DON'T STAND IN LINE!

Standing. In. Line.

It's inevitable when visiting popular European destinations. Or is it? Most people don't realize that those long lines you see outside the major museums and attractions are not to get into the sights, but to buy the entrance tickets. With some careful research and planning, you can avoid wasting time standing in line to buy your ticket and spend that time more wisely actually visiting the sight. You have precious little vacation time as it is, and you're about to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars getting to your destination. Spend a few minutes planning and researching in order to spend your time wisely!

PRE-PURCHASE THOSE TICKETS!

The simplest way to avoid standing in line to buy a ticket at your favorite sight is to pre-purchase your tickets online. Major European attractions, including the major Paris museums, the major Florence museums, the Anne Frank House, Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Vatican Museum and Colosseum in Rome allow you to pre-purchase and print out your tickets online. There may be a nominal convenience fee charged, but that is nothing compared to the convenience you will experience by not having to stand in line, especially at the Vatican Museum. Having that ticket in hand will allow you to jump to the front of the line or enter through a separate entrance.

TIP!

Ask your hotel if they sell tickets to the major sites in their city.

On my recent trip to Amsterdam, we arrived from Brussels via train on a Sunday morning. Our first planned visit was to the Rijksmuseum. The tram ride from Centraal Station to our hotel took us past the Rijksmuseum. Since it was Sunday, the line to purchase tickets to the museum was out the door, down the street and around the corner...easily an hour's wait--in the rain! I simply would not stand in that line. We pre-purchased our tickets from our hotel which allowed us to enter the museum through a different line. When we arrived at the museum, there were about 10 people in that line. We waited perhaps 10 minutes to enter the museum.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE MUSEUM PASSES!

Another option in most major European cities is a museum/transportation pass.

IN PARIS:

The best one is the Paris Museum Pass. This pass will save you money if you plan to visit several Paris sights. If you purchased individual tickets (even online) for the Louvre, Orsay, Orangerie, Rodin and Pompidou museums plus St. Chapelle, you will spend at least €49.00. A 2-day Paris Museum Pass will cost you €32.00; the 4-day pass will cost you €48.00. However the most important feature of the Paris Museum Pass is it will allow you to skip the line.

FOR EXAMPLE...

One of the highlights of my trip to Paris in 2006 was visiting the Musée de l'Orangerie which had just reopened that week after being under renovation for years! We were thrilled to be able to see Monet's famous Waterlilies paintings.

Since we were visiting Paris for six days, we purchased a Paris Museum Pass.

When we arrived at the Musée de l'Orangerie, the line to get in measured from the museum entrance into the Jardin des Tuileries. Did we have to wait in that line?

Absolutely not! Because we had our Museum Passes, we were able to walk past dozens of people directly to the entrance doors. The Museum Pass also saved us from standing in the queues at St. Chapelle and the Louvre.

Le Bassin aux Nympheas, Soleil Couchant by Monet in the Musée de l'Orangerie.

MUSEUMKAART BEATS THE I AMSTERDAM CARD!

When visiting Amsterdam, there are two major museum pass options: I amsterdam Card and the Museumkaart. I recommend the Museumkaart which costs €39.95, is valid for one year and can be used in museums and churches all over the Netherlands, not just in Amsterdam. Use it to visit the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem or the fantastic Mauritshuis in The Hague, home of Vermeer's Girl With A Pearl Earring in addition to those sights in Amsterdam. The main advantage of the Museumkaart over the I amsterdam Card is that wonderful ability to skip the queue!

TIP: Neither pass includes the Anne Frank House. Pre-purchase your tickets online and you will be able to enter through a different entrance skipping the long lines.

NOTE: The Rijksmuseum only allows you to skip the line if you have actual tickets, so I suggest you pre-purchase these tickets, then buy your Museumkaart in the Rijksmuseum. If you feel this is spending too much, just remember if you buy individual tickets for the other major sights such as the Nieuwekerk (€5) and Oudekerk (€5), Van Gogh Museum (€14), Amsterdam Historical Museum (€10), Our Lord in the Attic (€7), Frans Hals Museum (€7.50) and the Mauritshuis (€12), you would end up spending over €60.00 and you've have to stand. in. line.

