Little Black Guidebook

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.

The car is rented. One more thing off of the checklist before we leave on Friday night. I hate to rent when I could take trains, but this trip it just makes sense. Tonight is my last manual driving lesson and I’ll also be buying a Europe iPad GPS app. to join our Michelin Germany map for navigation.

Lessons learned for trying to rent a car in France & Germany:

1. Its cheaper to rent from avis.de or avis.fr (hertz.de or hertz.fr, etc.) than it is to rent from avis.com. Why? I don’t know.
2. You really should call your car insurance company before you leave to see if they cover your European rental. I have USAA (a really good insurance company usually), but they don’t cover you in Europe
3. Call the credit card company you plan on using for the reservation and see what protections they offer you. My American Express had TOTALLY different coverage than our Visa.
4. Renting for Sunday pickup is hard. In France it seemed impossible to pick up on a Sunday except at the airport.
5. Check Europecar, Sixt and other non North-American rental car agencies, they often have better deals.
6. Learn to drive manual, its saves tons of money. We’re talking $50/day in France savings.
7. Pack light, these cars are small!

Wish me luck, and German/French drivers I apologize in advance for my manual skills.

Tomorrow, le 14 juillet, is Bastille Day. This year marks the 50th anniversary of France’s farewell to its empire so troops from 13 of its former colonies will controversally march down the Champs Elysées alongside their French military counterparts in the annual parade. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/13/france-sarkozy-bastille-africa-colonialism) You can attend the parade or go in for some less controversial fun by celebrating things we love about France:

1. The impressionist collection at the Museé d’Orsay
2. The view of the Eiffel Tower and fireworks. Good places to watch the fireworks are:
   • Breteuil Square:  This square is close to the Duroc tube station and perfectly aligned with the Eiffel Tower. Mostly unknown by tourists (or so we hear, so that might not be true) so this may be less crowded.
   • The Buttes Chaumont Park: This beautiful park on top of a hill offers an outstanding view over Paris.
   • Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre: A very social spot to watch, surrounded by tons of tourists, but elevated so the nice panoramic views make up for it!
   • Passerelle Debilly: This bridge is on the Quai Branly and quite close to the Eiffel Tower. It provides a cool reflection of the fireworks in the water.
3. French antiques
4. Champagne at lunch
5. Boulangeries and the smell of fresh baked baguette
6. Fromage, fromage, fromage!
7. Celebrate summer like a real French person and get out of Paris. Go to the Normandy beaches – Honfleur & Deauville.

This list was inspired by La Mom, the French expat Mommy-blogger we’d all secretly like to be for a day (or more!).

Et vous, why do you love France? How are you celebrating Bastille Day?

I prefer trains which go city center to city center, and so far haven’t rented a car in Europe. This article: Trains in Italy, no Cars Needed Here reminded me of how much I hate Italian trains (remember my Me Vs. Trenitalia.com post?). I hate booking them on their horrible website and I hate being hours late because the Italian conductor decided to take a super long coffee break in and didn’t tell us anything for hours. But would I really want to rent a car in Italy? No, that’s an even scarier thought!

So I am now somewhat more train skeptical and this fall we will be renting a car for the first time in Europe. There are just certain places that its complicated to get to using public transportation. It is possible to go Bayeux, France to Mont St. Michel by a combination of train and bus, but it costs more and takes longer than a 1 day car rental so that’s what we’re doing.

So we have a day long rental in France and I am in driving lessons again! My neighbors are scared. “There she goes again, lurching down the street with her white-knuckled friend hanging on and hoping she doesn’t kill his clutch.” Grab the children! Actually I do myself a slight diservice, I only threw him against the windshield once.

My naturally cautious nature had me smoothly and slowly letting the clutch out after only a few minutes. Now I just have to figure out how to smoothly transition between gears, both up and down so that I am not freaking out over mental checklists of procedures and can drive like a normal person. I have successfully mastered first and second gear and am now ready to leave the 15mph neighborhood and graduate to the 35 mph side streets. Watch out world, I’m going European!

