Traveling in Europe: Transportation

One of the questions I get asked about a lot is transportation around Europe. I know everyone has their preferred way to travel, but I wanted to give my opinion on the three major ways to travel around Europe.

1. Train- Before I moved to Europe I thought I'd be taking the train a lot. Not so. Train travel has it's advantages, you don't have to show up hours before in order to check in, you can take large bags on the train without having to worry about weight restrictions or liquids. However, I find train travel incredibly expensive, unless I'm going a short distance. I take the train to Venice a lot, because it's a mere 4.00 Euro from my nearest stop, but taking it to Rome or even Florence can be quite pricey. Not to mention if you're taking it country to country, I just couldn't justify the price of most train rides to make it my regular mode of travel.

In case you didn't know, use this website for train travel in Italy: www.trenitalia.com



2. Plane- Probably my favorite way to travel around Europe. For our upcoming trip we spend around $500 for a total of seven flights for 2 people. That's ridiculously cheap in my opinion. I normally use EasyJet or RyanAir to travel, but I will say that EasyJet is my favorite of the two. On our trip we are also going to be using Vueling, so I'll have to give my opinions on that airline after the trip. If you book far enough ahead of time for one of the cheaper airlines like EasyJet you can score some amazing deals. The longer you wait the more expensive it is and can also sell out. I'm not a fan of the restrictions on bags on the cheap airlines though. On EasyJet you are limited to one item only. That means no carry-on and a purse. It's strictly one item.

3. Car- I love exploring Europe by car. I recommend avoiding the large cities if you are driving by car though. It's way too crazy for this girl to drive in European large cities (minus Munich, I found it quite easy). For the countryside and smaller towns, driving is perfect. You get to see a bit of the land, haul as many bags as you want and in our case, take Boomer. Another plus is if you drive in Italy you have the delicious AutoGrills to stop at. Seriously, I wish AutoGrills existed in the States, they are soooo much better than truck stops. The downsides to driving are of course the ridiculous gas prices and the tolls. Italy has expensive tolls. Austria has the toll vignette you must buy, plus tolls. Slovenia has a vignette, but it's probably the best bargain of all. I've been told that some countries look for you to have an International Driver's license, but I've yet to see one required.

If you have any questions about anything I mentioned in this post, feel free to e-mail me!

Just in time for Halloween!

I wish I were talking about some faboulous Halloween costume I came up with, but I have not and oh crap I haven't ordered one either. Great...

On a trip to Venice the other day with friends I spotted what I thought would be a perfect Halloween picture.

Rome

Before our cruise, my family, their friends and I decided to go to Rome for two days. We flew Easy Jet from Venice to Rome and then checked in to the awesome place we stayed. Seriously, if any of you go to Rome in the future, email me and I will give you the details for the place we stayed. It was affordable (70 euro a night) which included a ton of stuff and it was very close to the Metro. I will be staying there again when I go back to Rome.

Anyway..the first day we went to the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica.

Can I just say that the Vatican Museum is awesome, but my feet and back were killing me by the time we finished because it was so expansive and I walked so much.



Outside of the Vatican Museum

The Sistine Chapel was awe-inspiring, but being the rule-abider that I am, I didn't sneak any pictures when I was inside it.

Also, they were having some sort of special ceremony for priests, in which the Pope was going to make an appearance, so the entrance to St. Peter's was closed after a certain time. So..I only have pictures from the outside. Obviously I have to go back to Rome sometime soon so I can see the inside of the Basilica.



St. Peter's Basilica



Bigger view of the square



We went to the Spanish Steps that night. This is me, my mom and her friend.



The Trevi Fountain

The second day we visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. I was most impressed with the Colosseum. It was amazing to see in person!





I believe this is remnants of the house of Vestal Virgins, part of the Roman Forum.

I really did enjoy Rome a lot and there were a ton of things I didn't get to see, even though we did go see a lot. Hopefully Sean and I can go back soon, since he's never been to Rome.

This was kind of an abbreviated picture post about Rome, but I have so many pictures and have barely started editing them. If I get some more done, I'll have to do another post one of these days.

Villa Valmarana

Yesterday I ended up exploring a nearby villa with a fellow blogging friend and her group of friends. It was just what I needed. I got out of the house, I got to explore a new place, I got to take plenty of pictures AND I got to eat delish Thai/Japanese food. Saturdays don't get much better than that.

The villa we visited was Villa Valmarana, just down the road from La Rotunda. Here's the website if you wish to read more about it.

Now a few pictures from the day.



Villa Valmarana



I love the scrollwork



Some of the garden in the front of the villa



Early spring flowers coming out



A back view of Mt. Berico



Loved the plants around the villa



Supposedly the villa gets it's name from these dwarf statues that are around it. I believe there were 17 in all.