Paris-Belgium-Amsterdam Misc. Expenses

Here's a list of some of our transportation and attraction expenses, along with other tidbits of information that might be helpful. All information is as of April 2011.

Paris

* The train from Charles de Gaulle Airport to downtown Paris is 8.70 Euros/ticket.

* The Metro is 1.60 Euros/ride. You can buy packs of 10 tickets for 12 Euros at any Metro station if you plan on using the subway a lot like we did. We went through 20 tickets during our five days.

* Saint Chapelle admission costs 8 Euros/person.

* Versailles plus Hamlet admission costs 18 Euros/person.

* Arc de Triomphe costs 9.50 Euros/person to climb.

* Notre Dame costs 8 Euros/person to climb.

* Musee D'Orsay admission costs 5.50 Euros/person. Our tickets were purchased at 8:30 pm. I think they're normally more expensive, but you can save money by going late on Thurs., the day the museum is open late.

* Louve admission costs 10 Euros/person.

Ghent

* Castle admission costs 8 Euros/person.

Amsterdam

* Admission to the Anne Frank Museum costs 8.50 Euros/person

* Admission to the Van Gogh Museum costs 14 Euros/person.

Day Fourteen - Last Day in Amsterdam

Aw, it's our last day in Amsterdam and of vacation (sniffle). For breakfast we had pancakes somewhere not worth mentioning. They weren't good. Should have gone back to The Pancake Bakery.

We went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was fantastic. Besides all the amazing Van Gogh's, there was an exhibit going on called "Picasso in Paris 1900-1907," which helped to make up for the Picasso Museum in Paris being closed for renovations. The exhibit was all about Picasso's works when he was living in Monmartre and some of his blue paintings were there, which I love. My favorite was Poor Couple. Sad but beautiful. Not a drop of cubism in this exhibit.

Two floors were dedicated to Van Gogh. It is his museum after all. My favorite paintings were a very detailed self-portrait that was signed, the Sunflowers, and the Cherry Blossoms. The darkest personality paints the prettiest flowers.

The rest of the museum is filled with Van Gogh's mentors, contemporaries, and other artists working in Monmartre when he lived there. Very cool to see the original posters by Henri Toulouse-Latrec and Steinlen's Chat Noir.

After the museum, we walked to The Pantry for lunch. It's a cozy little restaurant and the traditional Dutch food is great. We started out with goat cheese croquettes that were ooey-gooey on the inside.

Hubs had a meatball with mashed potatoes 3 ways: with sauerkraut, beef and carrot stew, and kale. The sauerkraut ones were the best. One of these days I'm going to try and recreate those.

I had a dish that was like shepherd's pie, but the meat was curried and the potatoes had cauliflower mixed in. So good. My kind of comfort food.

For dessert we shared little pancakes, not like the pancakes at The Pancake Bakery, more like little abelskivers. Little bites of puffy sweetness.

1 set menu with croquettes, shepherd's pie dish, and pancakes + meatball and potatoes + 2 beers = 43 Euros

After lunch we walked over to Vondel Park, a huge park near the museums.


The park was packed on a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon and made for great people watching. People sprawled out on the pond lawns, dogs swimming, bicycles coasting by. It was beautiful. Great place to relax, read a book, maybe get some of those pages written.

We strolled over to the quiet Jordaan and walked around the neighborhood. Not a tourist in sight, it feels like a real city. We passed a woman feeding some waterbird standing on the roof of a car. The bird did not belong here. It was bizarre.

Though we weren't starving, we wanted to eat something that could loosely be considered dinner. I don't know where we ate, but it was a little bar on the border of the Jordaan and we sat at a table outside. After a few days in Amsterdam, Amstel starts to grow on you, so we had a couple and split a cheese, sausage, and liverwurst plate and some meatballs (which were actually more like croquettes). The food wasn't spectacular, but it was a fine last meal. Sitting outside, enjoying the beautiful weather, having a cold beer. Ah, vacation.

Back at the hotel, we packed, finished watching Shakespeare in Love, and ate the rest of our Dumon chocolates in bed.

Goodbye, Europe. Until next time.

Day Thirteen - Tulips and Anne Frank

Today we went to Keukenhof. It's a huge flower garden only open in the spring, about a half hour outside of the city. Take the train to the airport and you can purchase tickets and take a bus to the garden. It's a whimsical place to spend a few hours. The gardens are orchestrated really well, interesting color combinations so you don't feel like you're seeing the same thing over and over again.