Oh and for those of you going Bayeux to Mont St. Michel by public transport:

• Train Bayeux to Pontorson (book at http://www.voyages-sncf.com/), takes 1 hr 45 minutes, there were 2 trains with same day returns available for our August date), cost 20.80Euro
• Example: 09:30-11:15 (Bayeux-Pontorson) return 15:38-17:26 (Pontorson-Bayeux)
• Bus ride for the 5 miles Pontorson to Mont St. Michel, buses are coordinated with train times (times for line 6 Pontorson-Le Mont St Michel http://www.mobi50.com/, 13 minutes one way, 2.20E one way)
• Total cost for two people roundtrip = (20.80+2.20)x4=92E
• Total time on there = 3 hrs 45 minutes
• Total cost for 1 day car rental= 83.61E + gas.
• But, even though gas will eat our savings we could see something other than Le Mont St Michel that day for instance a side trip to Honfleur is now a possibility with the time saved not being forced into a particular itinerary.

I don’t know if I could call Paris the tea capitol of the world like the HIP Paris Blog, but it certainly has its appeal. Especially when you consider the availibility of authentic macarons to accompany the tea.

I’m putting together a list of tea places in Google maps so if I happen to pass near one of them during our 1 day in Paris this August I’ll be able to pop-in and see what all the buzz is about.

Spring Europe Trip: Packing List

I’m not going anywhere this spring (sob), but if I were I could totally go two weeks with just these items: Dress, skirt, dress shirt, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, cardigan, trench coat, guidebook size purse (with all important cross-body strap and closed top), pants (that go with both button down shirt and more casual shirts and is sink washable), and two pairs of shoes (both flat, comfy for walking and which can dress up skirts and pants). It all sort of goes together and can be mixed and matched (long sleeve t-shirt under dress, button down with pants or skirt, t-shirts with skirt or pants, etc.) for a wide variety of occasions and most of it is sink friendly.

Contrast this with: Confessions of an Overpacker

“I realized why I overdo it. I stared at my closet, overflowing with jeans and cardigans. That’s what I miss when I’m away: choice. Call it superficial, but having more than one or two t-shirts reminds me of home. I make a lot of sacrifices to live abroad. When the homesickness sets in, I can find some solace in my suitcase.”

“When your baggage is your home, sometimes it’s nice to have a two-story suitcase.”

I relate, but I can’t do that. It stresses me out lugging so much around. I would rather give myself a budget to buy it there if I need it than to lug it around for sure, but we’re all different.

Constant Comment Tea Tag (Back), originally uploaded by Alien Spouse.

Ok, saving for Europe spending challenge #2 was to get through our most routine money spending event “grocery shopping” without spending unnecessarily. Results were mixed.

I love tea and usually splurge on loose leaf good stuff, but I did manage to settle for some Bigelow Tea Constant Comment this week. I also made a menu and a list and I stuck to it where food was concerned.

But then I got to the personal products aisle. My favorite shampoo/conditioner, which I can actually feel the difference after I use it was on sale. Ahem, it was $7 instead of $10 for beautiful, organic, makes my hair lay straight and smell like heaven shampoo. I could have bought Dove for $2 per bottle and been fine, but I had been so good with my food purchases and it was 30% off so it snuck its way home with me. Deduct $10 from Europe trip savings.

I find saving money to be like dieting for me, it just doesn’t work if I feel like I am depriving myself. I come up with justifications, cheats, and can turn a bad day into a bad week/month/etc and suddenly I’m having a garage sale and wondering “Where did all this stuff come from?”.

Dieting is something I have given up. I have dieted and lost the same 40 lbs twice in my life. But I have also lost 25 lbs the right way, slowly over the last two years, where it was not a diet, but truly a lifestyle change and I know how good it feels to not be lecturing myself, but to be thinking about things in the context of taking care of my body.

If I approach money with more of the attitude that I now approach food with I may be healthier overall. So I’m going to change all my self lecturing over my shampoo to a quality vs. price decision. It is just worth it to me and I’ll find another creative way to replace the $10 in the Europe fund.