AFV Club! (Armed Forces Vacation)

I cannot believe that I am just now hearing about this… really.  Lived in Germany for 3+ years with no clue.   So, if you are as clueless as I was, listen up!  There are some amazing places out there that are affordable for military families!  Great, huh?  Check it out!

It’s called The Armed Forces Vacation Club and it’s through the Services division/MWR. You can find hotels, etc., virtually all over the world at exceptional rates.

Have heard it’s “hit or miss,” but when you hit, it’s amazing.  

 http://www.afvclub.com/main.taf?p=3

Belgian Trains

The Belgian train system is fairly reliable and very easy to navigate including the English version of its website where you can book tickets in and out of Belgium from train stations in Germany, France, The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. The site takes VISA, so you can book your ticket, pay for it, then take your confirmation to the International travel desk at the train station to get your paper tickets.

www.b-rail.be

Lesson learned: It is important that you read your tickets VERY well and have a clear understanding of them. With some tickets, the rate will allow you to travel to a main train station via any smaller station, so the time on the confirmation will be the departure time from one of the larger stations leaving it up to you to WRITE down the times that your train will leave from the smaller stations. Look up nearby stations and make careful notes about departure times and connections. If you miss your train, tickets are only refundable up to 50% and the rates the day of are higher.

Sample Confirmation: note – I booked this train from Namur, BE and at the time of booking, the website showed me the times from Namur, so when I printed this, the lack of that time on the confirmation threw me off. Read the Fare Conditions carefully. In my rush, I didn’t and it cost me a bit.

Thank you for choosing SNCB for buying your train tickets on-line. These are the details of the booking you have just made on our website: Your booking reference (DNR): XXXXX Related reservation code (PNR): XXXXXX Your pickup code: 0118 Your journey: From LIEGE-GUILLEMINS to AACHEN HBF on 30/04/2009 with Thalys Train n° 9433 leaving at 15:13 and arriving at 15:58 2 passengers with fare Optiway ABS (BT) Comfort 2 Coach 27, seat 056 , 052 (Non smoking) Total price: Fare conditions: Optiway ABS (BT) Comfort 2: Booking at least 1 day before departure. Includes the fixed “Any Belgian Station” supplement allowing you to travel to and from any Belgian station via Bruxelles-Midi (for all international destinations), Antwerpen-Centraal (for Paris and the Netherlands) or Liège-Guillemins (to Paris and Germany). Exchangeable once until the day before the departure. 50% refund if cancelled before the departure. No refund if cancelled after the departure. Delivery mode: Your tickets can be collected as from now at the international ticket desks of your SNCB railway station. Please make sure you can produce your booking reference XXXXXXX ,as well as the personal pickup code that was displayed on the confirmation screen after your on-line purchase. Please notice that if you used a credit card for the on-line payment, the card holder will then have to produce the card at the desk when collecting the tickets. In the following stations, you can pick up your tickets at an automatic vending machine for international tickets as well: Antwerpen-Berchem, Antwerpen-Centraal, Brugge, Bruxelles-Central, Bruxelles-Luxembourg, Bruxelles-Midi (opposite the Railtour office), Bruxelles-Nord, Charleroi-Sud, Gent St-Pieters, Hasselt, Kortrijk, Leuven, Liège-Guillemins, Mechelen, Mons, Namur, Oostende and Ottignies. For any question or information about your booking, please contact our International Call Center by phone or by e-mail. Telephone: +32(0)2 528 28 28 or by e-mail: telesales@b-rail.be. Please use your booking reference in all communication. Have a pleasant journey!

SNCB, Travelling in Europe B-VG 061, S. 13/6 Avenue de la Porte de Hal 40 B-1060 Bruxelles

Travel Website!

All in German, but you can enter specifics or generalities to find trip deals including hotels.

http://www.travelscout24.de

Travel Website! SpottedByLocals

If you’re heading to one of these cities below, the website below can be a fun additional resource. Some of my best trips were ones where I’d planned in suggestions by locals in with the major tourist stuff. It gives the trip a bit more realism. Like you’ve seen the city itself and not just thousands of other tourists. Spotted by locals is growing and adding more cities as they can. Check it out!

http://www.spottedbylocals.com/

Amsterdam, Antwerp, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Geneva, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome, Vienna, Zagreb

Taxi Service

Once in a while we need a taxi to take us to/from the airport. A group of 6 of us flew out of the Dusseldorf/Weeze airport last November and used Taxi for you. They picked us up in Gillrath in a large van and got us there, the came and picked us up the night we flew back. For the 6 of us, the round trip price to the airport was 175 Euro. Divided up, it wasn’t too bad (especially considering the price of gas these days). We asked and agreed upon the price ahead of time, so there was no metering which, I think, saved us. It would have been more had the price not been pre-set.

Taxi for You
Tel: 02452-62525
Erkelenzer Str. 30
52525 Heinsberg

Beate Hayen is the wife. She usually answers the phone and makes appointments. Her husband is the driver. He is friendly and speaks English.

