Top Europe hotels
Parlez vous francais? Paris
115 Reviews Before our trip to Paris, my French vocabulary consisted of "croissant" and "crepe" - pronounced improperly, I may add. Armed with just these two terms, I figured we wouldn't starve but wouldn't be...
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Coffee Shops / Drugs Amsterdam
54 Reviews The weed and hash menu is displayed openly for people to see. Look and decide what you want to purchase, or not. It is a CHOICE. Even though they are not really known for their weed, I have heard...
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Do As Romans Do Rome
160 Reviews News: TUSCAN VILLAGER WINS 148 MILLION EURO ON SAT, AUG 22! This week, Aug 20, was the 86th draw without a winner and pushed the pot to 146.9 million euros for Italy's SuperEnalotto jackpot. It...
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Food / Drink Barcelona
92 Reviews The locals flock to get all they can of the ham and pasteries that abound around the city. We saw the real store that only sold the jamon, and yes; it is expensive no matter how you cut it, or how...
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Carnival Venice
44 Reviews Carneval di Venezia ( Carnival of Venice ) is a must visit at least once in your lifetime, and to get into the spirit of things, a mask is a must. Venice has seen some form of mask going back to the...
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Etiquette Vienna
29 Reviews What I committed in Vienna, that lot of Viennese are fair. It is strange for me to see newspapers put into box (and not locked) and it is written: "put 1 euro there and bring newspaper". It means...
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Food and Drink Berlin
23 Reviews The Internationales Berliner Bierfestival is a blast of a festival held near the Alexanderplatz. I counted 3 separate major stages where bands were playing, and the booths of beer vendors went on for...
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Drinking Dublin
37 Reviews There is a famous saying that god created alcohol so that the Irish won’t take over the world. Indeed, some of the most popular sights in Ireland are alcohol-related such as Whiskey tasting or a visit...
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Beer! Prague
39 Reviews Statistically Czechs are one of the top beer drinkers in Europe. There are huge species of beer possible to buy in shops. Actually beer here is not only used for drinking, but also to make soaps,...
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Culture Madrid
56 Reviews In Spain, there's no need for a special reason to go out and celebrate, it's seems like the city is always prepare to go out and have good time. In Madrid, the official fiestas , by calender , are...
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Eating Brussels
43 Reviews Belgium chocolate is famous, and remarkably linked to Tourism. I think that it is impossible to approach Manneken Pis without being compelled to enter one of the many shops that rival to make the most...
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Lifestyle & Habits Copenhagen
25 Reviews On the Hop on Hop off bus tour we learned about the garden allotments. In Danish culture the allotment garden has become a symbol of blue-collar culture - with all the positives and negatives...
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Food and drink Lisbon
49 Reviews If you're one that loves sweets and a dessert especially after a meal, this one is for you. However, that is if you love the tropical fruit mango since this particular dessert, and very much a...
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Language Stockholm
20 Reviews One of the things Swedes really don't like is someone coming to Sweden speaking any other language than Swedish or English. The way we see it is that we have made an effort to learn the international...
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Dining and Drinking Milan
25 Reviews The custom of aperitivi is helpful when you're on a budget. Many of the bars in Milan, for the price of a drink, will give you food to go along with it. You can easily make it into a light...
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Behavior & Superstitions Moscow
49 Reviews Tourist-turned-journalist: "Any advice where I should go to find hard-core authenticity? Drunk tractor drivers having a race, head-scarved babushkas with goats, men jumping into snow after the banya,...
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Dining and Drinking Krakow
4 Reviews You will notice people walking around eating a long sandwich covered with pasta sauce and cheese. In actuality, it is a baguette, split in half. cooked in the over until the cheese is melted. Here...
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Sauna (The Finnish Sauna Society) Helsinki
6 Reviews We deliberately chose a hotel with a swimming pool in Helsinki and were shocked to find the pool only opened around 2 hours per day. This is because the pool is part of the sauna experience. Finnish...
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Eating / Drinking Edinburgh
32 Reviews When I told one of my friends I was going to Edinburgh, he said "You must try haggis!" I asked him what it was, but he told me (ironically) that I'd better just ordered it in a restaurant in...
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Legends and urban stories Antwerp
19 Reviews There is some Antwerp legend (I'm afraid I don't remember the details but it's not important) about a giant and a man who fight, the man wins and cuts of the giant's hand (natives - feel free to...
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Beers / Chocolates / Flemish Frites (Fries). Brugge
20 Reviews While you are in Brugge you MUST try fries with mayonnaise (of course unless you are not a big fan of mayonnaise). I never thought it would be that good until I tried it. When we ordered them, they...
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Culture Warsaw
39 Reviews Warsaw has not one but two legends of mermaids. - One is the story of a fisherman named WARS , who while fishing in the river found a mermaid named SAWA, they fall in love and she asked him to found...
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Alcohol Tallinn
7 Reviews Estonian beer proved to be really good, even from the point of taste of a spoilt German tongue. I learned that the Purity Law we Germans are so proud of (beer may contain hop, malt, water and yeast,...
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Topless Sunbathing Nice
5 Reviews Topless sunbathing is permitted on the beaches of the Cote d'Azur. You'll see a mix of women with their tops on or off as you enjoy the beaches. The lesson to be learned is not to stare like a...
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April Fair Sevilla
9 Reviews Next to the Feria you find a huge lunapark, called "Calle del Infierno" - Hell's street. When you walk around there you understand why it got this name. You can find merry go rounds but also some...
