I’ve always been a little sentimental about memories. When I was a kid in the 1960s, I spent hours at my grandparents’ house looking through old black-and-white family photos. They were kept in what everyone called the “middle room,” in the bottom right-hand drawer of a dresser, and most of them dated from the 1930s and 1940s. My Uncle Bob, my grandparents’ oldest child, had gotten interested in photography in college, and he’d left an extensive collection of photographs behind in that drawer.
I’d sit on the floor and sort through those faded prints, picking out relatives in their younger days: a grandparent I only knew as gray-haired, standing tall and slim in a suit; my parents before they were my parents; or some unknown relative dressed to the nines in their Sunday best. But what really caught me were the places. Every photo was a little window into somewhere else. It didn’t matter if that “somewhere else” was just back home in South Carolina, a Sunday afternoon at the zoo, or a deserted railway line out in the middle of nowhere. I dreamed about distant places and new locales long before I ever had the chance to see one.
Later, when I was in college, Charlotte and I wrote letters to each other, real handwritten letters, and we still have them today. It’s funny: when I read them now, I can recall exactly where I was, what was happening, and what we meant by every reference, even the ones that wouldn’t make a bit of sense to anyone else. Something about putting pen to paper locks a memory in place.
I suppose that’s why, when I was about to leave on a big trip to Europe, I bought a leather-bound journal to record my thoughts, reflections, and memories along the way. I had no idea it would be the first of many journals in which I would scratch out and sketch my memories.
A Band Director with a Plan
In June 1997, I set off with my band students on a performance tour of Europe. This wasn’t my first trip to Europe with students, but it was the first time we packed up our horns and took our show on the road across the pond. In the months leading up to our departure, we spent many Sunday afternoons rehearsing and putting together our concert program. Each rehearsal also included time to learn about our destinations and to work out the details of the tour.
To plan and run the tour, I hired EF Educational Tours, a student tour operator. Those of you who’ve known me for a while know that my experiences with EF ultimately became the reason I started my own tour company, David McGuffin’s Exploring Europe. But that’s a story for another day! Back in 1997, I didn’t have the know-how or the resources to put together a trip to Europe on my own, much less a performance tour with instruments, concert venues, and a busload of teenagers. So I relied on EF to handle our accommodations, transportation, meals, and performance venues.
That doesn’t mean I sat back and waited. I spent most of the year before the trip working out the tour route, the destinations, the concert locations, and even some of the hotels with EF. I’d never done anything like that before; on earlier trips I’d always left it all to “the tour company.” I remember Matt, his dad, Michael Chumbley, and I spending hours at a copy machine, running off pages from Rick Steves’ guidebook so every student could carry a little piece of Europe in their bag. Looking back, I think that year of planning was when the bug really bit me.
June 5, 1997: Departure Day
We were up at 7:00 that morning in Middleburg, Florida, doing all the last-minute things that always make me late. Why Charlotte picked that particular day to get her hair cut and styled is still beyond me, but she did. By 8:30 I was out the door, racing between the bank, the school, and a list of final errands. The most important stop was the bank, where I picked up our American Express Traveler’s Checks, which in 1997 was how a responsible person carried money overseas.
I made it back home around 10:00 and met up with my kids and a few friends for the drive to the airport. We still had to swing by the beauty parlor to collect Charlotte and Brian, and by the time we pulled in, it was pouring rain. After the first of what would become many “passport and money belt checks,” we were finally on our way.
We reached the Jacksonville airport at 11:35 and found the Continental Airlines check-in desk. An agent named Benny took our group under his wing. He was a tremendous help getting everyone checked in and, most importantly, getting all of our instruments on board free of charge. Anyone who has ever traveled with a band knows what a gift that was. By 12:30 the entire group was checked in, and we all walked down to the gate together.
And what a scene that gate was. In those days, before security lines kept everyone but passengers out, families could walk all the way to the gate, and they did. Parents crowded around their teenagers for one last hug, one last reminder, one last photo. One of my students, Sarah, told me years later that her mom cried at the gate and that she was mortified her mother made such a scene. Another, Heather, wondered what the other passengers must have thought as a huge group of excited teenagers piled onto the plane. I’ll admit I didn’t notice the crying parents much myself. I had my own family right there with me: not just Charlotte, Jamie, and Brian, but my mom and my aunt as well. For me, this trip was a family affair, and beyond my own family, I had an extended family of band kids and parent chaperones, too!
At 2:30 we lifted off from Jacksonville, and the adventure officially began.
About two hours later we arrived in Newark. On the approach, the plane passed over Manhattan, and I got my very first look at New York City. The Empire State Building, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty standing out in the harbor: they were pretty darn impressive, especially to a country boy from Middleburg. I pressed my face to the window like one of my students.