FREE Guide to Eurail Passes

Reader Contribution…

The following are links from an email that came from Rick Steve’s mailing list to a blog reader. The great thing here is the free copy of “Rick’s Guide to Eurail Passes” that is immensely helpful in planning train travel, but check the other links too… there is a lot of good information here…

• free copy of Rick’s Guide to Eurail Passes

• BritRail 20% off Winter Travel: Starting Sept. 2 get 20% off regular adult rates on BritRail and BritRail England passes valid for travel between November 2008 and February 2009.
• Eurail Preview: Find recent rail updates and winter schedules.
• Off-Season Travel in Europe: Learn about the pros and cons of traveling from November through March.
• Riding the Rails: Get Rick’s top tips on traveling by train.

Dutch Trains

Amazing!! Wish I would have known about this 2 years ago!!!

Taking the train in The Netherlands is relatively cheap and very easy. I took the train from Sittard to Amsterdam for the day and it was perfect!

Parking: Train stations have some sort of parking available. Many have Park and Ride garages nearby. In Sittard, the PR (Park and Ride) garage is on the other side of the tracks, so you’ll cross over the bridge just south of the station (transferium), and look for signs for the parking. Push the green button to get a ticket. Parking all day is under 5E, but if you are taking the train, let the cashier know when you buy your ticket and you may be able to get a discount ticket for parking. (We were not given a ticket automatically, but an attendent at the parking garage gave us one and told us that usually, you will have to ask for it and that there is also usually no attendent there) When you leave, insert your parking ticket into the slot in the machine and the amount you owe will come up. Then, set the discount ticket (if you have one) on a small diagonal try and a red light will read the code and apply the discount. We parked all day (over 12 hours) for 2.40E! IMPORTANT: These machines have a Visa sign, but like the ticket machines, don’t actually accept the US Visa or Mastercards. Plan ahead and BRING COINS.

Basic information and schedules: http://www.ns.nl

Getting your train ticket: The ticket machines in and around the train station do not take paper cash or American credit cards, so unless you have enough coins to cover your ticket, a Maestro card or Dutch PINpas, you’ll need to go to the ticket office located in the Albert Hein convenience store inside the station itself. I suggest this because while you might pay a 50 Cent convenience fee, you may save money. We were able to get a special deal that we did not see advertised online or at the machines that made our tickets cost less than 50% of the normal price.

• A Day Travel Card allows for unlimited travel all around the country within the confines of one day. Do note that the day is not a 24-hour one. There is an early train and a late train that you don’t want to miss.
• A Weekend Return Card allows you to travel unlimited all over the NL between 1900 on Friday and 0400 on Monday morning.
• Children 3 and under ride FREE.
• Children ages 4-11 can travel with adults for only 2 Euros (a limit of 3 children per adult at this price).

The Schedule: Train schedules are easy to read online or look for the large boards at the station. The hour number is large, then you’ll see a long list of the minutes with the route and track number beside it. Find your time and destination, then find the track number – sometimes it’s followed by an a or b and sometimes it’s not. The yellow boards on the platforms show the departure times and route. The blue and white boards show the platform numbers, departure times and routes.

On the train:

• Keep your ticket with you on the train. Conductors will come around at different times along the route and you must have your ticket with you. On our trip, our tickets were stamped 4 times.
• If you get car sick, pay attention to the direction that the train will go and try to choose seats that face forward.
• On longer trips someone with food and drinks may come by, but it is absolutely OK to bring your own. A family I saw had an entire wheeled shopping bag with them with cups, food, and two thermoses of hot drinks.

Changing Trains: You can transfer from one train to another in 5 minutes at most stations. With small children, I’d allow at least 10.

Routes: A “Holland By Train” guide with an English translation inside free at the station has more information and a detailed map of all NL train destination including destinations in Germany, Belgium, and France.

Within the Netherlands: Quick, easy, many ticket options allow you endless travel to any destination within the country. Look online for routes.

• Sittard to Amsterdam took 2 hours 15 minutes roughly and would have cost 38 Euros normally.

International: Some international tickets must be reserved ahead of time and cannot be purchased at the ticket office at the station. Check your route online before your trip and scroll down for rate information. There, you’ll either see a price, or a link to where you can purchase your ticket. I strongly suggest for more complicated international train travel to go to the German travel office on base located in the same building as the German post/Dry Cleaners and Dresdner Bank (go through the center doors and follow the signs to the back of the building). They are VERY helpful and can often get you better rates than you’d get buying tickets at the station at the last minute.

• From Schinnen, you can get just about anywhere, but because it is a very small station, you’ll have many transfers. To Paris, there are 3-4 transfers necessary. If you can drive to Maastricht or even Sittard or Heerlen, you’ll decrease your transfers and possibly save yourself some time. Check out your options by playing with your travel route online.
• Maastricht and Amsterdam Central are the larger hubs. From Maastricht you can get to Paris with only one transfer. Or, take the train from Aachen. There is a fast train that goes directly from Aachen to Paris.
• To get to London, you’ll need to go through Brussels transfer to the Eurostar there.

Travel Articles by Concierge

Ok, so Concierge.com is marketing to people with a little more in their pockets than the majority of us here, but, their “budget travel” articles usually have some great information and good advice!

