7 day tour itinerary. europe.....i am coming.....:)

[tds]

folks, i am going to europe next month and still havent decided which countries i am going to ( or not going to ). for your information, i'll be staying in norway for about a week, and will spend another week in other schengen countries ( see the list ). anyone interested in building me a good itinerary for my second week?

list of schengen countries:

austria
belgia
denmark
finland
france
germany
greece
italy
luxembourg
norway
 portugal
spain
sweden
the netherlands

an itinerary with some more specific places and time to go would be most appreciated.

thanks a bunch. tds

[tds]

ok, the louvre, eiffel tower, vatican...hmmm....what else....

[pianonut]

are you visiting family or anything, or is this simply to see sights you haven't seen before? 

i'd like to take a trip to ireland (and check out family geneology some more on my dad's side). 

maybe, before you go you should check out which countries give you the most 'bang for the buck.'  not necessarily money exchange, but cost of living and what you want to spend the money on.  is it food, is it place to stay, both, will you see musical sights you want, and hear the best music possible for the time you are there.

maybe some other professional musician can give you some tips on summer festivals.  i'd try to hit one .

go to greece and crash a wedding?!  my husband said driving and parking is impossible in france.  he said the rooms are small, and the complimentary breakfasts at the hotels are soso but not like the restaurants.  he said if he went there again, he would not pay for the comp breakfast, but have them take it off the bill at the beginning.

suppose the spacious feel of the netherlands would draw me.  i like wildlife (almost as much as music).  go for the animals.  well, i suppose there are rosy cheeked blond girls, too.  and what about the viking museaum (will they let you get into the boat and put on a hat)?

say, you know what i just thought of - is that scandinavia has the BEST food because they have real apple strudel.  yes.  norway, finland    - isn't that the netherlands (denmark, norway, finland?)  can you explain the difference between scandinavia and netherlands?

[Jacey1973]

folks, i am going to europe next month and still havent decided which countries i am going to ( or not going to ). for your information, i'll be staying in norway for about a week, and will spend another week in other schengen countries ( see the list ). anyone interested in building me a good itinerary for my second week?

list of schengen countries:

austria
belgia
denmark
finland
france
germany
greece
italy
luxembourg
norway
 portugal
spain
sweden
the netherlands

an itinerary with some more specific places and time to go would be most appreciated.

thanks a bunch. tds

Oooh i'm gonna be in Portugal soon for a couple of weeks...might see you there.

Or you could just come to the best country in the world - Great Britain (er obviously as i happen to live here)...

[amanfang]

You HAVE to go to Salzburg (Austria).  It was my favorite city when I visited Europe.  Visit Mozart's house, catch a concert in the fortress, visit the hellbrunn haus (or however you spell it) with the water gardens, and so on.  There's lots of good stuff there.  I didn't find Luxembourg to be all that exciting.  If you go to Paris, go ahead and go to Versailles.  That was worth visiting too.

[tds]

sight seeing mainly. never been to europe, so a starter itinerary would be fine. geneo hunt, heh...prolly i'll pass this time.

hmmm, musical events might be a good idea, but i think i can survive without too much of it ( specially right after a week of music, music, and music )

ok...hmmm...venice, .....amsterdam perhaps?

hmmmm

[pianonut]

ok is scandinavia basically holland and belgium?  i know, terrible.  i just don't know.

[TheHammer]

ok is scandinavia basically holland and belgium? i know, terrible. i just don't know.

 
Are you serious? Lol. Ummm, no it is exactly the other way round: Scandinavia = Norway, Sweden, Denmark (sometimes also Finway). It is in the north of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia


Holland is actually only a part of the Netherlands. So Holland isn't really a country, but only two provinces of the Netherlands.  Netherlands are a neighbor state to Germany and borders to the North Sea in the West and North, to Belgium in the South.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
Belgium+Netherlands+Luxembourg = the Be-Ne-Lux, by the way.


Italy is always worth the trip (although terror threat might scare you away from this...). Rome, Saint Peter's basilica is pretty impressive, Sistin Chapel, etc.
Venice, Florence, Verona... mmmh....

From what I recall Amsterdam was pretty boring, but it was a good time ago.



Edit: okay, I just thought, anyone who never got a globe to play with as a child and has a decent internet connection might like this (if you don't know it yet): https://earth.google.com/

It is a free programme to gain access on satellite photos of the whole world, enabled in a giant world map, smoothly zoomable, you can let the world rotate and basically go anywhere you want. Most big cities are in high resolution, which is good enough to make out if you parked your car in front of your home.

