Topic: 7 days or so in Europe?

[Polaris]

Hi WSC fam,

I'll be doing a "without borders" thing in Tanzania in May and June, with 10 days or so afterwards of free time. The flight to Tanzania stops in Amsterdam, and they're giving us some extra money (roughly up to around $2000) to get back to Calgary from Tanzania however we like. Usually people just stay in Europe for 10 days since it's the cheapest option as the flight stops in Amsterdam, and trains/flights within the EU are cheap as well, but the school's covering our insurance and have contacts in Africa as well so I was debating using those 10 days in Africa since I'm already there. I was originally super excited to go to Cape Town, but with the water crisis there that seems like a bad idea, so I was also thinking about Cairo or somewhere in Morocco (or any other suggestions).

Has anyone been to Africa, and if so any opinions or suggestions?

If I spend 10 days in Europe, originating from Amsterdam, what are some must visit countries or cities? I've only been to London and Iceland (I know, weird combo), and Paris when I was extremely young (so would be interested to go again, or skip it). Touring the Nordic countries/Scandinavia region has also always been on my bucket list, so maybe that could be an option?

Thank you so much!

[Player One]

Sounds like an awesome opportunity! I've never been to Europe but I've heard fantastic things about Bruges, Belgium. I'll ask some of my friends who have visited and who are living there now and see what they'd recommend.

[Markkenko]

I spend 4.5 months travelling this summer, so hopefully I can give you some up-to-date info.

I should mention that I have never been to Africa, so I have no idea about anything on that front. I have been to a vast majority of European countries though, so this is what my input will be for.

First off, i'd cater countries and cities based off of what you want to do/see. Are you interested in another culture in particular? Are you looking for automotive related things to do? Are you a big foodie? Do you have a maximum of a $2000 budget to spend during those 10 days? What sort of activities do you want to partake in while you are in Europe? etc. I think answering those types of questions will certainly help you narrow things down.

Secondly, if all you have is 10 days, I would strongly recommend visiting fewer cities/countries and doing more, rather than visiting as many places as you possibly can. You can always go back to cities/countries that you don't get to, but if you rush through some now, you'll probably find yourself feeling like you shouldve spent more time in the places that you visited.

Now... Starting in Amsterdam - I would highly suggest at least a day or two there. The city is beautiful, and it's truly something to experience. Depending on the kind of person you are, you may want to stay longer. From there you have far too many choices. You can take a bus, train, car, or fly to places. I'd narrow down a certain region you want to visit early on so that you can decide what to do. For simplicity sake, I am going to recommend that you stay in this area of Europe for the trip because it will likely be easiest and you'll get to see a fair bit.

From Amsterdam, I would recommend visiting Bruges, Belgium for sure. You could take a bus or train to get there, but I rented a car when I was there and I say that it was definitely worth it. It gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted (including overnight drives to other countries). You can check this city off your list in probably half a day (which is why it would be nice to have a car). From Bruges, I made my way to Dunkirk, France this summer and I thought that was a really neat city. You have some pretty cool beaches with great history and architecture. If you want to go the other way, i'd head towards the city of Liege, Belgium. I stayed there during the Belgian Grand Prix, and I loved the city. A day here would suffice. From there you could make a pit stop at Circuit du Spa-Francorchamps if you're into that. Maybe there's an event going on here? From there, you can drive down towards Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. This is a pretty neat place, but again a day here would suffice. After that, I would simply do a loop of Germany. Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, each of these cities has a bunch to offer, and if youre a motorist, many museums as well.

There's so much I could write about so many cities, but without having a general idea of if you want to do Scandinavia more than Germany/Belgium/France, it's hard to pinpoint exactly. Hopefully this helps you though! If you have any questions, certainly let me know!

[Polaris]

Thank you so much!

@Markkas, I'd be lying if I didn't rank 'Instagram-worthy' places as my number 1 motivation hahaha! Anyways, definitely food and car motivated. Museums are great too but my artistic knowledge is very shallow which would mean going to see a nice painting would be more due to its fame or hype more so than the art and history itself. I do like your plan very much, and am very happy to leave the Scandinavian exploring for another year and instead like you and Player One said go to Belgium and other closer countries. I am still a GDL child, will that present problems with renting a vehicle? I also had thoughts of checking out the Porsche experiences or even renting a slow auto car on the Nurburgring just to say I did it, but I don't know if I have the time or money to do either of those.