When I was writing this chapter, I went back to check my original journal, and sure enough, I had written that this was my very first look at New York City. But then I opened my journal from twenty years earlier, from my first-ever flight and tour in 1977, and found almost exactly the same words. So now I don’t know which is true. Could I have forgotten seeing the New York skyline from an airplane window twenty years before? I’ll never know. But I think we can all agree that New York Harbor was an impressive sight in the days before the world changed on September 11, 2001.
To get into the European spirit, we ate pasta at Sbarro in the Newark terminal, then settled in for a two-hour wait. We boarded Continental Flight 56 at 7:25 and were off the ground by 8:30, pointed east across the Atlantic.
The flight itself was uneventful, at least for me. I took two Bayer PM, put in my earplugs, pulled on an eye mask, and slept most of the way. The students, I learned later, had a slightly different experience. Kara and her friend Jessie were seated directly behind Charlotte and me, and Kara wrote in her own journal that night that they couldn’t move around much, “or else we’ll bump their seat and they give us dirty looks.” I have no memory of giving anyone dirty looks. I was asleep. But I’ll take her word for it.
Looking back: When I reread those first pages of my journal ten years later, and again now, nearly thirty years on, I was struck by how much had changed. Traveler’s Checks, Bayer PM, eye masks, quick airline check-ins, walking family and friends all the way to the gate, and the World Trade Center are all things of the past. Now I use my debit card to pull local cash from an ATM, tap to pay with contactless cards, have a glass of wine instead of a sleeping pill, and wear my cap in place of an eye mask. And the Twin Towers I marveled at from that airplane window are gone.
June 6, 1997: Arrival in Paris
Our flight touched down at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport at 9:15 in the morning. We came through the old Terminal 1, and I remember thinking I’d seen the place before, in a James Bond movie. Terminal 1 opened in 1974, a huge round concrete building that the French nicknamed “the Camembert” because of its shape. In the middle is an open central well, crisscrossed by glass-covered tubes holding inclined escalators and moving walkways that carry passengers up and down between levels. In 1997 it still felt futuristic. Clearing customs was a breeze.
Over the years I’ve been through Terminal 1 many times. By 2007 it was looking worn, and every time I passed through, crews seemed to be putting up new sheetrock, moving barriers, and rearranging the layout. In 2011 the remodeling was still going on, though by then it was mostly painting and traffic routing. Those escalator tubes still harken back to the 1970s, but in a nice, nostalgic way.
Waiting for us on the other side of customs was Lisa, our EF tour guide. Lisa was every inch a Parisian: very chic, always poised, never once seen in jeans, with her hair pinned up in a perfect French twist. Kara mentioned years later that of all the things she’d forgotten about the trip, she never forgot how French Lisa was. It’s funny what sticks with you.
The bus ride from the airport into central Paris was a rolling celebration. Students marveled at road signs in a “foreign language,” pointed at the tiny, fast cars darting around us on the highway, and craned their necks trying to be the first to spot the Eiffel Tower on the skyline.
Our private bus took us to our hotel, the Residence Internationale de Paris, at 44 rue Louis Lumière, out in the 20th arrondissement on the eastern edge of the city. It sat in a residential neighborhood with quite an eclectic population. My first impression was that it was okay: comfortable enough, but hot. There was no air conditioning in the rooms, and early June in Paris was already warm. I figured the place called itself a “residence” because some people seemed to live there on long-term arrangements. Many of the residents appeared to have physical disabilities, and I wondered whether it was some sort of rehabilitation facility that also rented rooms to groups like ours.
Our rooms weren’t ready yet, either. Kara wrote in her journal that day that it was “so hot in Paris” and that “McGuffin said we couldn’t change our pants.” She asked me years later why on earth she’d felt the need to write that down. I couldn’t tell her, but I’m glad she recorded it. It adds a lot to the story.
Our first group meeting with Lisa at the Residence Internationale de Paris
While we waited, we gathered in the hotel’s conference room. Lisa gave us an overview of the tour, made introductions, and briefed us on Paris and how to navigate the Métro. Then it was time to go out and meet the city.
Into the Métro
We took the Métro from the hotel toward the Montmartre area, a trip that required changing trains at an underground station partway there. For me, this was the most nerve-wracking part of the day. Most of my students had never been on a subway in their lives, and now I was herding a group of them through crowded tunnels and onto trains that waited for no one, counting heads at every platform. It was a learning experience for everyone. But everybody made it — no one lost, no one upset, and no one robbed. At least not yet.