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Usually if you take a portion of food in Lithuania’s bars, restaurants, in most cases it is possible to eat and not to feel overfed.Actually Poland amazed me about big portions of food. Sometimes portion looked like for a whole family. To get overfed in Poland is my tendency, after all adding extra 0.5L of beer : ) Sometimes price you pay look big, but when you see such a large portion, you are more than happy.
Phrases “too much money” could be understood in two meanings. Firstly, Norway is one of the richest countries in Europe and whole World. It could be seen from a good developed infrastructure, quality of people’s life and, of course, statistics.In other case, you could spend too much money visiting Norway, as prices here look big even to Western European people, so for Eastern Europeans prices here is a real shock. To imagine: for Norwegian price of beer you could buy 5-7 such beers in Lithuania.
Before visiting Latvia where was my personal opinion (I think not only mine), that Latvia is just almost the same as Lithuania, but I was wrong.At first, religion is Lutheran that caused not so much exterior – interior bombastic churches, not so much importance to religious things compared to Lithuania’s Catholics.Secondly, architecture is more influenced by German style, as some main towns of Latvia (Riga, Kuldiga) belonged to Hanseatic League, moreover were occupied by Livonian Order for long time.Moreover, Latvian language, as it seems, should be understandable to Lithuanian, but that’s not so easy, as sometimes even the same words have different meaning.So, better not to say that visiting Baltic States could be the same as visiting one country :)
When I heard this language it looked I can’t separate any word, it looked so hard understandable, so hard to catch a word that is like in English or any other language.What is more, even international words as “police” have their own version in Hungarian. It is nice to know that there are people who eager to learn and understand Hungarian : )
Seems Estonia’s density is really small one, the biggest concentration of people of course live in capital Tallinn. There are no bigger towns taking bus from Latvian border to Tallinn neither from Tallinn to Tartu, only empty lands and few lonely houses.Tallinn is one of the smallest capitals in Europe as well. Where people gone? :)
“Back to Soviet Union” is quite exotic feeling, even to me, despite of fact Lithuania was part of that country few decades ago. Here you still see statues of Lenin or renovated monuments for Red Soviet army soldiers. Nice examples of Soviet style architecture could be seen in capital Minsk. “Back to Soviet Union” feeling also vivid in quality of service and still some Soviet cars (like LADA) driving around.
That’s so nice and both strange to see newspaper box with a sign “put 50 euros cents and take it”, looks like people do it, there is no supervisor, no seller around. Few years ago we had a project about using bikes for free. The idea was just to take a bike at one point, use it and leave it in other one. After few weeks you could hardly find any bike, project stopped.
I speak here from my own experience, but I would be prepared to bet that others feel the same.When I dine out in Europe or anywhere else in the world at night, I always like to enjoy a leisurely drink before dinner. To this end, I have learnt only too well that in Europe, it is wise to choose a wine bar or similar to enjoy my glass of wine before proceeding to the restaurant for dinner. It seems that in most cases, the food arrives either at the same time as the wine, or just moments after the wine is put on the table. I don't blame the restrateurs for this, because it is obvious that they want to get their patrons fed and out of there so that they can use the table again. For a long time I lived in hope when I went to a restaurant for the first time, that the system might be different and more relaxed. I even tried asking the wait staff to hold off on the dinner till I had finished my...
No one expects every visitor to Europe to be able to speak each and every European language fluently. That of course, is unrealistic to say the least. You will find however, that the locals are much more prepared to assist travellers who at least try to speak a few words of their local language. Hello, goodbye, yes, no, please and thank you will get you by just about anywhere. The majority of non-english speaking Europeans for instance, do speak English or at least some English as a second language, so you won't be totally cut off from communicating. This of course, applies to people who speak other non-European languages as well, not just to English speakers.It's a point of courtesy to do your best to communicate in whatever small way you can in the local lingo. You'll be glad you tried, especially when the locals put you out of your misery by speaking fluent English when they see you...
I think an interesting key of research is the "alcoholic culture" in Europe (I mean: histories, traditions, uses, abuses and so on).I could write a book about that, especially about Italian wines!How to study it?Here you are two of my "sacred" sources: ;Dhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_belts_of_Europehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beerWine...Eh, I'm Italian and wine is a deep passion for me so I must advise the following links are interesting but not so "sacred". It's very hard to find something very objective and correct about wine...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine#European_classificationshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_winehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_winehttp://www.becomenatural.com/blog/2007/06/wine-classification-and-description-of-grape-varieties/I told you the above four links are good but...Here you are one big forgetfulness: "Conegliano Valdobbiano...
Four Seasons George V Paris Paris
5 Reviews and 556 Opinions The Four Seasons George V is truly one of the world's great hotels. I really, really love to stay...
The Montague On The Gardens London
5 Reviews and 1067 Opinions The concierge was fabulous, the hotel very grand, and despite the rooms being small they were...
Albergo Del Senato Rome
5 Reviews and 1085 Opinions The Pantheon is my favorite building in Rome and might be my favorite building in the world. The...
Reviews and photos of Europe attractions posted by real travelers and locals. The best tips for Europe sightseeing.
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Q: Hey, This summer I have about a month out and id like to travel around the EU, I come from the UK so Visa's and the like are...
A: If you're a student and live in the UK the option you want to look at is a thing called "interrail". Just google it. Be mindfull however of the following caveats: - In...
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