Eurotrip

[Jack Brickman]

Have no idea who broadcasts the NBA in those countries. NBA live online will be your friend

I'm hoping we can find a bar in each city that will be broadcasting the games live, but that might be a tall order, especially for the Cavs' away games. On the plus side, if the Cavs do make the Finals it's very likely they won't have home court advantage, which means games three and four will be played in the East and probably at 8pm.

 

[Jack Brickman]

All right...so we finally locked down our schedule, barring minor changes at least.

Three nights in Berlin
Train to Prague for two nights
Flight to Dubrovnik for two nights
Flight back to Prague for one night
Train to Budapest for two nights
Flight to Brussels for one night
Train to Amsterdam for two nights
Train to Bruges for one night
Train to Brussels for one night
Flight to Dublin for one night
Flight home

Obviously splitting up Prague and Brussels wasn't ideal, but in Prague's case it was due to the round trip flight to Dubrovnik being reasonable one day but not the next. In the case of Brussels it was because a flight from Budapest to Brussels is dirt cheap, but we also have to end the trip in Brussels because that's where our flight to Dublin leaves from.

We had to drop a few cities we wanted to go to, but our finalized itinerary provides us with the most actual time in each city with the least amount of travel time between cities. I wanted to get the most out of this trip, and if that meant paying a bit extra for a flight over spending ten to twelve hours on a train, it was worth it to me.

Thanks to all you guys for advice and suggestions. If you have any suggestions specific to the cities listed above, I'd love to hear it.

 

[Jack Brickman]

So my trip outlined above is all booked, but some of my friends in Charlotte and I are looking into doing another Europe trip this October. We originally looked at Southeast Asia, but I found a really cheap round trip from Charlotte to Munich ($760 bucks!).

So with that in mind, do any of you guys have any experience with the cities/countries listed below? Obviously we won't be visiting all of them, but they are cities I've researched with a few of my friends. The plan is to hit up Munich for three days during the end of Oktoberfest (it ends on October 4th and we'd land in Munich on October 1st) and then either head East or West from there.

Munich (obligatory...this is the main purpose of the trip)
Bucharest
Istanbul
Athens
Thessaloniki
Barcelona
Madrid
Morocco (any city...we wanna do two nights or so in the Sahara if we go)
Malta
Montenegro (again, any city)
Belgrade
Vienna
Kiev
Stuttgart

The current trip at the top of our leaderboard is three nights in Munich, two nights in Malta, a night in Madrid, five nights in Morocco (including a three day, two night Saharan desert tour), and a final night in Barcelona. We're really liking the idea of Morocco, so we could knock Madrid off of that and just do six nights in Morocco. If we don't skip Madrid, Morocco would likely be two nights in Marrakech, two nights in the Sahara, and a night in either Fes or Casablanca. If we do skip Madrid, it would be two nights in Marrakech, two nights in the Sahara, and one night each in Fes and Casablanca (or possibly Tangiers in favor of one of those two).

So again, if you guys have any advice on any of the above cities, it's appreciated. We probably won't be booking our main flight for another week or two and beyond that we still have plenty of time to plan the rest of the trip. We're doing Munich regardless and that's where we're flying in and out of.

 

[davoor]

You gotta come to Slovenia. Go to Ljubljana, maybe Kranj (my hometown), then Bled or Bohinj (both have our largest lakes and a lot of mountains around), also visit the seaside and towns like Portoroz, Piran, Koper, all along the coast. You can get from Bohinj (that is deep in the mountain region) to Portoroz in like 150-180 minutes., so you can get from the mountains to the coast in a jiffy.

 

[kosis]

So my trip outlined above is all booked, but some of my friends in Charlotte and I are looking into doing another Europe trip this October. We originally looked at Southeast Asia, but I found a really cheap round trip from Charlotte to Munich ($760 bucks!).

So with that in mind, do any of you guys have any experience with the cities/countries listed below? Obviously we won't be visiting all of them, but they are cities I've researched with a few of my friends. The plan is to hit up Munich for three days during the end of Oktoberfest (it ends on October 4th and we'd land in Munich on October 1st) and then either head East or West from there.

Munich (obligatory...this is the main purpose of the trip)
Bucharest
Istanbul
Athens
Thessaloniki
Barcelona
Madrid
Morocco (any city...we wanna do two nights or so in the Sahara if we go)
Malta
Montenegro (again, any city)
Belgrade
Vienna
Kiev
Stuttgart

The current trip at the top of our leaderboard is three nights in Munich, two nights in Malta, a night in Madrid, five nights in Morocco (including a three day, two night Saharan desert tour), and a final night in Barcelona. We're really liking the idea of Morocco, so we could knock Madrid off of that and just do six nights in Morocco. If we don't skip Madrid, Morocco would likely be two nights in Marrakech, two nights in the Sahara, and a night in either Fes or Casablanca. If we do skip Madrid, it would be two nights in Marrakech, two nights in the Sahara, and one night each in Fes and Casablanca (or possibly Tangiers in favor of one of those two).

So again, if you guys have any advice on any of the above cities, it's appreciated. We probably won't be booking our main flight for another week or two and beyond that we still have plenty of time to plan the rest of the trip. We're doing Munich regardless and that's where we're flying in and out of.

