From Milan I took the night train to Rome. I shared a two bunk room with three strangers, one German traveling solo (at least I think he was speaking German) and two Japanese guys. It wasn’t the most comfortable accommodations– the bed was pretty hard and narrow and the ride was bumpy and noisy, but… Read More rome

My train arrived in Milan late in the evening, around 10pm. I had booked a room from a couple on AirBnb. I was a bit worried that I was disturbing them arriving so late at night, but it turned out that it was the wife’s birthday, and they had gone out for dinner, and so… Read More milan

From Paris I took the TGV high speed train to Zurich. I didn’t really have anything in particular I wanted to see in Zurich per se, it just happened to be a good place to stop on my way towards Rome because both the French and Italian train lines connected in Zurich. The Paris Gare… Read More short time in zurich

While in Paris I bought a museum pass that was good for four days. I ended up visiting a couple of museums each day, except for one day which I dedicated to the Louvre. The museum pass is kind of expensive, but it allows you to bypass the entrance lines. For me the price was… Read More paris museums

Paris is a city that I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time. And so I decided that since I’m already in Europe, I figured that I should at least spend a few days in Paris, seeing the many famous sights and visiting the world famous museums that I’ve heard so much about. And… Read More paris

From Brussels Jack, Anna and Alexia flew back to California. My flight back home would be out of Rome, but not for almost another dozen days. I hadn’t planned my route to Rome, but I wanted to visit at least Paris and Zurich. Before heading out to Paris though, I decided on a whim to… Read More cologne

After London we took a short flight across the English Channel to Brussels. To be honest I didn’t really know what to expect from Brussels. I know Belgium is famous for waffles and chocolate, two things that I’m not too interested in. Belgium’s also famous for beer, and for that I was somewhat excited. One… Read More brussels

After Barcelona we flew into London. Since London is not part of the Schengen area we had to go through customs. When asked by the customs agent why we were in London, someone in our group responded with “the food.” “Sorry, you’re in the wrong country…” the custom agent replied. I had heard that British… Read More london

From Madrid we took a Renfe AVE high speed train to Barcelona. It ended up costing us about 100 euros per person– if we had booked ahead of time online we probably could have saved a good 30 or 40 euros per person. If I could do it all over again, I think I’d take… Read More barcelona