If you go to Keukenhof, you'll see a lot of scenes that look like this:

And this:

And this:

There's a windmill you can climb up that gives a spectacular view of the surrounding tulip fields:

If you're in Amsterdam in the spring, I recommend it. Go early. The place was fairly crowded by the time we left in the early afternoon.

Back in Amsterdam, we ate lunch at The Pancake Bakery. Hubs was especially excited about this one because he loves all things pancakes. I feared these Dutch pancakes would be like crepes, not my favorite, but they weren't. They were delicious, light yet hearty, a slightly eggier American pancake. I had a savory mushroom and cheese one. If they had these in the U.S., it would be one of my favorite brunch dishes.

Hubs had a banana rum with whipped cream on top.

2 pancakes + 1 large water = 30 Euros

Bellies full, it was time to go wait in line at the Anne Frank Museum. I read Anne Frank's diary in the 8th grade just like everyone else. I'm sure at some point I learned that Anne Frank lived in Amsterdam, but I'd forgotten that fact until I started researching Amsterdam. At first, I had no interest in going. I just thought it would be sad. But then I thought I might regret not visiting since we were right there, so we went. And I'm really glad we did.

From the outside, the house looks like all the other beautiful houses in Amsterdam. And the house sits right on one of the canals in the heart of Amsterdam, prime real estate. I wasn't expecting that.

Once inside, the museum takes you through the house, the office. The minute I stepped in, I thought I was going to cry. I don't know why, I guess just the immensity. The Holocaust has always seemed so far away, two generations past, across the ocean. And here it was.

Then you go upstairs to where the family was hidden. There is no furniture. It makes the rooms feel larger than they would have seemed. The windows were covered as they would have been. No fresh air. It's hard to imagine living like that, knowing the beautiful canal and streets right outside and not being able to see them.

Anne Frank's bedroom was the most sobering. Some of her decorations still adorn the wall, mostly American celebrities, just like any teenage girl. So sad.

The museum is laid out so well. It's extremely informative, very interesting. Even if you don't think you care about Anne Frank, the museum is worth it for the world history lesson alone. Anne's father, Otto, helped design the museum, and you can tell. The displays are all so tastefully done.

After Anne Frank, we were depressed and tired. On the way back to the tram we passed Pucinni Bomboni and decided a truffle might make us feel better.

The Sweet Pepper was The. Best. Truffle. Ever. You could taste the sweet and savory of the pepper and with the chocolate...perfection. We also had a Tamarind one that was very good. I don't know how much they cost, whatever it was, it was worth it.

We went back to the hotel and ended up eating at Foodeez, a Thai restaurant around the corner. I had pad thai, which was very eggy, almost like a Thai carbonara. I liked it.

Hubs had a cashew pork dish that was even better.

2 entrees + 2 beers = 26 Euros

We went back to the hotel and lounged around, enjoying our plush hotel room for the evening. Inglorious Basterds is a great movie to watch after visiting the Anne Frank house.

Day Twelve - Amsterdam

A new day. You have to have a police report to get a new passport, you have to have passport photos to get a passport, and you have to go to the Embassy when it's open to get a passport. The Embassy is only open for a few hours a day and, due to a holiday, I only had a one day window to get that passport. And that window was today.

First, passport photos. Check. Second, police report. We had an appointment. We waited. The youngest policeman ever took the report, slowly. Very slowly. Ran to the Embassy. Passport is being made. Deep sigh of relief.

During the few hours we had until the passport would be finished, we ate lunch at Gartine, the cutest hole-in-the-wall restaurant ever. The place is run with much love by one man and woman. I had a liverwurst on a brown roll. I mean, look at the presentation with the dijon in the egg holder:

And the liverwurst was delicious. Definitely not the stuff you by in a tube at the grocery store. Hubs had a sausage on a brown roll. Also very good.

We shared a lemon tart for dessert which was like a lemon cheesecake. Yum. I overheard another table say they'd had a fair share of cheesecakes and Gartine's was one of the best ever. If Gartine had been open for dinner, we would have gone back. Highly recommended. And affordable!

2 sandwiches + lemon tart + water + 1 coffee = 21 Euros.

Walked around for awhile, then back to the Embassy. Yea! I now have a passport!

