Train and Ferry Travel

I have traveled with and without a train pass.  If you plan on hopping from city to city, especially in a country that does not require train reservations, the train pass may save you a lot of money.

Advantages of train pass:
 - flexibility of not being tied down to a particular departure time
 - flexibility to hop on and off trains without paying for another ticket if you happened to go in the wrong direction or change your mind about where you want to go
 - Substantial discounts to attractions, for example, the Suisse pass comes with a discount for the Matterhorn Glacial Paradise and similar trips up the Alps
- Considerable cost savings if you use it enough.  For example, I had sticker shock from the several hundred Euros I shelled out for round trip tickets for two from Berlin to Leipzig via the DB train.  A six day pass covering Austria and Switzerland, 2nd class for 2 adults, cost me 490 Euros.   I used the pass to travel to two Austrian and 9 Swiss cities covered by the pass.

Disadvantages of the pass:
- The Eurail pass must be activated in a set time, so if you bought it in advance and changed your travel plans, you lose money
- Substantial up-front cost, and no refunds for lost or damaged passes (unless you buy some insurance that covers such a loss)
- Must be activated correctly; for Eurail pass, an error would mean finding the nearest Eurail office to straighten things out.  I luckily have not run into this problem although I did give the agent a post-it note with begin and end dates written European style for my flexi-pass activation.
- For countries that require train reservation, such as Italy, the pass may not make financial sense, so you must calculate the cost of your trips plus train reservation vs. the pass plus train reservations.

Train passes may not cover all trains you plan to use, so use the trip planner app or website to plan accordingly and buy your ticket separately when necessary.  For example, in Switzerland, the scenic trains and train to Zermatt are not covered by the Eurail pass.  I still found the pass useful for transiting between the various cities I was visiting.

What about first vs. second class?
I only traveled first class when there was no other option, for example, the Chocolate Train in Switzerland.  Otherwise, I was perfectly content with second class and had no problem getting a seat or having luggage space although the caveat is I do not travel during the peak summer months.

Advantages of first class:
- more room in the seats
- cabins often closer to where you first enter the platform which means less distance to haul your things. It does not impact distance to sprint if you are late because you can usually enter the first class cabin and gradually make your way through the connecting doors to the second class cabins.
- no upstairs trek for some trains, which have second class seats upstairs
- clientele and concomitant noise level.  I encountered rowdy teenage crowds in both Italy and Switzerland while traveling second class.  It is not to say that first class is immune to this; it is just practical economics that teenagers, most of whom have limited income, would be traveling in second class.

What about optional train reservation?
- In countries with optional train reservation, like Austria and Switzerland, even though the seats do have numbers, I have not yet had someone displace me because they bought that seat.  Even if they did, the advantage of traveling during non peak season is that there are plenty of seats to be had, and relocating is not a big deal.  My fellow passengers and I generally had enough room to place bags on adjacent seats (aka 'seat hogs') on the uncrowded trains.

What about luggage?
Luggage can be placed in several places depending on the train:
- underneath/between rows of seats not blocked by a metal bar
- overhead racks (if you can lift your bag that high)
- near your feet (if the train is not crowded; otherwise you are blocking other seats)
- racks near the door (generally larger long-distance trains)

You must be able to lift your luggage up the couple of steps to the train.  As mentioned, some second class trains have seats upstairs, so you would need to lift your luggage up a flight of stairs.

You will be hauling your luggage all over the train station when changing trains.

Although not related to train travel, note that many European smaller hotels do not have elevators.

In Venice, there are limits on how much luggage you can bring on the Vaporetto, and there are surcharges for exceeding the limits.

For all of the above reasons, I travel with a smaller sized roller bag and a backpack whenever possible.