We surfaced at the Anvers station, and stepping out of that stairway was a cultural shock for all of us. Lisa wanted to point out the station’s historic Art Nouveau entrance. Paris’s original Métro entrances were designed by the architect Hector Guimard around 1900, with green cast-iron railings shaped like plant stems and the word “Métropolitain” in flowing letters. They’re treasured landmarks today, and I’ve come to love them. But in that moment, I wasn’t looking at the ironwork. I was trying to keep my group together, safe, and clear of the vagrants and drunks scattered along the sidewalk. We’d popped up in the median of the Boulevard de Rochechouart, a stretch of Paris that, along with the neighboring Boulevard de Clichy, is known for sex shops, prostitutes, vagrants, and litter. Not exactly the postcard I’d promised the parents back home.
Our first Métro stop, with backpacks worn on our fronts to foil pickpockets
You can see in the photo that many of us had already moved our backpacks around to our fronts. We were going to need every precaution. Things went from bad to worse as we crossed the street and began our en masse tourist trek up the Rue de Steinkerque, the narrow, crowded street of souvenir and fabric shops that leads toward the Sacré-Cœur. Michael, Matt’s dad and one of the parents traveling with us, quickly became the prime target of a gang of small children working as pickpockets. I couldn’t really blame them. Michael was wearing a large backpack and had several cameras strung around his neck, and that getup, combined with khaki pants, white tennis shoes, and a straw hat, marked him unmistakably as an American tourist. More than once he had to physically fight them off as they went for his pockets.
He wasn’t the only one who had to defend himself that afternoon. One of my students, Jason, actually kicked a pickpocket who got too close. And at one point a man reached out and started touching Rhonda’s blonde hair. I’d brought a walking stick along on the trip, and I found myself shaking it at him until he backed off. Kara later wrote that she loved that I’d brought a walking stick to Europe. I suppose it earned its place in my luggage that day.
The Sacré-Cœur
At last we reached the top of the Rue de Steinkerque and came to a park at the foot of the hill, with several steep stairways climbing up toward the Sacré-Cœur, a gleaming white basilica perched at the very top of Montmartre. I remember thinking, “Whew. We survived that, and now we’re finally safe.”
We all huddled around Lisa like chicks around a mother hen while she gave us her talk about the area and its history. Then, just as I was beginning to relax, she suggested we split up and find lunch on our own. Alarm bells went off in my head. After what we’d just walked through, I wasn’t about to release my students to wander the neighborhood in search of food. So instead, we all walked across the street and bought lunch at a hot dog stand.
Lunch was a hot dog with cheese for 15 francs (about $2.50) and a Diet Coke for 10 francs (about $1.75). What a way to begin a tour of France, the culinary capital of the world.
After lunch, we hiked up the steps to the basilica. There are more than two hundred of them, and by the top, everyone was ready to pause and catch their breath. The Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur, the “Sacred Heart,” is younger than it looks. Construction began in 1875, in the years after France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the upheaval of the Paris Commune, and the church wasn’t consecrated until 1919. It’s built from a special travertine stone that releases calcite when it rains, which is why it stays so brilliantly white even after more than a century of Paris weather and pollution.
The interior was a disappointment that day. It was under renovation, with scaffolding everywhere. But the view from the top of the hill made up for it. From the steps of the Sacré-Cœur you can see all of Paris spread out to the south, a sea of gray rooftops and chimney pots stretching to the horizon. If you lean out and look past the trees to the right, you can even spot the Eiffel Tower, the landmark the students had been hunting for since the airport.
Montmartre and the Artists
From the basilica, we walked around the corner into Montmartre itself, the old village on the hill that has drawn painters, poets, and musicians for well over a century. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the cheap rent, the cabarets, and the bohemian atmosphere attracted artists like Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Modigliani. Picasso worked in a ramshackle studio building nicknamed the Bateau-Lavoir, the “laundry boat,” where struggling artists lived and worked side by side, staying up all night and sleeping through the day. Montmartre became synonymous with artistic creativity, and that reputation still pulls in crowds today.
The artists are still there, too, gathered in and around the Place du Tertre, the old village square, sketching, painting, and selling portraits to visitors. Some of them are very good. Some of them are very persistent. Sarah, Sabrina, and Carey eventually caved in to the constant hounding and “commissioned” sketches of their own, at prices ranging from 20 francs for a black-and-white sketch up to 150 francs for a color portrait.
Sabrina and her bohemian artist in Montmartre
Years later, when I first shared that photo online, Sabrina wrote to say it was priceless. She’d never gotten a picture of her bohemian artist herself.
Montmartre hasn’t changed much in thirty years. When I brought my students in 1997, it was exactly as it is today. As you round the corner to the left of the Sacré-Cœur, the sketch artists form a gauntlet and pester everyone who passes about posing for a portrait. Many use a bait-and-switch: they snag a tourist as a “model” so they can practice their craft, and when the sketch is finished, they insist on “giving” it to the subject, but only if they pay for it.