Wandered around for a long time looking for a place to eat dinner. A lot of places are only open for lunch, so it was more of a challenge than we wanted. We ended up settling on de vergulde Gaper, Prinsenstraat 30, which turned out to be a good choice. It was right on the canal, which was relaxing:

Hubs had steak with fries, and they were the best fries of the trip other than the Bruges belfry fries. Total surprise.

I had a salad with phyllo-wrapped goat cheese. So good. I had been craving a salad and this satisfied.

steak and fries + small goat cheese salad + 3 beers = 36 Euros

Time for dessert. Went to Winkel, which we had tried to go for dinner, but it was packed and we didn't feel like waiting for an outside table. But I was fine eating dessert indoors, so we went back for apple cake. I'd read multiple times that Winkel has the best apple cake and it was delicious.

More walking around the canals. The city is so romantic at night, away from all the tourists, the light reflecting on the water. This is what vacation is all about.

Day Eleven - Antwerp & Rotterdamn

We left for Amsterdam on 4/20. Appropriate, no? But we wanted to make a pit stop in Antwerp and see the town square because one of our Lonely Planet books named Antwerp one of the ten most beautiful town squares in the world, even beating Brussels. So we went. The stop might be worth it just for the train station.

It's really stunning, right up there with Grand Central in NYC.

From the train station we walked down Meir, the main shopping street, to the Grote Markt.

Yeah, it was lovely. And we weren't there at night when I'm sure it's more striking, but I thought Brussels was more impressive. My two cents.

Then we walked around Antwerp for awhile. It's a picturesque city and might have been fun to spend a night there. The air felt really good and smelled like the ocean.

We ate a knockwurst and some fries at Max on the Groenplaats (Green Square). I don't know what knockwurst is. I don't want to know. It tastes like deep fried sausage and I felt like I was going to die of a heart attack when I was consuming it.

Back on the train and up to Amsterdam. I was dozing, as I do on all modes of transportation. On planes, no matter what time of day, I'm usually out before takeoff. As passengers got off and on at the Rotterdam stop, I woke up. A passenger ten rows in front of us started asking if anyone had seen his bag because it was gone. My stomach dropped. I stood up to check on my backpack which I had put in storage above my head. It was gone.

I'm mostly irritated at myself. I shouldn't have stowed something that would fit at my feet just for want of more leg room. But after you've been travelling for ten days and taking trains and public transportation all the time, you gain a sense of security. And I don't want to be some paranoid person addicted to Fox News. I refuse to live in fear. I know whoever stole my bag has it coming. This little terrorist will be caught someday and he or she will pay for making off with the following: my passport, driver's license, coasters from 't Brugs Beertje, and our Canon Rebel 2Ti.

Yes, our fancy DSLR camera and ten days worth of photos were gone. Hubs brought a good point-and-shoot with, so he would be snapping photos with that while I had the DSLR. On some days, like Versailles, I didn't take any photos, so he had the DSLR, thus, no photos. None of Marie Antoinette's curtains. No Hamlet.

When I realized the camera was gone, I cried for five minutes, and then we had to move on. We still had four beautiful days ahead of us in Amsterdam and this wasn't going to ruin them. We contemplated how much time we'd spent taking those photos. Maybe too much time. Perhaps we should focus on living more in the moment during our vacations, rather than focusing on the more concrete memory that is photography. Next vacation, maybe we will take less photos, or spend less time taking them.

(I thought I had coped with the tragedy. But when we went to the airport a few days later, I tearfully realized that my iPod had also been in the stolen backpack. How was I going to make it through a transatlantic flight with no iPod? I stole Hubs' Kindle.)

We rolled into the Amsterdam train station, and I was completely spent. We tried to file a police report at the train station police station but were told to come back the next day. Frustrating.

Hubs bought tram/subway tickets and we made our way out to our hotel. If you're not renting a bike (I haven't ridden a bike in years and Amsterdam didn't seem the place to be on rusty wheels), buy the pass for whatever amount of days you're going to be there. It's worth it. Then you can jump on and off the trams any time you want.

We stayed at Citizen M Hotel, a very modern hotel that I highly recommend. Hotels in Amsterdam were extremely expensive. The whole vibe at Citizen M was upscale and chic with little fetishy flourishes thrown in here and there, but it was a decent price for Amsterdam. It's not near the city center, but it's near a tram stop, the subway, and a train station. Close to nothing, convenient to everything.

