Europe June 2011 -- Wrap Up

On Monday, June 27th, we left Annecy to get to Basel for our last night in Europe.  We drove in France, Switzerland and Germany that day. 

Having rented the car in Stuttgart, we returned it in the little town of Lorrach, Germany, just over the border from Basel to save money on the rental.  Even though there may be some taxi or public transportation costs, it is still cheaper to rent a car in town in Europe rather than at the airport (or often at a train station).  And, it is dramatically cheaper to return it to the country of the original rental rather than in a different country -- even if it's not to the same town. 

If you take a taxi, you may be lucky enough to get a driver who can speak English and is entertaining at the same time.  For the ride from Lorrach, we got just such a man who had even done a big bus tour of the US.  The ride was fun.  I wonder if I should count that as ground transportation or entertainment?

He dropped us at the downtown train station.  There we could catch a free bus for the EuroAirport.  This airport is right where Switzerland, France and Germany come together.  We stayed at Airport Hotel Basel.  There was a bus stop right across the street from it and they had a free airport shuttle that we took the next morning.  Within 1/2 mile or less, we were in France, where the airport is actually located.

It was a long trip home, as the documentation below shows.  The worst part was getting back into the US at Philadelphia.  There were tons of people arriving at the time we did and hardly any passport control people to check our passports coming in.  No additional resources were brought in to help. 

There were so many people that to TSA's credit, they did put on extra workers and opened extra workstations to handle the crowd.  After we got through security, we literally had to run and were almost the last ones to get on our connecting flight to Phoenix.  They held it a bit due to the crowds and to the large group of students who had been with us since Frankfurt, not all of which had yet made it through.

I think part of the reason for the crowds was that the weather was miserable and several flights were delayed due to the circling required to get through the storms. 

If  you click on the documents below, you will see that we flew this route:  Basel --> Frankfurt --> Philadelphia --> Phoenix --> Tucson.  Someday I hope to be able to do a non-stop somewhere, but living in Tucson, that's unlikely.  At best we may be able to do a one stop, like Tucson --> Atlanta --> Madrid. 

Just for fun, this is the view from our room in Basel. 

We had pretty bad bar food when we arrived there, but the dinner was excellent.  The next morning we just had the continental breakfast before heading for the airport.

As you all know, we made it home just fine.  Now for the costs. 

This time we also just about matched Rick Steves' suggested daily average without airfare per person for moderate European travel.  It cost us $390 per day or $195 per person.  The last time I read his numbers it was $185 per person, I think.  I figure if we are close to $200 per person, we're doing good. 

Here are the particulars:

Airfare -- $3450.  That included both of us, Tucson to Lisbon, Lisbon to Florence, Florence to Stuttgart, Basel to Tucson.  We did all the internal European flying via European low-cost airlines rather than booking typical American ones or their partners.  We saved 1/2 the flying cost by doing that, ie. this airfare number would have been twice as much.  It was a big chunk of the cost and was one we didn't have to pay last time.

Ground transportation -- $ 1130.  This included taxis, rental car, parking, fuel, public transportation, etc.  That was actually much cheaper than on our last trip.  Of course, this trip was only 1 month instead of 2.

Lodging -- $3985.  Even with the two, one-week apartment rentals, the average cost per day was $142.  The closest thing to a Motel 6 in Europe is a hostel and my hostel days are long gone. 

Food -- $3710.  That included what we bought for our apartments, the meals we ate out and the cost of breakfast where we had to pay for it separately.  That's an average of $133 per day.

Fun -- $925.  This included all museum entrances, entertainment, etc.  Many of the things we did for entertainment were also ground transportation, so we got by very cheaply on this at $33 per day average.

Miscellaneous -- $1090.  This includes parking in Tucson, pet boarding, foreign transaction fees, laundry, tips, postcards, stamps, extra phone charges  -- you get the picture.  It can really add up if you're not careful.  For this trip it was about $39 per day.

So the grand total with everything was $14,290.  I had estimated a total cost of $13,555, so we went over the estimate by $735 or $26 per day.  Almost all of that was for food. 