OTHER EUROPEAN CITY PASSES:

Many other European cities have some type of visitor combo/museum/transportation ticket designed to save you valuable Euros and allow you to skip those queues. Berlin has the 3-day Schaulust MuseenBerlin for €19 which includes the museums located on Museum Island; Munich has a day pass or 5-visit pass to their Pinakothek Museums; London has the London Pass which has the option to add transportation for an additional cost (NOTE: This pass is more cost-effective if you purchase a multi-day version--the one day pass is £40.00--YIKES!); Bruges has its 3-day €15.00 Combo-Ticket; Rome has its 3-day Roma Pass (€25), a transportation/discounted museum/archeological site pass; and starting in September of this year, Florence should have its 3-day €50.00 Florence Museum Card which will include reservations and a bus pass. The current museum pass is the Friends of the Uffizi Museum Pass (€60/individual or €100/family of 4). This annual pass allows you to not only skip the queue and avoid having to make those necessary reservations for the Uffizi and Accademia Museums, but will allow you to visit the museums as many times as you want. Logically, this is the perfect pass for those long-term travelers to Florence.

You've worked hard to save for that trip to Europe. You have a limited amount of time, but a list of sights to see as long as your arm. A few minutes of research will save you time and money allowing you more time to enjoy your visit.

Thank you for visiting,

A Great Europe Trip Planner 

All photos were taken by me.

LA CAPPELLA SISTINA, DUE VOLTE

On my visit to Rome, I decided to book a guided tour of the Museo Vaticani and Basilica San Pietro. After hearing multiple horror stories of tourists waiting in line for hours to get in to the museum, I decided to use a guided tour to avoid the lines since guided tours get to skip to the front of the line. After researching various tour guide companies, I chose Through Eternity Tours. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Our guide was very personable and extremely knowledgable of the history of the Vatican Museums.

TIP!

One of the reasons I liked this tour company was that we were given headsets to wear. This made it much easier to hear our guide talking above the din of hundreds of other museum visitors, but we were still given the flexibility to move around on our own within a reasonable distance away from our guide.

Our guide was incredibly knowledgable, almost too knowledgable...he enlightened the group with so many stories and anecdotes that the tour ran long and a 5-hour tour turned into an all-day event. We had to miss the St. Peter's Basilica part of the tour because we had 5:00 reservations at the Galleria Borghese. However, this turned out to be beneficial for us. The next morning we decided to get up and visit St. Peter's Basilica early. Excellent idea on our part! Arriving around 8:30 a.m., there were hardly any tourists in the basilica.

TRAVEL PLANNING TIP!

St. Peter's Basilica opens at 7:00 a.m. and closes at 7:00 p.m. Consider visiting early in the morning or later in the early evening. Tour groups are allowed in the basilica between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., so if you visit the basilica during those times, it will mostly likely be very crowded.

As anyone knows who has visited the Vatican Museum, in addition to maneuvering your way around hundreds of fellow tourists while walking through the gorgeous Map Gallery, there are also several kiosks along this corridor selling the usual array of books, postcards, disposable cameras, etc. While our guide was enlightening us with the history of this room, my sister took the opportunity to purchase a book on the Vatican Museums.

AND LATER THAT EVENING BACK AT THE HOTEL...

My sister discovered she had been given the French version, not the English version of the Vatican Museum book.

Mi scusi, ma non parliamo francesi. Parliamo solo inglesi.

So the next morning, after visiting St. Peter's Basilica, we trekked all the way back over to the Vatican Museum entrance.

Although, my sister did try to exchange the book at one of the gifts shops in the basilica... 

No, ma'am, we can't exchange it for you here. You have to go back to the museum. 

I guess it would be like buying it at Target and trying to return it to Walmart. Two separate entities.

We had our Vatican Museum entry tickets from the day before, so after explaining the situation, a kind security guard allowed us to re-enter the museum (this was followed up by molto Mille Grazie! from me).

 

Just past the security checkpoint and up a flight of stairs was the customer service desk. We explained the situation and showed the woman the receipt.