How do I get tickets?
- I have found the machines in Italy, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, and Switzerland to all be very intuitive and to offer English instructions.
- I have bought tickets from a human in a booth in Italy en route to Pompeii.  Most agents speak at least some English.
- I encountered problems with my credit and debit cards in the machines in Venice which required a credit card pin.  Luckily a human was on duty.
- Likewise I encountered problems with my credit card with no pin at another train stations in Italy and had to buy tickets in person.  Most of the time, though, I had no problem using my credit card in the TrenItalia machines.
- Machines may let you buy tickets in advance.  Advance purchase saves money and guarantees you a seat if you are concerned about the train being crowded.  However, depending on the class of ticket you buy, it may restrict you timewise such that you lose your money if you are late, unless you bought a flexible or refundable fare.

Ticket validation:
- Remember to validate your train tickets when required, usually before entering the train!
- Validation boxes vary in color; I have found mostly orange and yellow boxes on the platform or just before entry to the platform
- In Rome, I ran into boxes that had jammed or run out of ink.  Do not be late for your train- give yourself enough time to run to alternate boxes if you encounter a problem with the nearest one.
- Train passes i.e. Eurail pass for trains not requiring reservation will be validated on board by the ticket agent, who will often check for passports, too.

"When You're Hungry, Catch a Kungry..."

- quote adapted from Richard Wright

Budget minded veg*ns should not go hungry in their globe-trotting quests.  My general tips are:

• Look for accommodations with kitchens, for example, youth hostels, YMCA/YMCA, short-term rentals or apartments with kitchens
• Grocery store packaged foods often come with veg*n options and are less expensive than restaurants
• Check Happy Cow, Trip Advisor, Yelp, and similar websites for veg*n restaurants in your budget range and location
• Bring food as long as it is not restricted by customs and airport rules (e.g. liquids, gels, and pastes like peanut butter are generally forbidden from carry on; fresh fruits and vegetables cannot be exported to other countries)
• Granola bars fed me for many a breakfast, snack, and lunch
• Nuts and dried fruit provided fiber and sated my sweet tooth
• Dried peas provided protein and fiber
• Toasted seaweed went well with ramen noodles

Here is how I sated my appetite, by location:

Paris, France

• Baguettes and vegan pate
• Find a good boulangerie.  I regretted the over-priced and hard baguette from Paul's (bakery chain).  I found a good boulangerie on the street corner near my hotel in the 17eme arrondissement that sold baguettes for under under 2 Euro each.  They were fresh, hot, and way better than Paul's, in my opinion.
• I loaded up on Tartex vegan pate from a small deli/grocery near the national library
• Note on vegan pate: I have had no trouble so far with customs in the US regarding bringing cans of vegan pate in my check in luggage back into the US.  If it was real pate, it would be forbidden (mad cow disease and such).  Advantages of being veg*n!

Germany

• Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin has numerous vegan dining options for <10-15 Euros for take-out dinner
• Veganz grocery chain has several locations, including in Berlin and Leipzig.  The latter locale had a huge selection of vegan pate.  See Paris entry above- bread and pate, yum.  It also had a little counter that sold drinks and take out items.  

Switzerland

• Migros has Quorn brand veggie faux meats in the refrigerated section
• Baguettes at Migros and Coop were between 2 to 3 CHF each.  Sandwich bread was cheaper at just above 1 CHF for a very small pack.

Vienna, Austria

• Veganz grocery chain has one location in Wien that had a selection of vegan pate smaller than those I found in Paris and Leipzig.  Still, combined with 3-packs of vegan bread rolls for just under 1 Euro for a pack, I was back on my bread and pate diet.
• Interspar had baguettes and other bread, though I would stay away from the bread covered with rock salt.  I do not know how one keeps from being hypertensive after eating one of those breads.  

Italy

• Universo Vegano is a vegan restaurant chain with very affordable dinner take out options.  I visited the Milano and Firenze locations.   I indulged a bit and splurged on vegan Sachertorte, tiramisu, and blueberry cheesecake.  The dessert selection varies by location, and I was very disappointed to not find cannoli at any location I visited, despite it being on the menu.  
• Multiple gelaterias have vegan options- check on Happy Cow, Trip Advisor, Yelp, etc.

