Trip Overview - Bests Lists and Infographic

Hi all,

We wanted to do an overview of our trip by creating an infographic with some of the stats (at the bottom) as well as talk about some of our favorites of different things during our Europe trip. Enjoy!

Bests

Cities

The most common question we get from people about our trip is what was our favorite place we visited. That is an extremely difficult question, so we usually answer with our top 5 (in the order in which we visited them).

Will

Prague - The amazing Gothic architecture and traditional food and beer fit nicely with the modern side of this city. The fact that it is very inexpensive was also great. If you want to go to a great European city on a budget I recommend Prague.

Munich - Munich was so much fun, it felt like Oktoberfest does in the U.S. all the time.

Copenhagen - Copenhagen was so easy to bike round it felt like a smaller city than it actually is. The food scene (especially food carts) was great and there is no shortage of great views near the water and other fun things to do.

Edinburgh - Everything in Scotland feels like Game of Thrones, especially with the towering castle high above the city. The food was great, the hike up Arthur's Seat was breathtaking, and it was easy to walk the whole city.

Dublin - The best part about Dublin were the people. We met some of the friendliest people while brewing beer and everyone we interacted with in restaurants and bars were welcoming.

Maureen

Barcelona - I loved the architecture and climate in Barcelona. You can't beat a beautiful mediterranean city with such good food and great gothic buildings.

Prague - Similarly, Prague had some amazing buildings/castles to admire. It also was a major bonus that everything was extremely affordable.

Montreux - I talk more about this one later, but it's extremely beautiful and scenery like no where else I've seen.

Copenhagen - We loved biking around Copenhagen and enjoyed all the good eating and drinking and outdoor spaces.

Edinburgh - There is so much to see and do in Edinburgh and it is a beautiful city. We lucked out and got amazing weather which I'm sure helped make us love it, but any city with a castle on a extinct volcano has got to be good, right?

Airbnb

Favorite #1 - Amsterdam

We can't help but put the circus wagon in first place. Besides being an adorable little trailer with all essential amenities, the location was wonderful. We were situated behind our hosts house among their garden which backed up to an open field with all sorts of grazing animals. We often heard cows, horses, sheep, and an assortment of birds in the field. Our hosts also provided bikes to help us get to and around town which was extremely helpful in the bike friendly city of Amsterdam.

Favorite #2 - Rome

The house where we stayed in Rome was a cute little oasis in a fairly busy neighborhood outside of the city. All of the homes around had big walls to close in private, little courtyards to allow the city-dwellers to enjoy a small piece of nature in their backyards. It was easy to forget you were in a city environment. Our host was extremely accommodating and we enjoyed talking with her about our trip and her family and work.

Honorable Mentions:

Berlin - The apartment we stayed in was very well decorated and had unique character since it was the top floor and had exposed beams and interesting shaped rooms. But obviously we loved it for the adorable chocolate lab puppy, Hazel.

Copenhagen - We had the place to ourselves in Copenhagen, which was always a plus and we had a cute little patio where we enjoyed breakfast looking out over the street below.

Paris - Our host was extremely kind and the place was a cute little loft apartment with an open air patio garden outside large glass windows and sliding doors. There was also a nice house cat to visit with.

Prague - This was the first place that we had to ourselves and it was a cozy little apartment with a lofted bed. It was the perfect size and our host left lots of great resources for us to find great things to do, including a little book with tips from previous guests.

Airport

We mostly determined this based on which airport had the best lounge since that's where we spent most of our time.

Favorite - Lisbon

Lisbon had the best lounge and was also where we spent the most time. We had just flown from Boston overnight to arrive in Lisbon for a long layover. We did leave the airport for a short while, but still spent several hours in the airport waiting for our flight to London. The lounge was large, had lots of food and drink options, and the two best things: showers and napping rooms. We used all of these amenities and were much better off because of it.

Honorable mention - Amsterdam

Amsterdam also had a good lounge with lots of comfortable seats and decent food. We found a nice spot in the corner away from everyone else and hung out for a few hours before our flight.

Public Transportation

We could probably write a whole separate post about public transportation, but we'll keep it short here. If you're interested in hearing more, let us know and we will think about writing something up since every place is different and that's one of the most important and difficult things to figure out in a new city.

Will - Munich

As you would expect, Germany has awesome public transportation. While we were in Munich we took everything: the S-Bahn, the U-Bahn, a bus, and a streetcar. The S and U-Bahn trains in Munich all run through the center of the city so it is easy to get from one end of the city center to the other just by getting on any train. Also, a three day pass was not too expensive and we could add on extra zones very inexpensively to get out of town.

Timeliness is incredibly important in this decision as well. Cities like Dublin and the entire country of Italy don't seem to care as much as much about being on time as they do in Germany. Even when we first arrived in Munich when one of the train lines from the airport was down the other was crowded but still running on time.

Maureen - Amsterdam

It was really hard for me to pick a favorite for public transportation since essentially what I learned is that Europe is way better at it than just about everywhere in the US. We didn't have trouble getting around anywhere other than a few places being a little less prompt than others (and Will and I agree that trains are far superior to busses).

I chose Amsterdam even though we didn't take much public transportation there due to our access to bikes from our Airbnb. The most impressive thing to me was that we were able to take a FREE ferry to the city every day from a nearby port. And these ferries were extremely dependable and efficient. They left every 30 minutes and carted pedestrians, bikes, mopeds, and even small cars sometimes across the IJ (essentially a bay). Since it carried so many people with bikes, it had large ramps on both sides of the ferry to allow quick on boarding and off boarding. The boat never had to turn around since it could drive both directions so the passengers could get on one side and walk all the way to the front to get off the other side once it reached the other port.

