get to see a lot of the city during this walk and he certainly earned his money.

Venice is a unique tourist venue that was a very interesting attraction. We went on a guided walking tour of the city, a tour of the Doge’s palace and saw St. Mark’s church. Since medieval times, Venetian nobles and merchants would select a leader called the Doge and he was responsible for the governing the city. This was a lifetime appointment and the Doge and his family moved into a remarkable palace complex at the center of the city.

No vehicles are allowed in Venice because the alleyways between the buildings are very narrow and, as I mentioned before, the bridges over the canals have steps on both sides. So, the only way to get around is by foot and the twisting, and turning alleyways and the numerous foot bridges make it easy for a new visitor to get lost.

Another interesting thing about Venice is that it is incredibly crowded for most of the day and into the evening. At times it was difficult to walk along some of the passages between buildings because of the crowds. Since we have returned home, I’ve read several articles about how Venice residents are upset about the crowding, especially because it has a port capable of handling large cruise ships and thousands of these tourists arrive every day. They clog the city’s streets, but they also spend a lot of money in the city’s shops and restaurants. Tourism to Venice is worth hundreds of millions of Euros each year.

The future for this island city isn’t very bright: its population is declining as younger people move to the mainland for more opportunity and older residents die off. Also, most of the city is built on wooden pilings that are several centuries old and the city is literally sinking. And, over the last few decades, the level of the sea around the city is rising. Most experts agree that Venice could become uninhabitable in less than a century.

In addition to the crowds, Venice is more expensive than the mainland. Our hotel, rated as a three-star facility, was the most expensive hotel on our trip. For me, Venice is like Las Vegas here in the U.S. You ought to see it if you have the opportunity, but you probably won’t want to stay there too long. 

While in Venice, we did go on a gondola ride, which was nice. But, I wouldn’t want to fall in the fetid water of the canals. Riding a flat-bottomed gondola in the canals was okay. But, when we ventured out into the Grand Canal, wakes from passing power boats, water taxis and the vaporetti rocked our gondola a lot.

We visited in early June, and our travel agent had warned us against visiting in July or August because of the heat and humidity and the odor of the canal water during the warmest months. We shared our gondola with an Indian couple and their two teenage sons. We had a very interesting discussion about language and the ethnic divisions in India caused by its 22 distinct ethnic regions.

After two nights, it was time to head for the train station and continue our journey. Because of the confusing array of streets and bridges and my aching back, at the hotel we hired a porter with a cart to take our luggage to the vaporetti station. That cost 20 Euro and two tickets on the vaporetti cost 15 Euro. So it was the same amount coming and going.

FLORENCE: A CITY OF ART, MUSIC AND WINE

Our train ride to Florence took about two hours and most of the scenery was rather unremarkable until we got close to that city. Flat farmland changed into hilly terrain dotted with distinctive rows of vineyards all over the landscape. The Florence train station was large and modern and the train was comfortable and clean.

The Monna Lisa hotel in Florence was our favorite. It was actually a combination of a couple of buildings, hundreds of years old. The entrance was a single door on a narrow and busy street, but once inside the lobby, you saw that the hotel had a rather spacious courtyard with a covered patio off the dining room. It was a very pleasant place to relax and eat breakfast each day.

We were only about a five-minute walk from the church of Santa Maria topped by the famous Il Duomo. Other prominent tourist attractions such as art galleries were all within walking distance. We visited the Accademia Museum, which houses Michelangelo’s famous sculpture “David.” In this renowned sculpture, David’s muscular body is portrayed in the nude and this 15-foot tall sculpture is displayed on a pedestal about eight feet tall.

Two things about this very public display of David’s genitals: First, after looking at the statue for a while, I started looking at women looking at the statue. I don’t want to sound like a pervert, but some of the expressions on their faces were very interesting. Second, in several souvenir shops in both Florence and Rome, you could buy a pair of athletic shorts with the red, white and green stripes of Italy’s flag. At the appropriate location on the front of the shorts, there was an image of David’s genitalia superimposed.

Florence was our favorite city on the trip. The city center was unscathed by war so it retained its historical flavor.

My two favorite tours of the trip took place while we were in Florence. One evening, we met a group of about a dozen people at a restaurant and had dinner with tomato bruschetta on garlic toast, pasta and chicken and, for desert, tiramisu topped with chocolate shavings. Then we walked about a block to St. Mark’s Anglican church for a concert of opera selections. The 16^th century building was once owned by Machiavelli.

There were two singers, the man dressed in a tuxedo and a woman dressed in a long, formal gown plus another tuxedo-clad man playing the piano. The singers performed selections from well-known operas such as “Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro.” and the pianist played a couple of solos including “Clare De Lune,” one of my mom’s favorite songs. The hour and a half long concert was a real treat.

While in Florence, we also went on a day-long bus tour of the Tuscan countryside that included stops in three villages and two wineries. At both of the wineries, we tasted four different wines and heard a presentation by the vintners on the process that went into making each wine. The day was capped by dinner in the small town of San Donato at the La Toppa restaurant. Our group had a private room and it was fun talking with others that included a couple from Arizona, she was a professor at Northern Arizona University and he was retired; a mother and her daughter from Shanghai, China; and, a family group from Virginia that was celebrating the marriage of their daughter. It was a long, fun day and we didn’t get back to the hotel until almost midnight.

ON TO ROME

The train ride from Florence to Rome was uneventful, although I think we were ripped off by the taxi driver who took us to our hotel from the train station. He charged us about 10 Euro more than the taxi fare estimator app I had said it should. But, what can you do.

The Residenza Antica was located in central Rome on a very busy street. The building was said to be about 300 years old and the check-in desk was on the second floor. The elevator was very tiny and could only hold two people or one person with two large suitcases. The elevator in our hotels in Venice and Munich also were tiny—probably because they were added later to older buildings.