Canada

• Vancouver- as the home of Daiya cheese, one cannot go wrong.  The Naam is a 24 hour vegetarian restaurant here which I thoroughly enjoyed.
• Montreal- 
• Vegan poutine is available at a couple locations
• Metro plus market had Gardein and many other faux meat options, plus pre-made wraps (hummus, baba ghanoush, eggplant/veggie) in the refrigerator section; again, varies per location. One location even had microwaves ostensibly for customer use.
• Petit Marche Vege is a Vietnamese take out restaurant and mini grocery at which I found:
• Veganized versions of traditional Vietnamese food, including pho noodle soup and desserts
• Vegan pate (made in Romania)
• Gardein
• Dehydrated faux veggie 'beef' slices
• Banh mi sandwiches with veggie mayo and mock meat for under 5 Canadian dollars each

Souvenirs

Don't fall for the tourist traps!

Examples of tourist traps:

• Airport gift shops
• Boutiques at the exit or entrance of a museum or similar attraction
• Train station shop

Once in a blue moon, I have found a good deal at a tourist trap.  For example, a duty free gift shop in a Munich airport once had a sale on gifts from neighboring countries and parts of Germany not included in my trip.  Thus it was nice to be able to buy souvenirs I would not have otherwise encountered during my travel.

More often than not, though, I have had buyers' remorse after spending money at a tourist trap.

How much does a postcard cost?

If the cost of a postcard is a reliable metric of souvenir costs (I have yet to study this theory), the cheapest postcard I have ever bought was in 2005 in New York City.  I paid 5 US cents.  Granted, the printing qualitty was sub-par, and it was the standard small size.   The most expensive standard size and print postcard I have ever encountered was in Switzerland in 2016.  I paid 1.20 CHF and even saw some tourist traps selling the same ones for 1.50 CHF.   However, I found a couple gems in Zermatt and Geneve selling postcards for 0.50 CHF.  Yes, you can get cheap postcards in Switzerland!  You might have to search the racks in the back of the store (as was my experience in Zermatt; the storefront ones were already decently priced at 1 CHF), or you might have to walk a little further away from the main tourist drags (as in Geneve).  Do not be hoodwinked into paying 1.50 CHF!

Where have I found good deals for souvenirs?

• Grocery stores
• Discount stores (e.g. dollar store or equivalent)
• Specialty stores

Here are examples by location:

Florence, Italy

• Several "dollar" stores in the city that charge 1+ Euro per item.  I found:
• Lip gloss and nail polish made in Venice, Italy.  
• Household items (cheap imports from China)
• Some marzipan, chocolate, and goodies from Austria

Montreal, Canada

• Multiple chains of "dollar" stores, with Dollarama being the most ubiquitous.  They charge 1+ Canadian dollars.  I found:
• Canadian flags, keychains, hats, plastic sunglasses, etc.
• Excellent selection of greeting cards in French.  Beats paying $4 per card at the pharmacy.
• Sketchy selection of food.  The bread looked ok...I would stay away from the unrefrigerated hummus.
• Nail polish made in USA for a Revlon subsidiary
• Selection varies per location as some stores are larger.

Berlin, Germany

• Fassbender & Rausch chocolate store- example of 'specialty' store whereby going to the source and buying directly from the manufacturer is better for selection and perhaps price vs. going through a middleman.  I found: 
• Chocolate bars for under 3-4 Euros
• Sculpted chocolates- ladybugs, motorcycles, bears, and more!

