Hostels and Accomodations in Europe
Since I've been back, lots of people have asked about where we stayed and which places were good. So here's the information. I know lots of people have heard really crappy things about hostels and lots more have had bad experiences at them but we lucked out and found some pretty great places for acceptable dollars.
The thing to keep in mind is that you get what you pay for so if you're booked in some accomodation for $10CDN per night, you're better off camping.
For London, Rome and Florence we had hostels. In Cinque Terre and Venice we had apartments and finally a hotel in Paris.
With the exception of Cinque Terre and Paris, I used
Lonelyplanets.com and
Travelcuts.com to book all the accomodations. I also used
Tripadvisor.com to get ratings. I also used
Frommers.com for trip advice (in the travel talk section, you can find anything and get help with lots more)
London:Astor Museum Inn
27 Montague Street
London, England, Bloomsbury WC1B 5BHGood things:
it's located right next to the British Museum so if you're lost anywhere in the city, you just look for the tourist signs to get to the British Museum. There's internet onsite and a place to cook. everything is really clean including the washrooms. there's also a healty collection of DVDs so if you want to just veg a little at night after all the partying, it's there. People are really cool there.
Bad things:it can get noisy at night so bring earpluggs if you're a light sleeper. The building's old so water pressure isn't eactly the best. The pressure gets better as you move down the floors, we stayed on the fourth floor but took our showers on the 2nd.
Rome:
Hostel Alessandro Palace
Via Vicenza 42, 00185
Good things:
it's super organized here, it's like a hotel. the pub is fantastic and no matter what kind of party they're having in it, you won't hear them once you're in bed. the staff is awesome and really efficient. there's internet and long distance phones on site. they even sell phone cards out of a vending machine. the location is great, it's right by the train station but walkable to all the sites in 15 minutes. lots of people from all over the world stay here so you get a great mix. the air-conditioner is actually so cold that we had to put on extra clothing to sleep in! the bathrooms are modern and very clean all the time.
Bad things:
there's no elevator so it's a bit of a hike up. there's no way to turn the air-conditioner down so bring a sweater.
Florence:
Luna Rossa
Via Nazionale, 7
Florence, Italy
Good Things:
Marco! he's the guy in charge and he's amazing. He'll help you out no matter what it's related to. Everything is really clean about the place. there's no bunk beds at the hotel, you actually get a very nice room and a clean bed for each person. Location is great and close to the local leather market so you can get some great deals along with fresh food. We went horseback riding and had a traditional tuscan dinner with an Italian winery family through Marco's friend Sam (Sam runs tours of different parts of Italy and it's a great experience)
Bad Things:
It's right on a main street so it can get noisy in the morning, Italians get up pretty early. The place is small hosting up to 30 people per night so it might be hard to get a bed there if you didn't book ahead.
more later.
Venice, Paris and finally home
I've been home for 3 days now and so quickly a month has gone by. it got a little difficult to find internet cafes in Venice so I've missed a few emails but here I go.
Venice was great. Lots of people warned us about it potentially being a bit smelly with the Grand Canal but the people were wonderful and the food fantastic here. We rented a little apartment for the 4 of us to share as we leave our hostel days behind. We're right in the heart of Venice and a 10 minute walk from St. Mark's Square.
We did some of the touristy things like go to the Doge's Palace (the former Duke of Venice), getting attacked by pigeons in St. Mark's (I think there's a movie scene like that in The Day after Tomorrow...there's also a video of me screaming while pigeons swarmed me, I'll show you all later when I get my camera fixed). We also went on the ferry to tour the Grand Canal and visited the island of Murano (where we spent our life savings on handmade glass pieces and beads). For any museum/art lovers out there, my recommendation is definitely to visit the Peggy Guggenheim museum. That woman has spectacular taste in modern art and it’s set up so that you don’t need to have a masters in Art to enjoy it.
The food is incredible with Winston and I making a full supper out of some very adventurous looking cuttlefish and black mushy sauce. It doesn’t sound or even look very good but it tastes spectacular.
While in Venice, we got student tickets to a concerto done in traditional Venetian style (with costumes and the whole bit) in a church. It was a spur of the moment thing but it was so rewarding for Marg and I (Adrian and Winston fell asleep...boys!)
After 5 days in Venice, we took an overnight sleeper train to Paris. I've never been in a sleeper train so that was actually really fun. We had the compartment to ourselves it was very clean and unexpectedly modern and nice. Of course this was the Eurostar train so it's a bit nicer than trains that we bumped along around in Italy.
So after 4 years of having left Paris, I arrive back in my favorite city and back at a nice little hotel that I stayed in last time. The hotel is located in the Latin Quarter area of Paris so it’s surrounded by loads of fantastic and inexpensive restaraunt. It’s also with in 10 minutes walking distance from Notre Dame, which incidentally becomes an open arena for all kinds of performance art and street performances in the evening. The four of us took a liking to a gang of 4-8 stunt roller skaters that spend every evening launching themselves off homemade ramps (constructed from street signs, pallets from shops and fencing from road construction).
We bought a museum card while we where here and made plans to get to all the museums that we wanted to see. The whole thing about being in the heart of a big city is the number of distractions that you come to. The first day we attempted to go to the Louvre, we didn’t end up getting there until 1:00pm despite the fact that the museum was only 15minutes away from our hotel and we started at 9:00am. We ended up shopping and then having to take our bags back to the hotel and then shopping some more just on the street that took us to the Louvre. Between the 4 of us, we came home with 6 jackets, 1 odd looking puffy/furry vest (Winston), 5 pairs of shoes, 6 leather belts, 2 bags and a load of accessories just from Paris alone.
The great thing about going to Paris after being in Italy for so long is the food. Although the pasta that we had in Italy was amazing and heavenly, we were good and tired of the pasta. Paris is full of variety in food with some decent looking Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Lebanese and of course French restaurants. We had escargots almost every night and found ourselves dipping cubbed bread and meat in big pots of cheese and in my case beer (I’m just starting to like cheese so I haven’t upgraded to the big pot of melted cheese yet).
The last time I was in Paris, I didn’t go out to Versaille because I didn’t have much time so this time I made sure that we got a chance to go out there. The palace was beautiful and so enormous. Of course we had to squeeze our way around the massive groups of tourists to be able to see everything.
The trip was great and I had a fantastic time. I am truly glad to be home though – I think I’m getting old. We met lots of people from all over the world, some have been traveling for close to a year. I don’t know how they do it but it really is very nice to be home and have sushi!