Unfortunately, ma'am, since you didn't buy the book today, we cannot exchange it for you.

Huh? What? What kind of craziness is that? "What do you mean we can't exchange it? We have our receipt. It's the French version! We are obviously not French. And we didn't realize it was the wrong book until we returned to our hotel room last night!"

Well, ma'am, you could try over there...

She pointed us to a kiosk up another small flight of steps. We walked over there.

Yes, you can exchange it today, but not here. You have to go back to where you bought it.

"But, that was in the middle of the Map Gallery!"

I'm sorry...but that's the rule.

Map Gallery in the Vatican Museum

So, we speedwalked the (at least) quarter-mile journey through the Vatican Museum back to the Map Gallery.

And it suddenly dawned on me as we raced through the museum and around the crowds (it was a Saturday morning). I turned to my sister and said, "You know, there's only one way out of this museum and that's back through the Sistine Chapel! Oh, darn! I guess we're forced to see it again--this time for free!

So, we found the kiosk where she bought the book, exchanged it for the English version, and then strolled out of the Map Gallery to go marvel again at the Cappella Sistina.

Thank you for visiting,

A Great Europe Trip Planner 

All photos were taken by me.

IF YOU LOVE VAN GOGH, DON'T MISS THIS MUSEUM!

Vincent van Gogh is one of my favorite painters.  I love his paintings especially the ones he produced while in the south of France. I love the vivid colors and the heavy, thick brushwork he used in these particular works.

One of the reasons for my trip to the Netherlands was to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  This was a trip that had been planned several years ago, postponed (due to lack of personal monetary funding), and finally rescheduled. (then postponed for 10 more days and rescheduled due to volcanic ash.)  Any admirer of van Gogh and his work is familiar with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. (Note: One should learn to pronounce his name correctly when in the Netherlands. It's not Van Go. It's Van Hock with an real guttural emphasis on the Hock.) Needless to say, the Van Gogh Museum didn't disappoint.  However, if you are really a van Gogh admirer, plan a daytrip to the outstanding Kröller-Müller Museum.  The museum is in the town of Otterlo, Netherlands, about an hour's train ride from Amsterdam.

A BIT OF BACKGROUND:

Helene Kröller-Müller, German by birth but married to successful Dutch businessman Anton Kröller, was an avid art collector in the early 20th century. She enrolled in an art appreciation course taught by a Mr. H.P. Bremmer. These lessons ignited Helene's passion for art, and she began to accumulate her vast collection. Between 1905 and 1922, with Mr. Bremmer as her personal advisor, Helene Kröller-Müller amassed a collection of over 11,500 art objects.  Her personal favorite artist was Vincent van Gogh, and she became the owner of more van Gogh paintings than anyone other than the van Gogh family itself, nearly 100 paintings and 175 drawings.

To display her vast collection, Helene originally used the first floor of her husband's business. However, Helene envisioned a grander museum and initiated plans to build it on the 6,000 hectares of land she and her husband had purchased in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in eastern Netherlands. However, during the world economic collapse of the 1930s, the Kröller-Müller's ran into financial difficulties and the dream of the "Great Museum" was put on hold. To save the collection and their large country estate in the park, the Kröller-Müller's donated everything to the Dutch State on the condition the government build a museum worthy enough to display the collection. In 1938, the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller opened, one year before Helene died.                                                                                    

                                                                                     
THE MUSEUM
Four Sunflowers Gone to Seed (1887)

And what a beautiful museum it is! Located in a beautiful wooded setting, the museum is on one floor. The main attraction is, of course, the van Gogh paintings. Imagine a room that contains many of van Gogh's most famous works, such as The Sower, Terrace of a Cafe at Night--Place du Forum, Portrait of Joseph Roulin, and Four Sunflowers Gone to Seed (above).  But Helene Kröller-Müller was an admirer of many other artists and throughout the museum, you will be able to see paintings from many different art movements.