My advice is to ignore that first wave of sketch artists and keep walking. The better professionals work in the Place du Tertre itself. In March 2011, after a week of scouting the artists there, I finally gave in and paid for a portrait of my own. The artist, an elderly gentleman who looked like Santa Claus, held me captive for about forty-five minutes and produced a pretty good portrait.
Back in the Place du Tertre, Montmartre, years later
My own Place du Tertre portrait, March 2011
I was feeling surprisingly good that first afternoon, with not much jet lag, which I credited to sleeping on the flight over. Not everyone was so lucky. Holly had become sick and was throwing up, and Leslie wasn’t feeling well either. All I could think of was how miserable I’d felt in Amsterdam in 1995, and my heart went out to them. There’s more to that 1995 Amsterdam story, but it will have to wait for another chapter.
Les Halles and a Giant Head
From Montmartre, we took the Métro to the Sentier station and walked over to the Rue Montorgueil, an old market street lined with outdoor fruit and vegetable vendors. After a short walk through heavy traffic, we arrived at the gardens of Les Halles.
For more than eight hundred years, Les Halles was the great central food market of Paris, the place the novelist Émile Zola called “the belly of Paris.” In the 1850s and 1860s it was rebuilt with enormous iron-and-glass pavilions designed by Victor Baltard. But by the 1960s the old market couldn’t handle a modern city’s traffic, and in 1971 the wholesale market moved out to the suburbs and the beautiful pavilions were torn down. In their place came the Forum des Halles, an underground shopping mall, and beneath it one of the busiest train stations in Paris. Even in 1997, I thought it was a pitiful trade.
My son Brian had decided to bring his skateboard on this tour, and there he was, our very first day in Paris, toting it around all day in a special backpack built to carry a board. I don’t think it touched the pavement once that first day.
In the Place René Cassin, beside the great Gothic church of Saint-Eustache, we came upon a giant stone sculpture by Henri de Miller called L’Écoute, which means “Listen.” Installed in 1986, it’s a massive sandstone head lying on its side, its cheek resting in a cupped hand as though listening to the ground. It weighs about seventy tons, and the students couldn’t resist posing in front of it.
Dinner at the Hippopotamus
By this point, my hearty hot dog lunch had long since worn off, and I was excited about eating our first “real” French restaurant meal. That turned out to be at the Hippopotamus, a big French steakhouse chain. There we dined on the gourmet French delicacies of white rice, chicken kebabs, lettuce with dressing, and chocolate mousse. I bought a “Coke Light,” as Diet Coke is called in Europe, for 10 francs.
Looking back, that meal, along with the hot dogs, was one of the main reasons I eventually struck out on my own and founded David McGuffin’s Exploring Europe. There is so much more to Parisian cuisine than chicken kebabs and white rice, and I wanted the travelers I brought to Europe to experience it. Nowadays, after we climb the steps to the Sacré-Cœur and fight our way through the artist gauntlet, we settle into one of the cafés around the Place du Tertre for soup, a salad, or a plate of cheese, with a coffee or a glass of wine. The ambiance is divine. For a more substantial dinner, walk down the hill along the Rue Lepic to Le Moulin de la Galette, a restaurant set inside one of Montmartre’s last two windmills. In the 1800s it was a famous open-air dance hall, the very spot Renoir painted in his Bal du moulin de la Galette.
And how about those prices? In 1997, the French franc was still the currency of France (the euro wouldn’t arrive in people’s pockets until 2002), and a dollar bought roughly five and three-quarter francs. That made the hot dog about $2.50, each Coke about $1.75, and the girls’ portraits anywhere from about $3.50 to $26. It all seemed like play money at the time.
Back to the Residence
After dinner, we took the Métro back to the hotel, a forty-five-minute ride with one transfer. When I finally reached my room, I was completely worn out and fell asleep immediately. The students, I’m fairly sure, stayed up most of the night playing cards in the third-floor lobby. Every so often I’d stir and hear them laughing outside my door.
I can’t leave our first day without saying a word about the hotel. The Residence Internationale de Paris was okay, but it was way, way, way out from the city center. It took a thirty-minute Métro ride with several changes just to reach the Latin Quarter, and the walk between the station and the hotel passed through a neighborhood that felt a little sketchy, with prostitutes working the streets. Don’t get me wrong: I even used the place once after I started my own company. But there is much better to be had in Paris for the price.
