European Itinerary

So Laura and I finally sat down and hammered out a schedule of where we're going to be, and when, during the European leg of our trip. Here's what we have so far:

June 29-July 1 (2 nights, 3-ish days): London

July 1-July 2 (at night): cross the English Channel on a boat

July 2 or 3: Amsterdam (for most of a day) en route to Berlin

July 3-5 (2 nights, 3 days) : Berlin

July 5-6 (at night): train from Berlin to Prague

July 6-8 (3-ish nights): Prague

July 9: Vienna, en rout to Franfurt and/or Munich

July 11: arrive in Bacharach (Germany/Rhine River region)

July 12 or 13: leave Germany

July 13-17 (4 nights, 5-ish days): Paris

July 18: French country side

July 20: Chamonix (French Alps), en route to Aosta, Italy

July 21-23/24 (3 nights, 4-ish days): Venice and Venetian countryside (Padua, Ravenna, etc.)

July 24-27 (3 nights, 4ish days): Florence

July 27-28: Cinque Terre

July 29-Aug 4 (6-ish days): Rome

Aug 4: Salt Lake City

A few things about this schedule. First, it's just tentative. We've already booked our hotel in London, but other than that we haven't paid for anything but our plane tickets. In the big cities we'll probably book in advance, but we also want to keep things as flexible as possible. If we like Berlin, for example, we'll try to stay longer and cut something else short.

We've also decided to do some of Europe's "hits." Though Paris, Rome, Venice, etc. might be pretty typical tourist spots, we've never been to them and felt like our first trip to the continent (or at least, my first trip) should hit the major sites.

On a similar note, we've realized that even a month isn't enough time to visit even close to all the places we want to go. I'll mention what went on the chopping block my next post, but the biggest lesson I've learned from this lesson is something I saw in a Rick Steves' video: assume you'll come back. If anything, planning this trip have given me a greater desire to return on future trips.

Also, we are getting the Eurail pass. More about this later, but for now suffice it to say that we tried to hit cities that are all close together. Our trip, if plotted on a map, zigzags across the continent in such a way that we'll rarely spend more than a few hours traveling. It means we'll be able to hit more cities than we could by using budget airlines (and we'll have less stress).

Rick Steves and Empathy

If you've never seen Rick Steves' Europe, you should check it out. Literally. The Provo Library has a bunch of DVDs you can get for free and if you live somewhere else, your local library also may have them.

For the uninitiated, Rick Steves is a travel writer and hosts the show mentioned above. He started out by writing a book called Europe Through the Back Door and has expanded his travel empire since.

As a travel writer, Steves' is both useful and cheesy. As he goes around Europe you get the distinct impression that he is a very much a tourist. He dresses like an American, he can't really speak any European languages, and he balances hard to find spots with very tourist-y places.

But the thing that really stands out to me about Steves is that he seems like a genuinely nice guy (don't know him personally, so I can only say here that that's how he comes across in his work). He also seems to have a genuine love for the places he visits and the people he meets. In other words, Rick Steves' travel approach is all about visiting places with empathy.

At certain times I've mentioned my love of Rick Steves' travel materials to friends and have been surprised to find out that some people look down on the genres of travel writing and TV shows. Certainly, the argument could be made that this sort of thing mainly appeals to bourgeois, middle-class Americans who want to "understand" a place by visiting it for an afternoon (or, worse yet, but simply seeing it on TV).

Yet, as I think about it, I'm not sure there is any genre of writing that is more empathetic to different people than travel writing. The whole point of the genre is to soften the visitor's impact on the culture he or she is entering. Travel writing is supposed to bridge cultural divides and is directly concerned with communication and understanding. Certainly some people use travel information to appropriate and totalize, but ideally it would be used to build understanding.

Rick Steves' is a master at this because he understands both the places he visits, as well as his audience (who, in my case, is sitting at home). He's an entertaining link that makes empathetic travel seem possible.