The interesting thing about this is, that their is a whole community growing, here: https://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/Cat/0
where other people share their placemarks with you (and other interesting things, just discovering myself). let's say you have no clue what there is to see in Amsterdam. Go to this forum, search a bit, find a thread where someone posted his route through Amsterdam on his vacation last week, and with Google Earth you are then able to view all the sights etc. If the guy you got the placemarks from is a nice guy, he will have provided links to sight-related sites (there is for example a Wikipedia placemark data, which allows you to view information to ANY wikipedia article which is somehow related to geography. When you then click on a sight/village/mountain/philharmony in Google Earth, a window pops up with the Wikipedia article). There seems to be much more about it...and least the people there sound quite enthousiastic, and it is cool to look for places you have been to or want to go to.

Okay, it is really easier than it sounds, and free and safe. Try it out (provided you have a DSL or better connection and a decent PC...).

[tolkien]

Citywise, Paris and Vienna are musts. London too, though I don't know how safe you would feel there at the moment (you can combine it with Paris by using the superfast TGV train that goes under the Channel and takes about 2 and a half hours I think). I haven't been to Rome, so I can't have an informed opinion, though, I figure it recommends itself. Athens is great too, splendidly refurbished for the recent Olympics, nice climate in September and lots of nearby beaches, islands and archaeological sites to choose from. The Summer Festival  has always something interesting in music (e.g. the Dresden Staatscapelle sept.17/18 at Herodeion Odeon) or ancient drama.  Oh, and the best metro I've ever been in.

[Jacey1973]

You HAVE to go to Salzburg (Austria).  It was my favorite city when I visited Europe.  Visit Mozart's house, catch a concert in the fortress, visit the hellbrunn haus (or however you spell it) with the water gardens, and so on.  There's lots of good stuff there.  I didn't find Luxembourg to be all that exciting.  If you go to Paris, go ahead and go to Versailles.  That was worth visiting too.

Oh yes i totally agree! Salzburg is fantastic - and Vienna! I went there when we did a tour with my local Youth Orchestra, Mozart's house was nice and especially the gardens - i felt like i was in "The Sound of Music"!

sight seeing mainly. never been to europe, so a starter itinerary would be fine. geneo hunt, heh...prolly i'll pass this time.

hmmm, musical events might be a good idea, but i think i can survive without too much of it ( specially right after a week of music, music, and music )

ok...hmmm...venice, .....amsterdam perhaps?

hmmmm

Ohhh come to the Proms in London!! (That's if you decide to come to the UK as i have already mentioned). The Proms is such a fantastic music festival:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/

I went last summer and you can literally queue up on the day about half an hour/hour before the concert starts (depending on who plays - obviously when the Berlin Philharmonic played with Simon Rattle there were huge queues for hours that day!) and pay only £4 (for a standing ticket) and see the most amazing world class orchestras/conductors/soloists for such a cheap price! And the atmosphere and location are fantastic - the Albert Hall is a must see plus you're right by the Royal College of Music which is worth a look.

Here is a pic of a Proms concert:



So far on this summer's Proms concerts there has been:

15th July
19.00 - 21.30
 Prom 1
Berlioz
Overture - Le Corsaire
Mendelssohn
Violin Concerto
Elgar
Overture - Cockaigne
Tippett
A Child of Our Time

Janine Jansen

Indra Thomas
Christine Rice
Ian Bostridge
Sir Willard White

BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Sir Roger Norrington

*That was a good concert but my favourite 2 so far have to have been:

28th July
19.30 - 21.45
 Prom 18
John Adams
The Chairman Dances
John Corigliano
Red Violin Concerto
(UK premiere)
Prokofiev
Romeo and Juliet (excerpts)

Joshua Bell

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Marin Alsop conductor

*AND

29th July
19.30 - 21.45
 Prom 19
Tchaikovsky
The Snow Maiden - introduction; Melodrama; Dance of the Tumblers
Shostakovich
Violin Concerto No.1
Prokofiev
Symphony No.5

Sergey Khachatryan

BBC Philharmonic
Vassily Sinaisky conductor


 :-*Mmmm Josh and Sergey were lush  and amazing violinists of course! I especially enjoyed the Corigiliano and Adams works.