I'm a big soccer fan too but seems like there aren't any games that are still going on in mid-June since the world cup is going on, and the Montreal grand prix is going on during that time rather than a European one, bad timing

The budget of $2000 to my understanding is the rough cost of a single trip ticket from Tanzania to Calgary which they would cover, so if I want to go to Europe for a bit and fly out from X country, and the total for flights end up being $2500, I'll have to pay $500 from my own pocket, on top of all the hotel and food stuff during my holiday. Also, unfortunately looks like only around 7-8 days instead of 10

Thank you once again!

Edit: frick, need to be 27 years old to do the Porsche driving experience...

[Markkenko]

I don't think a GDL would be much issue. Im not sure they even know what that is. That being said however, I wouldn't bank on it... If you can get your full license before then, i'd highly recommend it.

Also, as long as your license is in English, most rental places don't require that you have an international driver's license, but this might also be something for you to look into if you are driving... Otherwise, trains and busses are still a very useable thing. You'll just have to have a more structured set up - which is something I definitely did not do when I went.

For example, I was in Brussels for two days befote heading to Iceland. I contacted some friends of mine who were in Amsterdam and invited them down. They bussed to Brussels, and then we took my car to Bruges in the morning. At around 3PM, one of them said "let's go to Paris", so I said sure. Drove out to Dunkirk, and then down to Paris. Explored overnight, and then drove back to Brussels arriving around 6am. Packed up our things, dropped them off at the bus station, and then headed to the airport to hop on a plane to Iceland. It was fantastic, and the spontaneity was something I loved during my time abroad.

[Zaider]

Secondly, if all you have is 10 days, I would strongly recommend visiting fewer cities/countries and doing more, rather than visiting as many places as you possibly can. You can always go back to cities/countries that you don't get to, but if you rush through some now, you'll probably find yourself feeling like you shouldve spent more time in the places that you visited.

This.

We've done a number of backpacking trips (2-4 months, Europe and South America) and with 7-8 days, Id say 2-3 cities max - my wife and I would plan for 2 with that time available. Travel time takes up more than you'd expect and if you have to be somewhere to fly out, you dont want to be stressed about making it (trust me - it sucks). Plus, its much more fun to take your time and enjoy the trip vs trying to squeeze in too many things. I've always found that if we become bored with a city earlier than we thought, we've been able to do a day-trip somewhere close by. Also, less plans means there's more opportunity to change them and head somewhere you find out about once you're there.

Never been to Africa, but I've heard really good things about Zambia from my sister-in-law. She spent a couple months there.

[Jukka]

If you want to go to Scandinavia and only have maybe 10 days there, it's doable, but a bit of a rush. My wife and I spent 6(?) days in Sweden, and a week and a half in Finland back in 2010.

It's beautiful there and I highly recommend it, but 10 days to tour around will be very rushed/you'll miss out on a lot. If you only have 10 days, I would maybe pick 1-2 cities to go visit. Stockholm and Gothenburg are both beautiful and there is a lot to see. In Stockholm you can tour around the islands and city. Gamla Stan (old city of Stockholm) is super cool, Kungliga Djurgarden (Royal Gardens) are really nice too and offer a great place to go for a walk making it feel like your in the country side, but when you're actually a stones throw away from downtown.  The whole city is a great place to just walk around and explore. Always something to do or see.  Sergels Torg (central square) has some good cafes and lots of cool shops in the area.

Gothenburg is beautiful too. Very rugged terrain. People are super friendly down there and theres a ton to do. I highly recommend the Volvo Museum, just make sure you check the bus schedules before you go. My wife and I got stuck there for 2+ hours after they closed on a weekend waiting for a bus, on the edge of the north sea...in April. Not fun. There is also a SAAB museum too, but we never made it there. Plus if you watched any of the "Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" series of movies (the original Swedish ones), a good chunk of  The Girl who played with Fire was filmed in and around Gothenburg.