What can I say? We like to eat and feel that the food is a major part of the trip.  Okay, I'll admit it, in some places we are all about the food like our son-in-law, Jason, but we both came home weighing the same or less, so how can that be wrong?

I secretly hoped we would cut the cost of our first trip in half since this one was for 1/2 the time, but the airfare put us way over.  Without the airfare, this trip would have been 44% of the cost of the 2009 one.  With the airfare, it was 58%. 

I hope the 2012 one will be even cheaper, but we are budgeting about $10,000 for it just in case.  It still sounds like a lot of money, but if you take some time to research travel packages, you will find that the costs are very similar for much less time. 

The other two possibilities I looked at for this year's trip was Scandinavia (16 days) and Greece (13 days).  They both would have been packaged bus tours and we would likely have stayed over somewhere to make the whole trip about a month long. 

The land only (no airfare) price for just the packaged Scandinavia itinerary at the time we would go was about $5600 per person (total $11,200 without airfare) and the Greece one at the time we would go was about $3000 per person (total $6000 without airfare).  We might do one of these sometime.  Actually I'm thinking Greece in the spring of 2013 for our 25th anniversary.  It's never too early to plan and budget for these things. 

Joan asked me how we saved money for these trips when we have no income.  I reminded her that we do have income, we both get Social Security, Trout gets a pension and we both have IRAs we draw upon.  But the answer is the same as for saving for anything, working or not, we physically, electronically and mentally set the money aside and don't spend it on other things or in other ways.  So simple to say, much harder to do, but possible if you're really obsessed.

I hope you enjoyed seeing where we went and what we did.  It was definitely a different trip from the 2009 one.

Europe June 2011 -- Lake Annecy

After cruising around Lake Como, we decided an hour tour on a boat around Lake Annecy would be a good thing.  I made sure Trout took a picture of me in the boat.  That's not snow back behind me.  It's high rock on the mountains around the lake.

Trout always gets his picture taken.  This is "that" look.





We had a number of options for the tour around the lake, but we chose this one-hour one.

This bigger boat did two hour cruises complete with a meal.

But we went on this shorter Compagnie des Bateaux excursion boat.  Although the linked website is in English, the announcer used only French.  Needless to say, I understood almost nothing.  the Savoie was our boat.

There was a nice walk down the quay to it.

The park side was also lovely.

The swans seem to like this canal.  The water is very clear.  The dark places you see are the underwater foliage.

I tried to capture some of the fish swimming in it.  Trout did see fishermen on the canal farther into town. 

No matter how many pictures I took, the fish hid.

I left all these in because I thought they were pretty and that they would make really hard jigsaw puzzles.

In this one you can see the foliage a little better.

So off we went into the lake.

That's the park behind us.

We could have taken a speed boat like this, but Trout was concerned about sunburn.

I loved these rocky mountains.

The lake is quite large.  The link says it's the 2nd largest in France, and also the cleanest in Europe.  I just thought it was beautiful.

I think everyone else on the boat with us was French. 

This is a beach across the lake from Annecy.

This is typical of the way we saw things being built all over.  Most locations are so hilly and crowded that it is nearly impossible to get materials up to a building site.  So they set up a BIG crane and lift them up.

This escarpment was amazingly beautiful.

The chateau wasn't too bad either.

But wait, what are those multicolored dots?

There are so many of them and they are everywhere.

Base jumpers?  Paragliders?  Daredevils of some sort.  This link is not for the faint of heart -- or those afraid of heights -- but it does show some good shots of how they do it.  There are many more on YouTube.

Spending almost every weekend on the water growing up, I loved these shores.  The water's edge pictures are very similar to what Medina Lake looked like in the 50's when we had our place there.

Well, not like this.  We were in the hill country and there are Turk's Head and Mormon's Bluff, but they didn't exactly look like this.

They weren't very high and kind of looked like this.  People would gather in the area to fish and to jump off the top.

I'm not sure what this is, but I thought it was worth a picture.

Here are some more pictures of the wild ones.