------------> As far as piano music is concerned the following are takin place:

Mon 8th Aug - Prom 34
Tippett Piano Concerto - Steven Osborne
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins (a lovely conductor - observed a really interesting conducting masterclass with him recently)

Thurs 11th Aug - Prom 37
Beethoven Piano Concerto no 4 - Gianluca Cascioli
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Ingo Meitzmacher

Fri 12th Aug - Prom 38
Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor - Lars Vogt
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Thoam Dausgaarg

Mon 15th Aug - N.B 13.00 - 14.00 - Here's a piano (only) lunchtime recital i.e non orchestral
 PCM 5
Brahms
Intermezzo in E flat major, Op. 117 No.1
Tatjana Komarova
Tänze mit verbundenen Augen
UK premiere
Schubert
Piano Sonata in B flat major, D960

Lars Vogt - Piano

Tue 16th - Prom 43
Marc-Andre Dalbavie Piano Concerto (BBC co-commission; world premiere) - Leif Ove Andsnes
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Sun 21st - Prom 50
Schumann Piano Concerto in A Minor - Lyr Williams
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Jiri Belohlavek

Mon 22nd Aug - N.B 1300-1400 (a coice/piano lunchtime recital)
Tippett Piano Sonata no 3 - Paul Crossley

Mon 22nd - Prom 51 (c. 7.30pm??)
Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major - Helene Grimaud
London Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink

Mon 29th - Prom 59
Beethoven Piano Concerto no 3- Emanuel Ax
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich/David Zinman

Mon 5th Sept - Prom 68
Rawsthorne Piano Concerto no.2 - Howard Shelley
BBC National Orchestra of Wales (one of my favourites  )/Rumon Gambe

[pianonut]

dear hammer,
thanks for the help on my geography.  i knew i should have looked it up.  sometimes i get lazy. 

wow.  all the concerts!  so much to do for tds, so little time!

[Tash]

oooh i'm jealous i wanna go to europe! my one suggestion, cos this is where i plan on going next time i'm in europe, and it may only be interesting if you like ancient history, but if you go to greece, visit crete and check out the minoan palaces cos they're so cool!!

also, i visited salzburg in austria on christmas day and it was lovely, nothing was open unfortunately but the gardens and stuff were nice.
i also loved germany, down in munich and stuff, did a day tour of some of king ludwig's castles and they were amazing so if you go there you should check them out.

[tds]

....so salzburg, vienna, venice, rome, florence, paris,etc .....wow!!! ( btw, london is not within schengen ). ive gotten more excited since we read all the replies. folks, thank you for taking the time to write. you know i love you all  . will write again soon....

tds

[Aziel]

Vienna, Austria.

[prometheus]

suppose the spacious feel of the netherlands would draw me.  i like wildlife (almost as much as music).  go for the animals.

We have no real nature in the netherlands, at least not on land. All the forests in my country, with the exception of one small forest, are 'artificial'. There is no space here. Everywhere are human constructions. You cannot find a spot without hearing human noises. It doesn't ever get dark at night. Highways are everywhere and each working day in the morning they are filled with traffic jams.

Do you realise the Netherlands is one of the heaviest populated areas in the world?

I am not saying no one should visit my country. It's just that it is the total opposite of what Pianonut is imaging. All major European countries have better space and wildlife than Holland. How can Holland compare with Finland? And how can Europe compare with North America or Asia? And let's not even get started on Africa, South America or Australia/Oceania.

Maybe Pianonut meant the birds and the absolute flatness.

[pianonut]

oops.  and here, i was imagining fresh air, and lots of animals.  guess i need to travel.  i rely on the national geographic for remote location pictures.

[galonia]

Um, if you are going very soon, Vienna might not be much good - a friend of mine just came back from there, and she said, since they are preparing for next year's 250th Anniversary of Mozart's birth, everything is concealed under scaffolding as they finish off any restoration work, etc.

I'm going to Vienna next year in February, by which time everything will be open again.

And my friend is going back next year, too, for the celebrations (she is a HUGE Mozart fan).

[Jacey1973]

Um, if you are going very soon, Vienna might not be much good - a friend of mine just came back from there, and she said, since they are preparing for next year's 250th Anniversary of Mozart's birth, everything is concealed under scaffolding as they finish off any restoration work, etc.

I'm going to Vienna next year in February, by which time everything will be open again.

And my friend is going back next year, too, for the celebrations (she is a HUGE Mozart fan).

Oh really? Didn't know about the Mozart thing i may well take a trip over to Vienna if i have the money/time too. It's been too long.

[tenn]

If you go to Paris, and you should, pick up Pariscope for 40 cent at a newsagents or whatever. It will tell you everything that's going on.

[luc]

Vienna is great!!!
(hey, I'm living here. I have to know  )