If you wanted to do Finland, I would recommend Helsinki and maybe a day trip or two to some other towns from there. Helsinki has so much to see but there are some tourist traps too. Avoid things like "the Ice bar". We went there thinking it would be this cool big ice bar...it was in the back room of a restaurant in their freezer and was a single table made of ice where you had to buy a 10 euro drink made with Smirnoff.

Suomenlinna is amazing. It's an island just off the coast of Helsinki that's accessible by a public ferry. It was an 18th century sea fortress that has old artillery and defensive positions around the islands. It's got some really nice walking trails and there's all kinds of cool old buildings and shrines. They also have an unrestored 1930's submarine there.

Temppeliaukio Church is amazing too. It's a church that's made of rocks with a very cool copper roof on it. It's just a really cool building, even if your not religous. The Uspenski Cathedral and Helsinki Cathedral are also amazing to go check out too.

The squares always have something going on at them (Trainstation square, Helsinki Cathedral Square, or Market Square). The Esplanadi is a great place to go for a walk and have some lunch. Lot's of cool stores along each side with a nice garden/park in the middle. If you're there on May 1st, there is a massive May Day or Vappuu celebration there with thousands of people that show up.

For day trips from Helsinki, I would recommend Turku/Abo. Turku is on the west cost of Finland and has a very heavy Swedish influence including the Swedish name for the town too. The Turku Castle is amazing to walk through and around the grounds. It's a small town, but really nice to walk through and explore. I would also suggest checking out Tampere too. I loved Tampere. It's in Finlands lake district. There's some good museums there (Moomin Museum, Finlayson Museum, Finnish National Police Museum[located at their National police Academy], The Spy Museum). There's also Pakkahuone & Klubi (Packhouse and Club) that's a great place to check out some local music/drink your face off. Lot's of Finnish bands play there on a regular basis and tickets/door fee is usually cheap.


If you don't speak the languages at all, I would suggest checking out Sweden first because almost everyone there speaks English and people are very willing to help out and are very out going. Finland, you'll find a decent amount of people in Helsinki will speak a reasonable amount of English, but in Turku or Tampere, it's a bit more challenging without knowing some basic Finnish vocab. Also Fins are very warm and welcoming, but in a very Finnish way. They are stoic and come off almost anti-social, but it's a cultural thing. My wife thought a lot of Finnish people were rude when we were there until we actually spent some time with a group of Fins and she realized how nice and warm they are, in their own way. But I would highly recommend learning this sentence if you go over there: Anteeksi, Puhun Englantia. Prounced An-Tek-See, Poo-Hoon, Eng-Land-Tee-Ah. It means "Sorry, I speak english". Most people will usually either walk away or start speaking english to you if they approach you and start speaking in Finnish.

If you want any more advice/are interested in anything I mentioned, feel free to send me a PM and I can give you some more details.

[Polaris]

Sorry for the late replies, and thank you everyone for the tips. Jukka I'll definitely be saving your comment or at least remembering it for the future, maybe a year or so from now if I have the finances and time to go check out those Scandinavian places, unfortunately don't think I have the time (and no one wants to come with me) this trip.

Also, most of the African places got shot down, basically anything with a high or extreme risk on the University's website is an automatic "no", and even the "safer" places need a lot of approval and paperwork, ah well.

Right now I think I'm going to do something like June 8 - 10/11 in Amsterdam (3 days enough? Or 4?), then a day or two in Belgium/Germany/someplace like that, then around 13, 14, 15 in London. I know London is pretty boring but I have some friends there for work or school and it'd be nice to catch up with them.

Anything must-do in those three places? Is 3 days enough for Amsterdam? I'm also trying to get out of going to London hahaha, trying to convince my friends to make a trip somewhere instead. I might save Germany for another time since there's so many places I want to hit up there.

Also, roughly how much should I budget for each of these places? Assuming I ignore living and transportation (airbnb likely split between 3 people at least, transport is covered up to a certain amount)?

Thank you so much everyone!

[Zaider]

Tell your friends to meet you in Paris. Much nicer than London.