We got down as far as we were going to go and turned toward home.  There was this interesting chateau right on the lake.  We didn't get quite to the right angle for any of my pictures to correspond very closely to Paul Cezanne's painting.

So we continued on around the lake with more great views.

And too soon we were back close to the park and to the dock.

It was the perfect relaxing end to our last weekend in Europe.  I would go there again, but perhaps with more energy to explore more of the countryside.  The week here, week there idea is really catching on with me -- maybe 2 weeks here...

Europe June 2011 -- Annecy

After breakfast on June 24th, it was time for us to take the shuttle from Zermatt back to Tasch, get our car and drive to France.  We had lots of options for the route, but I navigated us along the south side of Lake Leman (Geneva on the other side in Switzerland), through small towns along the lake, through some back country, and into Annecy.  We had reservations for 3 nights at our hotel there.

The countryside along the way, even on the autobahn and the autoroute was lovely.  We did kind of wonder about these giant dishes...

To get to the Hotel du Palais de l'Isle, we had some interesting directions.  We were to drive to a  speaker on the pedestrian street, call the hotel, drive across the bridge (the very one you will see later in the pictures), stop at the hotel, dump out our luggage and drive to the underground parking. 

It was so crowded that Friday afternoon that doing that was a huge problem.  It was compounded by the fact that we had multiple bags of stuff including lots of dirty laundry.  We literally dumped all of them into the tiny lobby of the hotel.  Then we tried to follow the directions the desk clerk told us, but the street was so crowded we could not get through the way we were supposed to go.

So we got off the pedestrian street the best we could and then started circling the drain to try to get back to the parking area.  As was normal, Trout was tired, cranky and hungry and not in the mood for doing that.  Fortunately, it only took us about 15 minutes to find our way back and park, but it seemed like forever.  We later walked the way we were told to go and discovered that would not have been an obvious or easy way to go, either.

We had considered taking the car out and driving around the area and maybe up to Chamonix in the French Alps, but we got so comfortable and settled in that we just left the car and explored the little town on foot.

So this is the front of our hotel.

This is the street sign on the building.

This was the window in our room.  The hotel did have an elevator, thank goodness.

After taking our stuff up to the room, we set out to get some lunch.  France typically has more restricted hours for eating, and we were having a hard time finding anyplace open.  While looking, we stopped in this little church.

Across the street from the ATM I used to get money, we saw this place that was still open.  I was up for going in and buying a picnic there, but Trout wanted to sit down somewhere.  Yes, these beautiful dishes were real and for sale.  None is sweet in this area, all are savory.

We did find a small place along the water to have a bite to eat.  It is the one with the red umbrellas in the right of this picture.  It was just a little bistro, but the pommes frites were great.

After eating we took off walking again.  This is the pedestrian zone right behind our hotel.

When we came out of our hotel on Saturday morning, this pedestrian area was completely filled for blocks with a typical French flea market.  Of course, I didn't have the camera.  We couldn't help gawking.  Why is it that French junk looks so much better than American junk?

You could tell it was June -- and white was the big color for summer.

We were heading in the direction of the laundromat the desk clerk told us about.  We came upon this sizable square.  I liked the combination of old and new buildings here.

You can see Trout walking toward the corner arch.  Restaurants were just starting to open up for dinner again. 

That was the way to the laundromat.  On Saturday morning we went there somewhat early for us.  I was sure it would be full of people and that it would take forever to do our clothes.  But when we arrived there was only one woman about our age drying her things.  During the entire time I was there (Trout went off looking for an English book store) there were a total of 5 other people who came in to wash and/or dry their clothes.

Two of them were the Australian couple we chatted with.  They were about our age, had farmed cotton and had even been to Lubbock.  They were traveling for about 3 months, escaping the Australian winter and were ending their trip in the US and Canada and flying home from Dallas.  Sometimes it's as much fun to meet travelers from other countries as to meet locals. 

The first time anyone goes to Europe, they are often surprised at the number of dogs in restaurants.  There are very few places where they are not allowed, and you usually can see at least one sitting outside with their owners.

This is the arch we were supposed to drive through to get to the parking garage upon our arrival.  It's lovely when it's not crammed full of people at the ice cream place.  You'll see a picture of that later.

