We've been home for a few days now and are almost synced up with the local timezone, so it is probably time to call this particular vacation "finished". A few concluding remarks.
The trip did not play out as we'd planned (obviously), but it was still a good one and it may have even been a better one. We were able to spend two to three day chunks of time in ~8 different cities by relying on public transportation, and it would have been less than half that number if were were biking from place to place. We'd have seen more enroute, but we'd have visited fewer cities. Of course, as I looked out the window while riding on the train I was always noting the bike paths and wondering what it would be like to be riding along them. I would like to be able to do another European bike trip someday, but even sans bike (for the most part) this was still an excellent trip.
One of our motivations in visiting eastern Germany and Czech Republic was to see how they've changed since they moved away from Communism, but people weren't interested in talking about it. The few times we asked about the changes someone had seen in the past 20 years got a minimal response -- people were more interested in talking about today or the future than the past. I suppose that's a good thing, but it wasn't what I'd expected.
Our favorite cities were Cesky Krumlov and Heiligenblut -- we'd go back again in a heartbeat. It pains me to say this, but for Heiligenblut it might even be nice to have a car. Much of the park is far enough away that it isn't feasible to rely on public transportation for day trips -- having a car would have allowed us to visit some of the higher peaks and more distant trails.
The nicest surprise of the trip was the horse auction in Maishofen. We just stumbled across it and it was fun to be a part of a normal everyday activity for the locals.
One of the things we've enjoyed most about being home is our queen sized bed. Every single one of the hotels we stayed in used a pair of twin beds for sleeping. Sometimes the beds were on different sides of the room (literally as far apart from each other as physically possible) and sometimes they were shoved up next to each other, but there was always two beds. Even when the beds were next to each other there was a DMZ between them -- a dead spot where the mattress gave way to the hard bed frame. It wasn't possible to accidentally venture from one bed to the other; any territorial infractions had to be intentional. I think Europe's long history of fighting over turf and borders has found its way into the bedroom so that there's no ambiguity over what part of the bed belongs to who.
Finally, thank you to those of you who've taken the time to read the blog and comment -- I've appreciated the feedback and encouragement. Part of my motivation in writing is to document the trip for our own purposes, but it was also nice to hear that one or two other people enjoyed it as well.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Europe by the Numbers
Both Beth and I have an analytical bent, so we tend to keep track of expenses on our various vacations -- we find it interesting to see how the cost of one trip compares to another and it is helpful in planning future trips. In the past I've used Quicken to keep track of the overall costs of the trip (e.g., the total of all credit card charges & ATM cash withdrawals), but this time I used an iPhone application (http://www.ixpenseit.com/ixpenseit.php) to record individual expenses as they occurred. Kudos to Bob Cowan for having suggested this to me. I wasn't able to capture every single expense, but I probably got 98% of them. This additional data provides some insight into the breakdown of costs within the trip -- fun stuff if you like numbers.
At a high level, we've found that the cost of an expensive vacation runs around $200 per day per person. In our family "expensive" is usually anything you have to get on a plane for -- Europe, Hawaii, Belize, San Diego. "Cheap" vacations involve cars, bicycles, or backpacking. The all-in cost for our four weeks in Europe was $360/day (total cost for both of us) -- less than our historical average. I think this is fairly impressive given the poor exchange rate and the obscene cost of our British Airways tickets.
If we ignore the cost of airfare and just look at what we spent while in Europe then our largest cost was lodging, and that came in at $83/day. That's more than Motel 6 (our el cheapo standard for when we're traveling and just need a place to crash), but still less than a nice hotel. We expected to be over $100/day for lodging, so this was a pleasant surprise.
Transportation is next in line at $32/day. This includes trains, buses, shuttles, ferries, subways, and trams. We knew that this would be a chunk of money since we were completely dependent upon public transportation, but the total cost was still barely more than $800. Nice.
Food came in at a mere $43/day. Breakfast was included in the cost of lodging on most days, and we usually ate one meal/day as a picnic on the go or from the grocery store in our room (e.g., pre-made salads). When we did eat out, some of the meals were in a nice restaurant while others were a kebab shop or beer garden. We don't drink a lot of wine or beer so that keeps the cost down, but I was still very surprised to see a number this low. We clearly didn't order enough desserts.
The last category that I'll mention was admissions -- tours, museums, bike rental, canoe rental, etc -- and it came in at $15/day.
We also spent some money on souvenirs, trinkets, and loot, but I won't get into the numbers. Still, they didn't seem out of line to me.
So the bottom line is that our European adventure wasn't nearly as expensive as I'd expected it to be. If our airline costs were a little more reasonable then we'd have been under $300/day, and that makes four weeks in Europe less expensive than a week in Hawaii (in terms of daily costs).
In terms of where we spent our time, we favored German speaking countries -- 12 days in Germany and 7 days in Austria. The balance (6 days) was in the Czech Republic. We also preferred smaller towns -- 9 days were in what I'd consider big cities (Berlin, Prague, and Munich), 9 in mid-sized cities, and 7 in small towns or villages.