Time to eat. Emotionally spent, I wanted some comfort food. A burger sounded particularly good, so we went to Burger Meester to see how Holland does burgers. Pretty well, actually. We both ordered the Burger Meester, a thin patty piled high with grilled zucchini and eggplant and topped with a spicy mayo. The bun was dense and wheaty. This burger was a full meal and the most nutritionally well-rounded burger I've ever had. Just what we needed.

There's a patty in there somewhere

2 burgers + 1 milkshake = 20 Euros

We went down to the city center and walked around. We did the red light district walk-through, so very bizarre, and strolled along the canals.

And then it was time to put this very long day to bed.

15 Days in Paris, Belgium, & Amsterdam - On a Budget

I completed the most fun goal I had this year; Hubs and I took a vacation to Europe in April and it was amazing! As our normal traveling style, we made a budget of $6000 and had to figure out how to stay within it. Yes, it sounds like a lot of money, but the dollar is week, still only worth about .6 Euros when we went, so it takes a little planning to eat and do and see everything you want to when going to a slew of world-class cities.

First thing, if you're planning an international trip get yourself a Capital One credit card. They are the only bank that doesn't charge the annoying 3% foreign transaction fee. Will your credit limit be sky high? No. Will the interest rate be competitive? No. This is just a card to use across the sea and pay the balance immediately when you get back to save yourself some $$$. And I would say to get a card if you are even thinking about taking an international trip. Before getting the Capital One card, we booked plane tickets through British Airways (flying out of LAX), got miles for American Airlines, and then were shocked to find a 3% foreign transaction fee. I contested the fee to no avail. So learn from my mistakes and always book your international flights on the Capital One card unless you have a rewards card and don't mind eating the 3%.

Second thing, research, research, research. I don't know how people travelled before the internet. I know they certainly didn't do it as affordably as they do now. There are so many amazing resources out there for travellers. Trip Advisor is one of my favorites and was used the most when planning this trip. Lonely Planet is good, too. Both have forums that probably answer any question you might have about where you're going.

We made a list of all the places we wanted to go in Paris. We knew we had 5 full days there, so we grouped the list of attractions by how close they were to each other, making a very basic daily itinerary. This has definitely helped us maximize our time on our vacations. We don't run around blindly from one place to the next. It's also a good reality check. If it's been a long day and I'm tired, and we haven't seen that last attracion yet, I know that if I don't go that day, it's probably not going to be seen and am I okay with that? Decisions, decisions. Don't pack in ten things to do each day. You'll never see anything. You're on vacation. Relax. Enjoy it. And realize that you can't teleport. Transportation takes time and that time needs to be figured in when estimating an itinerary.

And finally, really know your budget. We had our hotels booked before we went, so we knew what that cost would be. We tried our best to figure out our transportation costs and ended up with a 70 Euros/day budget. Not a lot of money for expensive places like Paris, Belgium, and Amsterdam. I honestly haven't scrutinized our spending. 70 Euros/day was what we aimed for. Some days we spent more, some less. I don't know how over/under budget we were, but I think we came in fairly close, probably going slightly over.

Food is perhaps the most important thing to us when we travel. We want to eat well for what we're paying. In order to do that, you must do the research. The most exciting part of the trip for me was eating in Paris, so I did most of the research. I learned that lunch is considerably cheaper than dinner. Our game plan became to make lunch the main meal of the day and eat a smaller dinner. Definitely a game plan I will follow when we return. I found some great sites for travellers looking for solid food at an honest price (Some of these articles are a few years old, but we found most of the restaurants are still in business):

The Guardian - Paris bistros on a budget. We went to two places on this list and they were both excellent.
Paris by Mouth - This is a great website for all things food in Paris. There's also a search engine to sort restaurants by price, location, rating, etc. Very handy.
John Talbott's Paris - This guy has a great blog with constructive criticism, lots of photos, and prices. Plus, his sidebar has oodles of other blogs dedicated to Parisian cuisine.
David Lebovitz - He used to be a pasty chef in San Fran and now lives in Paris and writes books. And after going to many of his sweet tooth recommendations, he can be trusted.
Paris Digest - This list was even a little too expensive for us, since the bar was set at 25 Euros per person.

We bought our maps a few weeks in advance and marked the locations of the restaurants on the map. That way, when we were hungry, we'd just look at the map, see where we were and which restaurant was in the vicinity. We also did this in Italy, and it always worked out so well.

So there's the lengthy introduction to our Paris-Belgium-Amsterdam trip. I'm going to be posting as much info as I can for all the wonderful places we visited in the coming posts.