Upon walking out the way we were to have driven out, we found ourselves on a main street looking back at the entrance into the old part of the town.

The castle was just above us.  The gold building on the right is our hotel.

While walking around, we saw this picture-worthy motorcycle.  Trout says it is a pricey one.

Then we walked in the park.  I didn't have the camera with us for this walk, but I did when we went back the next day, so we actually did this walk twice.  We were surprised to see this totem in the area where we entered.

There were families picnicing.  I thought we were in an Impressionist painting.

There were paddle boat rentals and lots of people in and on Lake Annecy.  The next posting will be all about our trip around it.

You could go on a beautiful wooden boat to tour the lake if you wanted.

There were these fun pedal horses for kids to ride.

We loved the tree bark.

And we loved the trees and dappled sunshine.

There were some very nice small boats moored in this area.  Trout like this one a lot.

We were walking along the Promenade Jacquet.

Across the street was  this church and on the way to it was the entrance to our underground parking.

As we were walking back down the pedestrian street, it started to get dark.

There were crowds at this ice cream place just below our window from the minute it opened in the morning until it closed at night.  Look to the left and you can see the arch we were supposed to drive through.  There were lots of ice cream places in the area, some huge, but the  Glacier des Alpes was the most popular.  It would have long lines when the others had no one in them.  The sign says they make their ice cream right there, i.e. they are an artisan glacier.  I went for the anise and Trout had rum raisin. 

It seemed like the later it got at night, the more action there was.

So we just leaned against the wall of the main bridge and watched.  This baloon guy was very popular with the kids.

After seeing so many of them, I finally had to take a picture of a Jack Russell. That was probably the dog we saw the most on the whole trip.

The old prison just got more picturesque the darker it got.

The other buildings in the area looked striking as it got darker, too.

Of course there were ducks.

"Our" street was really busy with diners and walkers.  This is about how it looked when we arrived only it was lunch time.

Trout wanted me to take a picture of these bugs. 

There's that charming prison again.

I'm not sure what I was doing, but Trout stepped into this church and said it was very nice inside.

The swans were a favorite with the crowds.  They looked like they were too dumb to get up on the upper level, but they were actually hanging out and waiting for something edible to drop over the edge.

We had breakfast at the hotel 2 of the 3 mornings we were there, but one we slept too late.  I was up for trying the little Creperie du Chateau right behind our hotel.  We had a fun conversation with the older couple sitting next to us.  When she couldn't think of the English word for sheep, she bleated.  Some sounds are universal.  I linked to a review of this restaurant on a blog called Sit Down, Dig In.  It was a good meal.

The entertainment was good, too.  Remember that big square?  There was a food market there on Sunday morning.  It closed at noon and these vehicles made their way past us and out through that arch while we were eating, leaving a view of the old part of our hotel across the street.  I think this is where Trout came out when he took the spiral stairs down from our room rather than the elevator.

So Trout and I are always talking about French food.  We had decent meals the whole time in Annecy.  Even the one we had along the canal at the place that catered to Germans was decent.  But the best were at the French places.

I already mentioned the creperie above.  I had both a savory crepe and a sweet one.  We also had lunch at the Atelier Gourmand des Jumeaux.  We got there toward the end of their lunch hours, and were almost the last to leave, but they were happy to serve us.  This is the place where the waiter spoke American-accented English and where we saw the young Asian "models" with the older French men.  The food was great.  The waiter said he learned his English from American movies and TV.

The other two great places we ate were Il Etait une Fois and Le Bilboquet.  We had fabulous meals at both.  At the former, the chef came out and talked to us in English.  At the latter, Trout had a little difficulty communicating with the waitress, but all was worked out.  A young man at a table close to us offered to help if we needed it.

This little town was very busy the weekend we were there.  In fact, the desk clerk who was there at night said he didn't know what was going on it was so busy.  This is the other place where we mostly saw families with children and few old retirees like us, or young backpackers.  I'm beginning to think that was because we stayed in the heart of things in a modestly priced hotel as opposed to a typical tourist place.