Little Black Guidebook

Via a Favorite blog of mine Pia Jane Bijerk.

She has a new book out Amsterdam: Made by Hand. This is a follow-up to Paris: Made by Hand which I’ve blogged about before. She continues to amaze me with the way she captures things. Makes me want to go straight back to Europe and continue exploring.

We’re back home and its time to put another 3 guidebooks on our shelf. I like this idea of wrapping an old guidebook in a map as a book cover to keep your collection of trip memories without looking like a Lonely Planet dealer. Our guidebooks are mostly DIY Moleskine guidebooks, but I think they still looked pretty wrapped with maps.

Today is the last day before we head home and we’re back where we started. My first trip to Europe was to Paris in 2006 and its Paris through which I will say goodbye for now.

Today we’ll be working off some of the wonderful Belgian and German calories…doing more damage by doing a DIY chocolate tour by Velib. For 1E per day you can get access to bikes all over this large, but very accessible city.

Last time we were here we were one of few American’s using the Velib bikes because we were one of the few to have either a Passe Navigo (rechargable card for the metro) or a credit or debit card with the little chip on it. Hint: an American Express Blue card works great for this, just be sure to call and activate the chip before you go. I did and hubby didn’t so I had to rent all of our bikes.

Each bicycle can be used for up to 30 minutes at no charge beyond that of the 1E daily subscription fee. But I don’t think I could go more than 30 minutes before finding another stand and something nearby to gaze at or another chocolate stand or tea shop to pop into so its never been an issue for us.

Tonight we’re traveling from Munich to Paris by the City Night Line sleeper train ‘Cassiopeia’, leaving Munich at 22:48 and arriving in Paris Gare de l’Est at 09:23 tomorrow morning. We could take a Ryanair flight for 25E for both of us, but then we would have to pay for another night’s hotel. An overnight train seemed ideal. City to city no hassle.

The Cassiopeia has ordinary seats, couchettes (4-berth & 6-berth) and sleeping-cars (1, 2 & 3-bed deluxe and standard rooms).  We’ll be sitting up all night on the plane soon enough so we opted for the 4-berth couchette option instead.

There is a bistro car available in the morning for breakfast, but as we learned before train food is overpriced and usually not very good so we’ll be packing our own dinner and getting breakfast in Paris.

Travel tip:  For a cooked breakfast in Munich or evening meal before boarding the Paris-bound sleeper on your return, try the typically Bavarian Mongdratzerl restaurant, located in the hauptbahnhof itself.

You can book online direct with the German train website. (Don’t worry, its way better than Trenitalia.com and takes American credit cards just fine) You can book up to 92 days in advance. We booked exactly when the fare first became available online for 69E each ($175 total at the time). Booking closer to the date of travel would have cost 272Euro “standard fare” each.

Savings fare is awesome, but it has to be booked in advance, has limited availability, no refunds, no changes. If you can’t commit to a particular train then you may look at  a rail pass or Ryanair. These overnight trains pay to plan ahead.

Wow, last Friday was the first of our Europe trip and I was sipping my tea in Leuven, Belgium, this week I’m in Germany. Today’s tea will be followed by beer and chocolate and other delicious things. Yum!

Disney hopefully has nothing on the original Neuschwanstein castle. No touristy trip of Germany would be complete without a glance of the hoards of tourists in buses, oh I mean fairy tale castle of Neuschwanstein.

We’re short cutting the masses and avoiding some of the chaos by booking book online in advance for less than 2E more and 2 hrs of waiting in line for tickets saved. Tickets are 17E for both Neuschwanstein and its sister castle Hoehenschwangau. We’ll use the time saved to take a hike up to get a glance at the view in the picture above and if the weather cooperates we’ll eat our lunch there too.

Mad King Ludwig has had tourists visiting since 6 weeks after his death. We’ll be paying our respects at 9am, right when the castles open. I’m a little hesitant to pay 17E for two 30 minute rushed tours, but I’ll kick myself if I don’t go.

Our next stop will be off guidebook and less cliche.

Its fitting that I’ll arrive in Munich in a couple days, because today’s tea cup I found via my favorite Munich blogger Emily of Servus Munchen who pointed me towards these totally cute tea cups with a special surprise in the bottom of each one. Servus Munchen is a totally addictive expat blog about Munich, travels around the world and beautiful things and images from around the world. She shares my love for tea, chocolate, travel, Jcrew and dresses plus she is an amazing photographer. In my head we’re best friends. Maybe I’ll get up the courage and e-mail her about tea in Munich. In the meantime here is that beautiful tea cup I was telling you about. (22 E)

See, told you it was cute.

Off to a meeting in Belgium, center for the EU. I hope we get to meet tons of new people from all over. Hubby hopes that Belgium has as good of chocolate and beer as rumored.