At a high level, we've found that the cost of an expensive vacation runs around $200 per day per person. In our family "expensive" is usually anything you have to get on a plane for -- Europe, Hawaii, Belize, San Diego. "Cheap" vacations involve cars, bicycles, or backpacking. The all-in cost for our four weeks in Europe was $360/day (total cost for both of us) -- less than our historical average. I think this is fairly impressive given the poor exchange rate and the obscene cost of our British Airways tickets.
If we ignore the cost of airfare and just look at what we spent while in Europe then our largest cost was lodging, and that came in at $83/day. That's more than Motel 6 (our el cheapo standard for when we're traveling and just need a place to crash), but still less than a nice hotel. We expected to be over $100/day for lodging, so this was a pleasant surprise.
Transportation is next in line at $32/day. This includes trains, buses, shuttles, ferries, subways, and trams. We knew that this would be a chunk of money since we were completely dependent upon public transportation, but the total cost was still barely more than $800. Nice.
Food came in at a mere $43/day. Breakfast was included in the cost of lodging on most days, and we usually ate one meal/day as a picnic on the go or from the grocery store in our room (e.g., pre-made salads). When we did eat out, some of the meals were in a nice restaurant while others were a kebab shop or beer garden. We don't drink a lot of wine or beer so that keeps the cost down, but I was still very surprised to see a number this low. We clearly didn't order enough desserts.
The last category that I'll mention was admissions -- tours, museums, bike rental, canoe rental, etc -- and it came in at $15/day.
We also spent some money on souvenirs, trinkets, and loot, but I won't get into the numbers. Still, they didn't seem out of line to me.
So the bottom line is that our European adventure wasn't nearly as expensive as I'd expected it to be. If our airline costs were a little more reasonable then we'd have been under $300/day, and that makes four weeks in Europe less expensive than a week in Hawaii (in terms of daily costs).
In terms of where we spent our time, we favored German speaking countries -- 12 days in Germany and 7 days in Austria. The balance (6 days) was in the Czech Republic. We also preferred smaller towns -- 9 days were in what I'd consider big cities (Berlin, Prague, and Munich), 9 in mid-sized cities, and 7 in small towns or villages.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Oktoberfest!!
We'd thought about doing a bicycle tour of Muenchen (similar to what we did in Berlin), but instead decided to focus on the Deutsches Museum and Oktoberfest.
We took the subway downtown to the Hauptbahnhof and then walked through the Oktoberfest area. At 09:30 in the morning it wasn't exactly running at full steam, but there was still quite a bit of activity.
Oktoberfest takes all the rides, food booths, and trinkets of a good state fair and adds huge beer drinking halls. As best I can tell, these buildings are set up just for the two weeks of Oktoberfest and then taken back down again.
On the far side of the Festwiese (where Oktoberfest is held) is the Deutsches Museum's transportation facility (Verkehrszentrum). They cover everything that rolls from yak carts to ICE trains.
Just inside the door was an early automobile with an engine with an exposed crankshaft and flywheel.
In the section on race cars was a racing Messerschmitt -- something of a contradiction in terms.
There was also a BMW Isetta that I could actually take a picture of.
They had a lot of information on trains along with several model train setups.
And we also found a motorcycle that was the closest we've seen yet to our bicycle. It was a tandem trike with the passenger out front and the controls in the back.
We spent several hours in the museum and then went back to Oktoberfest to grab a late lunch. By then it was quite a bit more crowded and all of the rides were running. We munched our way through the crowds and then picked up few last-minute trinkets on the way back to the subway.
Our flight home is late-morning tomorrow. This evening we'll put up the final journal postings, check-in and get our seats assigned, and then start sorting stuff in preparation for tomorrow's packing.
We took the subway downtown to the Hauptbahnhof and then walked through the Oktoberfest area. At 09:30 in the morning it wasn't exactly running at full steam, but there was still quite a bit of activity.
Oktoberfest takes all the rides, food booths, and trinkets of a good state fair and adds huge beer drinking halls. As best I can tell, these buildings are set up just for the two weeks of Oktoberfest and then taken back down again.
On the far side of the Festwiese (where Oktoberfest is held) is the Deutsches Museum's transportation facility (Verkehrszentrum). They cover everything that rolls from yak carts to ICE trains.
Just inside the door was an early automobile with an engine with an exposed crankshaft and flywheel.
In the section on race cars was a racing Messerschmitt -- something of a contradiction in terms.
There was also a BMW Isetta that I could actually take a picture of.
They had a lot of information on trains along with several model train setups.
And we also found a motorcycle that was the closest we've seen yet to our bicycle. It was a tandem trike with the passenger out front and the controls in the back.
We spent several hours in the museum and then went back to Oktoberfest to grab a late lunch. By then it was quite a bit more crowded and all of the rides were running. We munched our way through the crowds and then picked up few last-minute trinkets on the way back to the subway.
Our flight home is late-morning tomorrow. This evening we'll put up the final journal postings, check-in and get our seats assigned, and then start sorting stuff in preparation for tomorrow's packing.
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