Also, in all three Italian cities, we were charged a local hotel tax, even though our rooms were pre-paid. It wasn’t a lot, about seven or eight Euro per night, but the hotel in Rome wanted to be paid in cash, while the others accepted a charge card.

Speaking of small things like elevators, the bathrooms and especially the showers in each hotel were tiny when compared to an American hotel. The shower stall in Venice was so small that I could barely raise my arms above my head. And, as we had observed on our last European trip, wash cloths are non-existent.

The last couple of days in Florence, my nose started to run frequently, I started to get a cough and I felt like I was getting sick. By the time we arrived in Rome, I knew I had a full-blown upper respiratory infection. Because of my asthma and having had pneumonia a few times, I decided to pretty much shut down tourism activities and rest at the hotel as much as possible to avoid being hospitalized. At this point, I just wanted to go home.

Getting sick meant I missed most of the attractions in Rome. I was able to ride the complete circuit of the Hop-On Hop-Off bus and see many sites from the bus. But, the biggest disappointment of the trip was missing the tour of the Vatican including the Sistine Chapel, St. Peters, etc. We had purchased a guided tour with skip-the-line tickets, but I decided that five hours on my feet would be too much. So, we skipped the tour.

Because of our hotel’s central location, Pam was able to do some sightseeing and shopping while I rested at the hotel. The famous Trevi Fountain was only a couple of blocks away and that meant plenty of shops for her to visit. She also found a small grocery store, and we were able to get some snacks and breakfast bars—helpful because this was the one hotel on our trip that did not provide breakfast.

We had also booked a tour of the Coliseum and Pallatine Hill and the Forum. Because there was a pickup at the hotel for that tour, we agreed Pam should go by herself. She could then come back to the hotel on the Hop On bus which had a stop about two blocks away. After she returned, Pam said I would have had a terrible time on this tour that was all outside in 90-degree heat with the polluted air of central Rome.

There were plenty of restaurants nearby so we did go out for meals and at night we watched the third and final season of “Bloodline” on Netflix on my computer in our hotel room. There was a TV in the room, but nearly all the channels were Italian. The office of the newspaper Il Mesengere was directly across the street and from our third floor window, I could see the reporters and editors working at computers late into the night.

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN

Finally, it was time to head home. Diana, our travel agent, had arranged for a driver to pick us up and take us to Leonardo DaVinci International Airport. Rome’s traffic at nine in the morning was pretty horrendous and it took us about an hour to navigate the 30 kilometers from central Rome to the airport.

Rome’s airport was a decent size with pretty good amenities and we made it through security and boarded our flight to Copenhagen. In order to qualify for lower-priced airline tickets, we would have to stop overnight in Denmark’s capital. So, with the cost of the hotel and a couple of meals, we probably didn’t save much money, but we got to see another city.

Our hotel was in the city center and it was pretty nice, except that our room was at the very back of the building. Again, this hotel was actually a couple of older buildings that had been linked together. Getting to and from our room required navigating a stairway of about 9 steps while carrying luggage both to and from the room. The room was pretty small, but at least the bath had a full size tub and shower.

By the time we checked in and went out to find a restaurant, it was about six o’clock in the evening but the sun was still pretty high in the sky. However, it was decidedly cooler with temperatures in the 60s, while in Rome it was near 90 each day. We ate at a pub-type restaurant near the hotel and spent the next couple of hours walking around central Copenhagen. We passed the famous Tivoli Gardens, but didn’t go in because I wasn’t feeling up to it.

I had a craving for a decent cup of coffee because that was hard to find in Italy. Their version of Caffee Americano was espresso made in a large cup with hot water and cream added. It was okay, but not great. So, as we passed a large plaza in front of City Hall, Pam saw it—a Starbucks sign!

A PRECURSOR OF HOME

The barrista was an attractive, 20-ish blonde woman (Imagine that in a Scandinavian country!) who spoke like an American from the Midwest. I commented on her English and she said she had spent five years in Kansas attending college. Hearing her voice and tasting the large Pike Place coffee were great reminders of home and fortified me enough to walk a little longer to see more of the city.

One other thing I noticed in Copenhagen was the large number of bicycle riders all over the place. Our driver who picked us up at the airport said bicycling is very popular even in the winter due to high cost of gasoline, cars and taxes. He said about half of the residents of Copenhagen didn’t own cars.

There were well-marked separate bike lanes parallel to major downtown streets and highways and large bike racks all over the place. This added exercise might be one reason why people from Scandinavian countries have some of the longest life expectancy rates in the world.

Although we were out past 9PM, it was still plenty light outside because sunset wasn’t until almost 10PM. But, we needed to get back to the hotel because we were being picked up at 6:30 the next morning to catch our flight home.

The next morning, we awoke a little after 5AM and I noticed it was already very light outside because sunrise was about 4AM. We had an excellent but rushed breakfast at our hotel. Our driver took us to the airport, but we still had a couple of hours to wait for our flight.

The flight home was decent. SAS does a pretty good job and the seats on the Airbus 340 were comfortable. Our flight arrived in Newark about an hour early and we had to sit on the tarmac for 15 minutes or so until a gate opened.

Newark airport was very crowded and seemed like a hodge-podge that wasn’t very attractive. As usual, our United flight to Cleveland was an hour late and we almost missed our ride with Cathy, a friend who drives for Uber. We arrived home and were pleased that Brian had left the house in good shape. While we were in Germany and Italy, he was in France and England, so the house was unoccupied for a couple of weeks.

When I arrived home, I had a cough, a runny nose, a thick stack of charge card receipts and a suitcase full of dirty clothes. But I was home with my bed, a decent sized shower and more appreciation for the amenities of home.