Budget Europe 2008

Article At a Glance…

• Enjoy a luxury spa experience – the article lists a few reasonable destination spas: Friedrichsbad in Germany, King Edward’s Royal Cabin in the Check Republic, and Copenhagen’s Vandkulturhuset.
• Hear a world-class concert inexpensively at one of Europe’s beautiful cathedrals like Paris’s Notre-Dame cathedral.
• Eat well at the markets like the Mouffetard in Paris, Turin’s Eataly marketplace, London’s Borough Market, and Berlin’s all-organic Marheineke Markthalle.
• Bike it, bus it, boat it. Think about your transportation options that could make your trip more reasonable. Bikes can be rented in cities like Paris and Berlin, or make the bike the adventure and do the “Bike the Mosel” ride when the roads are closed to traffic or rent white bicycles in the The National Park ‘De Hoge Veluwe’. (Search Mosel and Bike and you’ll find a TON of trails and trips… here’s one that looked amazing! http://www.radreisen.at/en/cycling-tours/germany/germany-tour-details/moselle-vineyards-3-countries-by-bike-and-boat.html)
• Pick beaches that are beautiful, but not touristy like Latvia’s Jurmala, on the Baltic Sea, Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast, Turkey’s Patara Beach.
• Go East for better deals… former Eastern Europe is still cheaper than the Euro rich west and still offers beautiful cities and rich arts: Polish National Opera, Hungarian National Gallery, Slovak National Gallery.
• Use local transit (fast trains and trams) with inexpensive daily rates: Nice transit, Bordeaux transit, Athens transit
• Hike! Try Transylvania: Pure Adventures
• Apartments, especially for larger groups, are almost always cheaper than hotels and will usually have a kitchen allowing you do prepare at least some of your meals in in stead of eating 3 meals out every day.

Dollar-Friendly Destinations 2008
— This article lists Portugal among other worldwide destinations… good ideas!

Taking Hops (Space A) – 101

Why Fly Space A?

1. It’s Kid Friendly!
• “My boys love flying space A because they get to get up and walk around or sleep in their sleeping bags on the floor of the aircraft. The best flight we had was last year on a C-17, they were able to climb into the 2 Apache helicopters on board, as well as go up into the cock pit and see out while flying. My 14 year old got to sit up there while they landed the plane — talk about a great experience for a teenager!”
2. It’s Free!

Space A Web Resources:

• http://www.spacea.net/
• http://www.pepperd.com/scgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi: This site is the most
  informational. Start with the “Flight Schedule Information” link, to get a
  feel for when and where the flights are going out.
• http://www.pepperd.com/discus/messages/4868/4868.shtml?1200335513 (Flight Schedule info)
• http://www.military.com/Travel/Content1/0,,SAF_gateways,00.html

Reader Advice:

1. The best thing to do is to educate yourself by googling “Space A flying” and reading everything you can.
2. Sign up on line for all the terminals you are interested in using both going and returning by clicking on this link (http://www.takeahop.org/) and filling in the information. It works great!
• “When I got into Charleston, SC I checked to see if my name was on the list so in about 10 days I would be able to fly out of there. They had all the information they needed.”
3. Be flexible.
4. Print out the information on every PAX terminal that you might get into. This will include the corresponding flight recording numbers and billeting information which will help you if you get into a place in the middle of the night and need lodging.
5. Call the terminals often and speak to a real person not a recording for the most up to date information. Many times the recordings do not reflect the most current information. They usually know about 48-72 hours out what flights will be leaving. Ramstein, for us, has been the hardest to get out of. The people working the passenger list are not very accurate so re-check to make sure they show you marked as present. Also re-check the flight schedule. Spangdahlem has been wonderful. They are much smaller but they seem to really care. Spang is opening a new terminal in June should be really nice from what they told us.
6. Have fun and good luck!

Summer Fun and Wine Festivals

Did you know that Stars and Stripes has a Europe blog packed with great information about traveling in Europe??? Check it out: http://blogs.stripes.com/blogs/europetraveler

So… here are a couple of my favorite recent entries:

Not to be missed in 2008…
A list of special events all over Europe that don’t happen every year.

Interesting Theme Parks
London Tombs, Serial Killers, Giant Tongues, and Iron works… Oh my!

And… from Stars and Stripes itself:

Wine Festivals
This is a list of wine festivals throughout Europe sorted by date. I suggest finding the festival that you’re interested in either according to date or region, then using google or some other search engine to find more detailed information on that particular festival. Many might offer special evening events that are by ticket only and you will want to act on that quickly. Especially in Germany, many larger towns have their own webpages with English translations. Try entering the name of the town and adding “.de” to it. This sometimes works for other countries as well. Use “.fr” for France, “.at” for Austria, “.it” for Italy, and “.es” for Spain. Many of the entries come from the following resources:

• www.austria.info
• www.us.franceguide.com
• www.winetourisminfrance.com
• www.germanwines.de
• www.movimentoturismovino.it — “Each year on the last Sunday in May, the Movimento Turismo del Vino organizes Cantine Aperte — guided visits and tastings — in approximately 1,000 wineries across the countries. This year’s event is 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on May 25.”
  
• www.festivals-of-tuscany.com