Kara, who was fourteen on this trip, wrote to me many years later that it made her a little sad to realize how much of the art, architecture, and culture had been lost on her teenage self. I understood completely. On my own first trips to Europe, I’d felt the same way, riding along on the bus without knowing which direction we were traveling, how far we’d come, or what waited at the end. That’s part of what drove me to plan this tour so carefully. And it’s part of why, from our grown-up vantage point, having a “do-over” of that trip would be kind of cool.
But the first day was done, and we’d survived it: the Métro, the pickpockets, the hot dogs, and all. The next morning would bring our first French breakfast, which, to a group of teenagers expecting something like an American continental buffet, turned out to be mostly croissants and lukewarm drinks. And somewhere ahead was a dinner Lisa announced as “couscous,” which Kara misheard as “goose” and worried about all day long.
That morning nearly 25 years ago, I woke to delivery vans, Vespas, Apes, and business owners starting their day. Beneath the buzz of engines, I heard the steady sweep of sandals on the street below. Distant waves, gulls, and the occasional boat horn punctuated the soundscape. Today, via Fingina in Monterosso al Mare remains much the same.
A few days earlier, I drove into Cinque Terre from the AutoStrada toll highway about thirty miles north. Charlotte and friends Tippy and Marje joined me on the harrowing, winding mountain roads without safety barriers. We all felt relief reaching the seaside’s flat ground. I was scouting destinations for my European tours.
25 Years and a lot of Changes
Reflecting on those early days, I wrote in my journal, “Monterosso is a tourist town, but out of the way enough to keep crowds away.” Much has changed since then. Cruise ships now bring waves of passengers, flooding villages a few times a week. Trenitalia increased local rail services, transporting thousands into the five villages multiple times daily. Guidebooks continue to boost the Cinque Terre’s fame. Despite this, I still love it!
The rugged coastline of Liguria is dotted with small fishing villages, terraced vineyards, olive groves, and breathtaking vistas. Even as the Cinque Terre has become a popular destination, I still find the locals devoted to their customs and traditions. When I’m here, it’s almost impossible not to set my sightseeing plans aside, relax, and embrace a true Italian vacation in this region.
A Bit of History
The Cinque Terre—or “five lands”—is a loose group of villages on Italy’s northern Ligurian Sea. For centuries, residents lived off land and sea. Castles from the Middle Ages protected land barons and serfs. Raiders and pirates often kidnapped locals for slavery or ransom. In the Renaissance, villagers grew more independent, focusing on fishing, vineyards, and olive groves.
The steep, rocky mountains aren’t ideal for farming, but isolation forced locals to adapt. They built hundreds of miles of terrace gardens, all supported by freestanding stone walls.
The five villages are linked by trails winding through vineyards, gardens, and lemon and olive groves. These trails were originally built to access terraced gardens and provide transportation between villages.
Today, this area is a national park that balances tourism and conservation. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To help fund park projects, a permit is required for trail use, and we provide it to all our guests.
Why I Still Go to the Cinque Terre today, and why you should go with me!
Cinque Terre still draws me back yearly. When Charlotte and I vacation in Italy, we often rent an apartment in Monterosso and relax. The villages are crowded by day, but evenings bring magical al fresco dining, wine bars, parks, and locals mingling. We spend our days in rented beach chairs. The hiking trails between Monterosso and Vernazza, and around Manarola, are challenging but rewarding. Hopping between villages by train or boat is a great way to enjoy the region’s scenery, art, cuisine, and coast. And since last year, the “Via della Amore” has reopened between Riomaggiore and Manarola.
Join me for an unforgettable experience—reserve your spot on my Best of Italy and Essence of Italy tours now! Let’s explore the Cinque Terre together—book your adventure today.
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David McGuffin has been leading small-group tours to Europe for nearly 50 years. His mission is to encourage Americans to broaden their cultural mindset through engaging and exciting travel experiences. Learn more about his tours at davidmcguffin.com.
When traveling abroad, a good traveler expects to run into cultural differences. With a little planning, we can prepare for the big ones, like the language or local customs. But it is often the little things we take for granted and couldn’t fathom doing differently, that trip us up. So, to help you prepare, here is a guide to the little quirks of dining abroad, from ordering drinks to interacting with your waiter and everything you need to know about refills, ice, water, and tipping.
Drinks
Refills
Free refills on sodas, coffee, tea, or any other beverage are an American thing. In Europe, you purchase your beverages by the glass. In most places, there are no fountain drinks, so if you order a soda, you’ll get a can. And hopefully, it was refrigerated, which brings me to the next item…
Ice
Until recently, Europeans would look at you like you were crazy if you asked for ice with your drink, and then bring you one single cube. It’s not common, it’s not the custom, and it’s only for outsiders. Many restaurants don’t have ice on hand for cooling drinks. Instead, they use it to chill the fish. And you do not want that ice in your drink! The best outcome you can hope for is that the little cubes will lower the drink’s temperature by at least a few degrees before melting away.
