CharlisaTrip

It finally happened. We missed our train. I thought we had made it through the whole trip without any transportation or hotel mishaps (minus the first day, obviously), but we weren’t so lucky. We had bought our Paris to Amsterdam ticket online at a really good price. We were supposed to go to the station, …

After a 75-minute flight from Nice, we were at Orly airport. We found an extremely helpful tourism info person who helped us get into the city, get metro tickets, and buy a 4-day museum pass. The hotel (which we had booked while in Italy) was a nice place but a ways away from the city …

A quick train ride and we were to our next destination. Nice is a much bigger city than we had expected, not a quaint beach town but seaside hotels and casinos, a downtown, and apartments sprawling into the hills. Our hotel was halfway between the train station and the beach. Small but comfy and air-conditioned. …

Our plan to get to the South of France was: “there’s probably a train that goes there.” We knew we had to go through Genoa, so we were excited when we found a direct train there from Vernazza. Direct does not mean fast, though. It took two hours, stopping at every coastal town in Northern …

Trains are sort of hard to figure out. They’re listed by final destination, and if you only pay attention to which stop you’re getting off at, you might not know which one is yours. On the subway, there’s at least a map, but the route information for trains is not very accessible. So my satisfaction …

After some difficulty finding the bus station in Siena, we made our way to Florence. The hotel directions I had said, “take the road to the cathedral for about 10 minutes,” which seemed good enough for me. We ended up wandering around Florence past multiple large churches, dragging our bags behind us in the heat …

From Rome, we arrived via bus at Siena mid-afternoon. Having no map and no clue where to find our hotel proved to be a bit difficult. Lucky for us, we had done this before. I am proud of the calm, collected teamwork that led us to our hotel. I first asked the bus driver if …

So we’re starting ten days in Italy. (I’m writing this from Florence, so I know how some of it goes.) Getting to Rome was one of the more stressful hurdles, as we spent the night in Interlaken and were leaving from Basel at 11:10 the next morning. We had to get to the Interlaken train …

Getting back to Interlaken was a little depressing. We already missed Walter and his beautiful mountain town. After a few wrong turns, we strolled into our hotel late in the afternoon. The hotel was old but charming with a balcony and spectacular mountain views. It was our second hotel with a shared bathroom, which seemed …

It’s a long trip from Salzburg to Interlaken, so we left fairly early. The train went through Zurich and Bern, with beautiful views of the mountains and small towns along the way. The weather was rainy and cold, and got worse as we got to Interlaken. We dropped our luggage off in a locker, and …