View

Will - Geneva

While in Geneva we took a bus a little out of town, walked across the border to France, and took the Téléphérique du Salève up a cliff to get an incredible view of the city and lake below. We stayed up there a while and enjoyed a drink at the restaurant and were able to see the Water Jet turn back on (it was off when we walked by at first). In addition to the view you can also mountain bike down the cliff from the top and we saw a few people and their bikes on the cable car with us.

Maureen - Montreux

Clearly we both agree that Switzerland had some amazing views. It's not too often that you find yourself in a place that has a large, beautiful, freshwater lake, palm trees, vineyards, castles, and is surrounded by mountains. It was the most amazing scenery I've ever experienced. It's extremely hard to portray the beauty with words or even photographs. If you ever get the opportunity to visit Switzerland, do it, because that's the only way to really understand how amazing it was.

Activity

Will - Beer Brewing

While brewing beer wasn't new to me, doing it on this size of a scale with a professional brewer was. I had an awesome time brewing on this size of a brew house and we met some amazing people while doing it. Our day at Brú was so much fun it ended up being all we did our first day in Dublin. Kev was awesome to hang out with and I would definitely recommend his Airbnb experience.

Maureen - Pasta Making

We booked an Airbnb experience in Rome to make homemade pasta, and we had a great day hanging out with an amazing Italian chef in a great outdoor setting. I'm still looking forward to using what we learned to make some pasta at home.

Bests - Food Edition

Obviously, we spent a lot of time eating and drinking and have a lot of opinions about these topics as well.

Cafe

Will - Coffee Break and Cake

In Prague there was a small coffee shop nearby our Airbnb that had some of the best coffee we had on the whole trip and delicious coffee cake. We went their twice and our first visit there the barista gave us some advice about Prague and what do while we were in town. It was never very busy so we could just hang out and enjoy breakfast before our daily adventure began.

Maureen - Cloud Cafe

We visited the little coffee shop at the end of the street we were staying at every morning whether just for coffee or for a great breakfast as well. We loved it there since they had great coffee and food and the employees were extremely nice (and one woman was there every day!).

Coffee

Will - Host in Paris

Is French press coffee just press coffee in France? Whatever it is called our Airbnb host in Paris, Isabelle, made a great cup of coffee.

Maureen - Italy in general

It was really hard to pick a favorite coffee since we had so much of it. We had a lot of good coffee and only a little that was not so great. Italy did have some really great coffee while Germany's was definitely subpar.

Restaurant

Will - War Pigs

We traveled a lot further than Texas to get some of the best Texas barbecue I've ever had. War Pigs is a collaboration between two amazing breweries, Three Floyd's from Indiana and Mikkeller from Copenhagen, so in addition to the amazing food we had incredible beer. Even Maureen could enjoy the food there because their side dishes were amazing as well. Top it all off with heavy metal music playing overhead which fit perfectly with the rest of War Pigs.

Maureen - California

So we both apparently like American food, or else we were missing it enough to really enjoy these two restaurants. I love Mexican/Texmex/California Mexican food and I was seriously missing it, especially guacamole (Avocados are expensive in Europe!). So we visited "California" in Konstanz and had some amazing tacos. They were either the best tacos I've ever had, or my standards were skewed from deprivation.

Authentic Food

Will - Svíčková

I was pleasantly surprised with authentic Czech food while we were in Prague. It was all very rich and flavorful and my favorite was easily svíčková, a beef dish with gravy and dumplings. It paried very nicely with a dark Czech beer and we also tried a vegetarian version at a vegetarian restaurant we found.

Maureen - Paella

Being a vegetarian, this was the tastiest thing that was easily turned vegetarian. It was nice to be able to enjoy a meal that still felt authentic to the place we were visiting. And topping it off with delicious sangria made it twice as nice. You can only eat so many pizzas, pastas, and veggie burgers before you need something to break the cycle.

Honorable Mention - Haggis

Haggis is one of those things that you just have to try when you get the opportunity. It turns out that it's actually illegal in the U.S., due to some of the ingredients, so you really can only get it in Scotland. What was great about the haggis we tried was that the restaurant we visited had both a meat and a veggie version of the dish and it came out so well presented.

Haggis tower with scotch gravy

Burger

Will - Burgermeister

If the sentence "burger joint in an old public toilet" doesn't make you hungry, it absolutely should. Burgermeister in Berlin is situated below a train station in an old public men's room and was worth the wait for their awesome burger. It was cheap, delicious, and because it was in Germany we could enjoy a beer on the street while we waited for our burgers to come out.

Maureen - Troy's

Troy's in Oslo grills all of their burgers over charcoal. It was a small little shop with some bar seating along the walls and a couple small tables outside. The two guys that were working were extremely friendly (one taking money and the other cooking over the grill in the middle of the shop) and the burgers were deliciously simple.

Beer

Will - Andechs Doppelbock Dunkel

Not only was this beer delicious but the entire experience of hiking up to the monastery and sitting in their biergarten made this one of the most authentic beer experiences of our whole trip.

The helles is also very good

  

Maureen - Stone Pataskala Red IPA

I feel like this one is cheating a little bit because it is made by Stone which is based out of Escondido, California, but technically, the one I drank was brewed in Berlin, so... And it was delicious :)

Honorable Mention - Omnipollo/Monkish Brewing Space Cookie

This one gets an honorable mention because we drank it with a crown of frozen beer on top like a little beer float! And it was interestingly tasty.

Infographic

Lastly, here are some fun stats from our travels! Thanks for following us through Europe and stay tuned! Our adventure isn't over yet!