We Americans are obsessed with having ice-cold drinks. I recently saw someone put ice in a glass of wine, and I gasped in horror. I thought to myself, “If the Europeans could see you defiling that wine, they would die!” Let’s face it, that extra-large soft drink from your local fast-food joint is just a cupful of ice with a little bit of soda. But the fact is, ninety percent of the world’s population makes do without ice every day and don’t even know what they are missing.
Water
A few years ago, I was hiking in the Alps near Interlaken, Switzerland. I was exploring on my own and checking out some new destinations for my tours. I decided to take on a rather challenging day hike high up in the mountains. Early in the morning, I took a train up to my starting point, and off I went through green meadows that seemed to cascade endlessly down the steep hills under a blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. It was a perfect day for hiking!
Three hours into the hike, my water bottle was dry, and I was looking for anything to rehydrate my aching body. I came across a little restaurant at one of the highest points on the trail and went in to buy a liter or two of water to get me through the next five hours of hiking. Well, all they had was water with gas! At the time, I hated water with gas, but weighing the possibility of no water for the next five hours or water with gas, I purchased the water. That’s the day I learned to like the stuff.
Europeans have been purchasing their water for as long as I can remember. Originally this stemmed from the idea that tap water was unsanitary or that the natural minerals which bottled “spring water” contained were good for you. Whatever the reason, whether at a grocery store or in a restaurant, it is customary to purchase “bottled mineral water” when dining out. It is even customary to purchase water at the grocery for consumption at home.
Bottled water comes in two varieties: with and without gas. The gas is simply carbonation, CO2, the same stuff that makes a cola fizzy. But drinking it and enjoying it requires an acquired taste (It’s a lot like when you get a fountain drink and the syrup is running low). In North America, two popular brands of “water with gas,” or sparkling water, are Perrier (from France) and San Pellegrino (from Italy). You can find these at most grocery stores and fine-dining establishments in the USA.
When traveling throughout most of Europe, you should plan on paying for a bottle of water with your meal. Doing so will ensure you get fresh and clean water that is reasonably chilled. It will come with glasses but no ice. Two varieties are readily available: with gas, and without gas. It’s not a problem to request either, and most often the waiter will ask which you prefer.
How to request water:
ITALIAN – acqua natuarale senza gas (no gas); acqua con gas / acqua frizzante / acqua gazzata (with gas)
GERMAN – wasser no gas (no gas); wasser mit gas (with gas)
SPANISH – agua sin gas (no gas); agua con gas (with gas)
FRENCH – de l’eau plate (no gas); de l’eau gazeuse (with gas)
Good news! In France it is customary to order a pitcher of fresh tap water at no charge. Simply ask for it! In French, it goes something like this: un carafe d’eau s’il vous plaît.
Interacting with your Waiter
Rule #1: Be kind to your waiter.
This one may seem obvious, but the pressure of interacting with a language barrier tends to make people forget their manners. No one expects tourists to be fluent in a language before they travel, but learning the basics will go a long way. I can’t tell you how many times a simple Buongiorno has prompted Italians to shower me with compliments on my “beautiful Italian.” At the very least, learn how to say hello, please, and thank you, and you will find a lot of friendly people willing to help you struggle through the rest of the conversation.
Rule #2: Be aware of local dining customs.
We Americans are always in a rush. So much so that we eat a lot of our meals on the go. In Europe, eating is a social event. And a 30-minute lunch is unheard of. Don’t expect your waiter to come by every five minutes to see if you are done. In Europe, this would be considered extremely rude. If you want something, chances are you’ll have to flag your waiter down. He isn’t being lazy or bad at his job; he’s giving you privacy to enjoy your meal in peace. This is great if you want to spend three hours catching up with your friends but can be frustrating when you are pressed for time.
If you don’t have much time to eat, consider ordering from the “take away” counter. Many restaurants and cafes near busy tourist sites offer the same menu to go. Just pick up your lunch and take it to a nearby park. This is a great option when the weather is nice. Don’t forget to grab a few napkins!
Rule #3: Reward your waiter for good service.
Tipping rules vary from country to country, so you’ll want to do some research before you travel. Unlike in the United States, in many countries, waiters must be paid at least the minimum wage. In those countries, a tip is appreciated but not expected, and an excessively large tip can even be seen as an insult.
Here are a few guidelines for tipping.
In France and Italy, a service charge is usually already included in the bill. If you stop for drinks, it is customary to leave the change, especially if the service was good. For example, if your bill is 3.50, you can leave .50 on the change tray. However, this is not required. If you are paying with a credit card, there probably won’t be a line on the receipt to leave a tip, so just leave some change on the table. For dinner, a tip of 5-10% is sufficient for all but the fanciest restaurants.
