Jamie Fehr

I don’t know how many people this advice will really apply to, not many people go to famous historical European cities with naught for a clue as to why it might be worth seeing, but for the few of you like me who find yourself in random famous European travel destinations with only a day or an afternoon to see it here’s a plan.

To quickly, efficiently, throughly, and cheaply see any city you need three things:

1. A Map
2. A souvenier shop
3. A good set of legs

A free map should be easily acquired from your place of lodging or if you don’t have one, the nearest tourist information stand (any city worth seeing has one of these near any point of interest). If neither of those work and you get desperate you can try at the offices of the city bus line or at information booths near the exits of any intercity train or bus station. It shouldn’t be hard to find but you will have to look.

Nextly (I think I made this word up), you need to find the nearest, most incredibly touristy souvenir shop you can find and go to their postcard stand. This is the research phase of your trip, think of the postcards as library index cards each cataloging a potential destination. Pick a cards that have pictures of things you might like to see in person and flip them over, the name of the destination will be printed on the back, then take out your recently acquired free map and locate the attractions position on it. If it’s a half decent map, any place you might actually want to go should already be marked, you just need to get there.

Legs. City transit can be a big boost for tired legs but wait times for buses and metro can wreak havoc on a tightly constrained schedule someone like myself doesn’t have money for a taxi). There is a good chance that the majority of what you want to see is within a 2km square so find your position on the map and start marching to the nearest logical attraction.

If you get irreconcilably lost at any point you should should just stop someone on the street and point at the spot on the map that you want to go and they will point you in the correct direction with their right index finger, should this not be the case and you asked some other lost tourist, you should walk for two minutes farther in what you think might be the right direction and then ask someone else. Officially time spent lost counts for “getting the feel of the city” and is by no means time wasted.

Options

The technique described above has been working like a charm for me since I started doing it. The only disadvantage it has is that you in all likelihood will not find out any of the history surrounding the historical attraction you just walked through the blistering July sun to see, but you get to take pictures and do research later. Ultimately, you should know that alternatives exist, each with their own respective advantages and disadvantages.

1. Tour Group:
   No one really wants to be part of that big crowd following some British lady holding up a funny sign, but in all honesty, she knows the city a lot better than you and really does know best how to see the city in a day. These tours can be fun and informative but at the same time long and inflexible, with cumbersome group sizes. Sometimes you may find yourself wanting to lag behind in an especially cool 15th century cathedral on some hot July day? You can’t, and if your business in the city doesn’t end until 12:30 p.m and the tour starts at 12:15 p.m. as the spanish might say: Tampoco.

2. Hop on/Hop Off Tour Bus:
   I have never ridden one of these, they sound like a good idea, and they solve every problem of the two previously aforementioned options except for price. This is a line of buses whose route follows the most direct line from one tourist attraction to the next. Many modern European cities now have this buses and for a one time fare you can get on and off as many times as you would like during the day. The theory is that you can spend as much time at the attractions as you would like to without having to worry about keeping up with the group. Overall it’s a pretty good option, the only downside I’ve found is the price, a city transit pass for the same time period is usually a third the price and goes to all the same places, it just might take a little longer.

The Conclusion-less Conclusion

In the end, I guess I should say do what you want, learning things the hard way makes for better stories and paying more money up front means less learning things the hard way. Just do what fits your style.