SCULPTURE GARDEN

The outdoor sculpture garden is located throughout the wooded area of the museum.  Some of the sculptures can be seen as you approach the entrance; once inside the museum, you can step back outside and walk through the enormous wooded landscape which is dotted with a wide variety of sculptures.  Each piece is placed so it blends in with the surrounding terrain and vegetation. There are pieces by some noteworthy artists such as Rodin, Moore, Hepworth and Dubuffet.
                                      

                                                       Place du Forum (1888)

GETTING TO MUSEUM

From Amsterdam's Centraal Station, you need to purchase a roundtrip ticket to the Dutch town of Ede-Wageningen.

Outside the train station at Ede-Wageningen, you will see various buses. You need to look for Bus 108s (marked "Apeldoorn"). You can use the same strippenkaart strips on this bus that you use on the trams in Amsterdam. Take Bus 108s to the Otterlo Rotonde Bus Stop. The bus ride should be about 15 minutes; the Otterlo Rotonde Bus Stop should be the 4th stop from the Ede-Wageningen train station. (NOTE: Strippenkaarts are now discontinued; the OV-chipkaart is now used as the public transportation ticket in Amsterdam and most parts of the Netherlands). 

Exiting the bus at the Otterlo Rotonde Bus Stop, you will then transfer to Bus #106 which is more of a mini-bus. Here on this bus you will have to buy your ticket for the Hoge Veluwe National Park. The Kröller-Müller Museum is located within the national park; therefore, you need to pay the park entry fee. Bus #106 will enter the national park and drop you off a short walking distance from the entrance to the museum.

TRIP PLANNING WEBSITE TIP

While planning my Netherlands trip, I discovered a great trip planning website. The site is http://journeyplanner.9292.nl/ and it is a great tool to help with planning your transportation options while in the Netherlands. You can plug in from where and to you are traveling and the results will show your modes of transportation available, departure times, train departure platforms, bus route numbers and exact stops. It will give you a step-by-step travel itinerary to your destination. Check it out!

WHITE BICYCLES

A truly unique feature of the Hoge Veluwe National Park are the famous "white" bicycles. Located at each of the three separate park entrances, these bicycles are free for anyone to use to ride throughout the park. The uniqueness of the bicycles is that they can be "borrowed" at anytime. In other words, you can ride one bicycle to a particular site, but since the bicycles can't be locked, you may then have to "borrow" someone else's bicycle because someone may have taken yours. But that's what you are supposed to do.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has visited this museum. If so, leave your thoughts in the Comments Section. 

Thank you for visiting,

A Great Europe Trip Planner 

All photos were taken by me during my visit to the museum.

TAKING THE MODERN TO THE MEDIEVAL

I had the opportunity to experience European high speed rail for the first time on my last trip to Europe. For the first leg of my journey to Bruges, I took the Thalys train from Amsterdam to Antwerp. Now, riding a train is not a novelty for me--I ride a suburban commuter train every day, twice a day, to my job in the city. But comparing the two experiences would be like comparing a Range Rover to a Dodge Neon.

First of all, a reservation is mandatory on any Thalys train. Before you even get on the train, you already know you will have a seat. No standing in the vestibule because you are one of the last to board; no sitting on the steps on a copy of the latest train newsletter so your bottom doesn't get dirty. You'll have an actual seat for this train ride.

Secondly, what comfortable seats! If they had these seats on the airplane, I might sleep better on that overnight flight. Soft velour upholstery with deep-cushioned comfort and the back bump to support your lower spine. Adjustable headrests so you can just lie back and enjoy the ride, and enough knee room for those persons of above-average height.

I wish they had these seats on overnight flights!

And the ride! As smooth as if we were gliding on butter! No jostling from side to side, feeling as if you are a martini being shaken, not stirred. No delays for signal or switching problems. And as we traveled alongside the busy highway, the cars filled with morning commuters seemed to be standing still, we were traveling so fast. Sitting there in the window seat with the morning sun shining on my face, I could have easily fallen asleep and remained on the train all the way to Paris. But since I was only going as far as Antwerp, I had to force myself to stay awake for fear of missing my connecting train to Bruges.

Thank you for visiting,

A Great Europe Trip Planner 

Photo was taken by me.