In the UK and Ireland, a service charge may be included in your bill. In the UK, the standard is 12.5%. If you can’t tell if it has been included, don’t be embarrassed to ask the waiter. In Ireland, this policy should be listed on the menu. You can still leave an additional tip for particularly good service. If there is no service charge, plan to leave between 10 and 15%. In the pub, people generally do not leave a tip. But here again, if the service was exceptional, the bartender filled several orders, or was very friendly, you can leave a small tip. Here are some more in-depth hints on tipping in Europe.
Summary
Dining abroad doesn’t have to be stressful if you’re aware of a few key differences. There are no free refills on drinks, soda usually comes in a can, no ice for drinks, and you have to purchase water. Remember to specify whether you want still or sparkling water. Being friendly to your waiter will make for an enjoyable experience. Try to learn a few words in the language, because this gesture is much appreciated in non-English-speaking countries. Understand the local customs. Your waiter isn’t ignoring you, he’s giving you privacy to enjoy your meal without interruption. And finally, know the local tipping customs so that you can reward him for good service. With this in mind, you should be all set. Bon appétit!
Since we cannot travel to Europe right now, I am bringing a bit of Europe to you. I yearn for the day when I can hop on a plane and fly to Europe, but, for now, I’ll have to settle for my memories. So, as much for me, as for you, I’ll share David’s Weekly Wanders in Europe.
This week, David’s Weekly Wanders in Europe features a video, David McGuffin Explores Rome! It is the first of several episodes chronicling the experiences and adventures on David’s Best of Italy Tour route. Along with his producer, Abby, and their travel companions, David visits the essential tourist sites in Rome, plus a few off-the-beaten-path destinations..
For some years now we have been promoting and selling our tours at travel shows. Typically, we spend our weekends in January, February, and March in our booth and in front of our display talking about our tours with thousands of people. These folks arrive at the show looking to book a vacation, get a bargain, and talk about travel. For us, we make a lot of new connections, meet new friends, and even manage to sell a few of our tours as well.
Calm Before the Storm
Your Adventure Starts Here!
The new year began very well with us scheduled to present at seven shows around the country. The shows in Boston, Chicago, Denver, and Atlanta all went according to plan. By the time the Washington DC show rolled around, news of the Coronavirus was getting a lot of traction in the media, but nothing to worry me about these travel shows and my tours to Europe, which were slated to begin in mid-March. However, I did go out and purchase some Clorox Wipes to use on the plane as we flew to DC. I shared some with my seatmate, and we both laughed. That was March 6th.
The show kicked off at 10:00 on March 7th, and within an hour, we all knew something was different. The exhibit hall was nearly empty, except for us exhibitors! Over the next two days, we handed out about half our usual supply of brochures and promotional material. The show sponsors and I noted the poor attendance and began attributing it to the ever-increasing news of the Coronavirus. Outside, however, life was going on as usual. The restaurants were packed, people were out on the streets and in the parks, and there were crowds everywhere.
As the travel show came to a close on Sunday afternoon, we were relieved it was over, and happy that we had sold a few tours in spite of the poor attendance. We packed up our displays and filled out the forms to have them shipped to Philadelphia, or destination the next weekend. Then the three of us headed to the airport and fly back home later that night. As we wiped our seats and tray tables with Clorox wipes, we watched the flight fill up with passengers bound for Atlanta. Exhausted, I think we all slept most of the way home.
Ed visited with us on Saturday and signed up for a tour!
Much of Monday (March 9th) was spent following up on contacts we had made at the travel show over the weekend, repacking promotional materials for the following weekend, and preparing for two tours to Europe scheduled to depart the following week. Late that afternoon, as I sat working at my computer and looking out the window, I coughed.
The Onset of my Coronavirus
On Tuesday, March 10, I was away from home, and as the day progressed, I began to feel worn out and run down. But, I attributed it to being gone all weekend and getting in late from DC on Sunday night. I finally arrived back home at about 5:00 p.m. and told my wife, I was going to lay down and rest. That’s when the fever hit me. I had chills and sweats most of the night, but by morning I was back to my usual self.
Wednesday, March 11 was a terrible day for my Exploring Europe tours. President Trump held a nationally televised press conference that evening and announced severe travel restrictions from all European countries except the UK and Ireland. This effectively shut down two of my tours scheduled to depart within one week and brought a dark cloud of doubt on when any of my tours slated for the spring would go as well. The CDC and US Department of State bumped up travel warnings for all of Europe to Level 4 – Do Not Travel.