Switzerland

• Coop and Migros grocery stores.  I found:
• Chocolate bars labeled 'budget' for as little as 0.50 CHF
• Nicer bars in the 2-5 CHF range
• Wine, liquers, pastries of wide variety
• The one Migros I visited did not sell alcohol
• Coop tended to be in more convenient locations to train stations
• Prices varied by location even within the same chain
• Cailler chocolate factory
• Huge selection, including customizable boxes if you want only certain kinds of chocolates in a box, sold by weight
• Discounts for large purchases of select chocolates
• Prices same or less than Coop or Migros prices for many bars, and much wider selection

Austria

• Interspar grocery stores.  I found:
• Same chocolates as at the tourist traps (Sisi, Mozart chocolates) for less! Alas, it was too late of a discovery for me as I had fallen for the tourist trap, but don't be like me!!!
• Wine, liquers, pastries

Berlin - Hotel de France

My go-to site for finding lodgings is Tripadvisor.

From the aforementioned site, I found the Hotel de France.

It is a gem of a hotel located in the outskirts of Berlin in the Wedding district.

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Staff speaks multiple languages, notably French, English, and German
• Close to Rehberg U-bahn stop which takes you downtown in about 30 min. from which you can connect to all tourist stops
• It is closer to the airport than the downtown hotels.  The bus to/from airport stops only a few metro stops away from the hotel
• The room is clean.
• It is in a safe mostly residential neighborhood.
• It has a restaurant and is next to a movie theater (kino).

Cons:

• If you like to regularly return to your hotel midday to nap or to quickly retrieve things, it is not conveniently close enough for that relative to the major tourist attractions
• The hotel room door takes some getting used to.  I've stayed at a lot of hotels in the US, and I've never had to deal with such a fastidious door.
• The elevator is small.
• The internet works...most of the time.  Once it was off-line most of the day on the weekend, and when it was back up, it only worked in the lobby area.   
• If you like to live near exciting nightlife, this is not the place for you.  It is next to a church and seems to be a residential neighborhood.  I got food, entertainment, etc. elsewhere and only returned here to sleep.

Would I stay here again?  Yes, if price was a deciding factor and also for the convenience of proximity to the airport and U-bahn.  If I could find another comparable place closer to the vegan restaurants in the Prenzlauer-Berg Schoenhauser Allee, I'd consider staying there, too.

Tower of Babel

What's the best way to immerse yourself in your destination?  Learn the language!

If you've already studied foreign languages in high school or college, you're all set.

If you need a refresher or want to pick up a new language, here are the resources I found useful:

• Textbooks
• These are useful for learning grammar and spelling and for practicing writing and reading skills
• My sources: Amazon.com for used textbooks (old editions are sufficient), used book sales
• Specifically, I own or have read all or part of:
• Italian- Oggi in Italia
• German- Alles Gute!, Neue Horizonte, Deutsch Sprache and Landeskunde
• Online learning modules from Mango Languages are available for free from  many public libraries.
• Mango consists of self-paced modules featuring a seemingly intimidating conversation at the beginning of the lesson that is your 'goal' as you work to deconstruct the dialog during the lesson.  
• There is a lot of repetition, which is useful for learning
• The English and foreign language are juxtaposed and color-coded
• You can click on the word to hear it repeated as much as you would like
• If you have a microphone, you can record and compare your accent to the standard reference
• Units 1 and 2, if available for your language of interest, are part of the library subscription package.  They cover very basic material.
• Subjects include- greetings, shopping, sightseeing, eating out, weather, direction, basic medical terms
• It took me about 10 months total to complete both Units 1 and 2 for two languages. I completed about 1-2 lessons per weekday and 2-4 lessons per weekend day, with an occasional day or a week of break.
• Each lesson takes about 10-20 minutes to complete.
• Units 3 and 4, if you're interested in more in-depth learning, require individual subscription which is currently under $180 a year. 
• Subjects include- arts, history, more medical terms, customs, hotel, chores, sports
• Audio learning (CD-roms)
• Pimsleur has 5 levels of several major languages.  These levels may be split depending on what version you have, i.e. IA and IB  = level I.
• Level I for the one language I tried consists of 30 lessons split among 18 CD-roms.
• It comes with a reading booklet consisting of a list of vocabulary words.  The words correspond with past or future lessons.
• Each lesson takes 30 minutes to complete.  The last 5 minutes is devoted to reading the vocabulary list in the 'reading' booklet.
• Pimsleur also has smaller collections, for example, of Swiss German which consists of ~10 CDs
• I used Pimsleur after already having learned the basics with Mango and textbooks.  If you try Pimsleur by itself, I think your grammar and spelling skills will be deficient.  It depends on how you learn best.  I'm quite a visual person, so seeing the words and how they're spelled makes a lot of difference to how I learn, so Pimsleur is not good for the visual learner.  Pimsleur is good auditory reinforcement of words that I previously learned audiovisually.
• A disadvantage is that I cannot get the CD to save where I left off when using a CD player, so I end up having to finish the 30 minute lesson so as to not have to repeat material.  If you use a computer or other device with a time tracker, you can resume at the time where you last left off.