I'm envious of all of this traveling. Are you between jobs? How do you guys get all of this time off?

 

[Jack Brickman]

I'm envious of all of this traveling. Are you between jobs? How do you guys get all of this time off?

Where I work, I'm allowed to bank two weeks a year and I get three weeks at the start of each new year. I had two weeks in my bank coming into this year, so I effectively have five weeks of vacation (plus three personal days, although I've already used one of those) to burn through. I'll be using thirteen days for the June trip and around ten for the October trip, which means I'll have four days left over that I'll almost certainly bank for next year.

Also, I'm going with two different groups of friends. The June trip is with one of my best friends from college and the October trip is with three of my friends from Charlotte.

You gotta come to Slovenia. Go to Ljubljana, maybe Kranj (my hometown), then Bled or Bohinj (both have our largest lakes and a lot of mountains around), also visit the seaside and towns like Portoroz, Piran, Koper, all along the coast. You can get from Bohinj (that is deep in the mountain region) to Portoroz in like 150-180 minutes., so you can get from the mountains to the coast in a jiffy.

I actually would really like to go to Slovenia and my buddy from college and I looked at Ljubljana when we were planning the June trip, but it seems like in October we're probably going to end up doing the Malta, Spain, and Morocco trip at this point rather than eastern Europe. Not that I'm complaining. I get to tick Africa off my continent list (leaving just Australia and South America...well, and Antarctica) and ride a fucking camel through the Sahara.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I realized I never came back to this thread after my trip, so with that in mind, here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip...

Berlin

The Brandenburg Gate

Monument to the murdered Jews of Europe

Victory Column

Delicious currywurst for four bucks

The Berlin Cathedral

Basically everything in Berlin is covered in graffiti

But you can buy beer on the subway, so worth it!

 

[Jack Brickman]

Prague

The entrance to the Charles Bridge, less than a block from our apartment

Goulash in a bread bowl...fucking delicious

This cost a buck fifty American

Prague Castle by night

The other side of the Charles Bridge

One of the best burgers I've had in my life in a butcher shop in Old Town

Old Town square

Blue Light, probably the most famous dive bar in Prague

The Absinthe Mule from an absinthe bar...absolutely delicious

The Astronomical Clock

The St. Mary's Virus cocktail at a bar themed after V For Vendetta

 

[Sebastian]

Prague

The entrance to the Charles Bridge, less than a block from our apartment

Goulash in a bread bowl...fucking delicious

This cost a buck fifty American

Prague Castle by night

The other side of the Charles Bridge

One of the best burgers I've had in my life in a butcher shop in Old Town

Old Town square

Blue Light, probably the most famous dive bar in Prague

The Absinthe Mule from an absinthe bar...absolutely delicious

The Astronomical Clock

The St. Mary's Virus cocktail at a bar themed after V For Vendetta

Pretty fucking sweet. Looks like it was a great time.

Love me some Currywurst. We always flew through Leipzig on the way to and from Iraq and Afghanistan and the airport had a wurst counter with killer currywurst. And goulash even! I make a mean goulash but I doubt it approaches anything one can get in Prague or Budapest. Very jealous.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Dubrovnik

Old Town!

An awesome octopus burger

The view from my plane window flying into the city

View of the city walls from outside on the cliffs

Old Town at night...probably my favorite picture from the entire trip

Dubrovnik is also home to every fucking stray cat in the entire world

This was (surprisingly) the first (but not the last) night on the trip where we got absolutely fucking shit-faced...stayed out until 4:30am

This club was located inside the city walls (like actually inside them) and my ears rang for 24 hours afterward

The fortress view from atop the city walls

City walls on the cliffs

Panoramic view of the entire Old Town from the top of the walls

An awesome group of parrots

Great view of Old Town from the fortress

---

I'll post pictures from the other cities tomorrow. Going to bed now.

Sadly, some of my best pictures never made it to Facebook (I'm friends with several relatives on there, so have to play it somewhat conservative). I'll see if I can link some of them from Dropbox tomorrow or Friday.

 

[Jack Brickman]

Bottom line...everyone should go to Dubrovnik immediately. I want to fucking move there. I'd probably die in two months, but it'd be worth it.

Budapest was incredible as well, but you'll have to wait until later today for those pictures.

 

[Sebastian]

Dubrovnik

Old Town!

An awesome octopus burger

The view from my plane window flying into the city

View of the city walls from outside on the cliffs

Old Town at night...probably my favorite picture from the entire trip

Dubrovnik is also home to every fucking stray cat in the entire world

This was (surprisingly) the first (but not the last) night on the trip where we got absolutely fucking shit-faced...stayed out until 4:30am

This club was located inside the city walls (like actually inside them) and my ears rang for 24 hours afterward

The fortress view from atop the city walls

City walls on the cliffs

Panoramic view of the entire Old Town from the top of the walls

An awesome group of parrots

Great view of Old Town from the fortress

---

I'll post pictures from the other cities tomorrow. Going to bed now.

Sadly, some of my best pictures never made it to Facebook (I'm friends with several relatives on there, so have to play it somewhat conservative). I'll see if I can link some of them from Dropbox tomorrow or Friday.

Did the Faith Militant give you any issues?