Travel Books

Here are the books I found most or least useful by destination.  My favorite source of these books are:

• Public Library
• Used book or rummage sales (e.g. held by library or local charity)
• Amazon.com

Italy
You can't go wrong with any of the Rick Steves' books.  I personally preferred getting the individual books for each city so that I could abandon them en route if I needed luggage space.  I like the flexibility of packing several smaller books vs. one gigantic, heavy book.  Plus, for the cities I really liked and hope to return to some day, I saved those books while donating the others for cities I don't plan to visit again.  The comprehensive tome that covers multiple major cities is like an encyclopedia and is too heavy to lug around for day trip traveling.

In addition, I also liked Eyewitness Travel's Milan and the Lakes since I did not find a city-specific Rick Steves book that covered Milan as well as this book did.

Montreal
Secret Montreal
If you want to go off the beaten path, I highly recommend this book.  Several of the 'secret' sites are free or inexpensive public art or building facades.

Switzerland
Cadogan Guides Switzerland
It features more detail on cities like Basel than other tour books.
I found Rick Steve's book to be woefully inadequate.  It is heavy on Eastern Switzerland and misses a lot of cities.  It is very cursory and overall a disappointment.

Paris
I used Fodor's books (top 10 and comprehensive books) as well as websites for free things to do in Paris.

Berlin
Besides Fodor's and Rick Steves' books, I also used Lonely Planet's Berlin City Guide.

All about Geld - Argent - Dinero - Euro - $$$

Check to see if your bank has any partner banks in other countries to save on transaction fees.  For example, I have used these banks which partner with my American bank:
- Scotia Bank in Canada
- BNP Paribas in France
- BNP in Italy
- Deutsch Bank in Germany

Make sure you notify your bank in advance that you will be traveling so that your card isn't blocked.  You may be able to set up a travel notice online.

Request your credit card pin in advance of your trip.  Some automated machines in Europe require credit card pins, e.g. at public transit stations.  It may NOT be something you can request on the phone or online during your trip.  They mail it to you a couple weeks after you submit your request.

My bank charges a ~$7 transaction fee plus their conversion rate for foreign currency orders. It takes about 2 business days to arrive at a local branch for pickup.  You can request small bills, large bills, or a mix.  No coins are provided, though.

Check with your financial institution to see if they have travel credit card deals.  For example, my travel card has no foreign transaction fees and also accumulates points related to travel spending which can be redeemed towards future credit card payments which do not have to be related to travel spending.  It's like a rebate for a portion of your travel expenditures.

Bring your 1-800 number help line with you in case you lose your card(s).  Store it separately from your cards.  I had the misfortune of losing my cards once while overseas, and it was a lifesaver to be able to call collect (at bank's expense) to be able to report the loss right away.  Luckily my travel companion had their cards such that my frozen accounts did not damper my ability to cover expenses for the rest of the trip.