Still, with all this going on, I physically felt fine and did not really give any thought about my fever and the Coronavirus. Before the press conference, I was totally consumed with final details for my two tours to Germany and Spain that were coming up in just a few days. After the press conference, I was in shock! The next day, we received word that the travel show scheduled for the weekend in Philadelphia was canceled by the city. Shortly, afterward, notice was given that our Dallas travel show was canceled as well.
On Friday, March 13, President Trump held another press conference to declare a national emergency. He said he was making $50 billion in federal funds available to states and territories to combat the Coronavirus. In true Friday the 13th fashion, this was a terrible day for all of us. Schools began to announce closures for the next 15 days, restaurants and bars shut down, and life as we knew it began to change. New terms such as social distancing, slow the spread, and flatten the curve became common phrases.
After such a terrible week, we decided to get together with our family for dinner. So twelve of us gathered at my daughter’s home for dinner. We all had a good time, played a few board games, and talked about the events of the week. I recall it being the first time it dawned on me that I might really have the Coronavirus. It was a thirty-minute drive back to our home and by the time we pulled in to our driveway, my wife, Charlotte, was sick with chills and a fever. I had the sinking feeling that I must have passed on the Coronavirus to her and to my family as well.
It’s great to see the famous sights and big cities when traveling, but the real memories are made in off-the-beaten-path adventures where you get to slow down and experience the country, not just watch it fly by through a tour bus window. The best vacations include a combination of the two. Don’t get me wrong; there are a lot of benefits to traveling on a tour. Tours allow you to travel care-free, with no planning. But sometimes, you have to just wing it and see where the adventure will lead. Here is a story from one of my trips to France and the surprising places you can find when things don’t go as planned.
After a flight up from Madrid, we arrived at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport by mid-afternoon. I rented a small car and soon we were out of the airport and on the highway toward Paris. It being Friday afternoon, I was prepared for some traffic jams, but so far it didn’t seem too bad. The highway leaving the airport was virtually free of cars, but by the time we reached the Périphérique, Paris’ big ring-road around the city center, we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It wasn’t quite at a standstill, but we were inching along at less than 10 mph.
Traffic jam outside of Paris
Knowing Paris, I figured we were in store for at least an hour of stop-and-go traffic. But surely by the time we turned off the Périphérique and headed southwest it would thin out to nothing. After two hours and less than 20 kilometers, I knew it would be hours before reaching Amboise. To make matters worse we had no hotel reservation, no real plan for the next two days, and no plans for the night’s dinner. What we did know was that reaching Amboise in the afternoon was now out of the question. Luckily I had my GPS unit with me and we got it up and running. After another hour on the highway, in the miserable traffic, we finally found a two-lane road that would take us through the countryside to the Loire Valley. Well anything would be better than sitting in traffic for hours on end…so we took the little road.
Immediately the road was clear, and it was smooth sailing. Until we came to the first town. Friday afternoon must be the time for everyone to get out and go somewhere because there was loads of traffic. Although, it was nowhere near as bad as what we had encountered on the highway. The next hour passed with us speeding along our way in the rural areas between each little town and then slowing down in the town centers. This wasn’t bad though. We got to experience several small rural towns in France.
By now it was getting late, probably close to nine o’clock. I’d planned on finding a hotel in Amboise, but that was still an hour away. It really didn’t matter what time we arrived as long as we could get rooms for the night and a good meal. We were somewhere along the Loire River near Chambord when I saw it…and drove right on by. We had a goal and destination in mind, but that place back there looked like my kind of place. So at the next round-a-bout I did a 180 and decided to go back to check it out.
La Ferme des 3 Maillets
The place was an old two-story stone building with ivy climbing up the side. There, in huge painted-on letters, was a sign advertising “Hotel** and Grill.” Even with my limited French vocabulary I could tell we could find rooms and food. As I pulled into the gravel parking lot I knew I’d made a good choice. There were several cars and the people milling around were all speaking French. I walked into the lobby and really had to dig deep into my French vocab to ask if they had two rooms and dinner. The lady at the desk said “no problem” offered a really good price and booked our dinner for us too.
We settled in and then walked back downstairs for dinner. The restaurant was just what you’d think a farmhouse grill would look like in the US. In sort of the “Cracker Barrel” style, there were ancient tools and other decor hanging from the walls and ceiling. On one wall there was a huge stone fireplace, complete with a cozy fire. Large picture windows looked out onto a little garden and the wheat fields beyond. I think we were one of the last seatings of the evening because all the other tables were either empty or filled with people involved in dessert or conversation.
The food was wonderful! Natalie and I had escargot, an assortment of duck, steak, vegetables, and dessert. All was washed down with a local Loire Valley wine. La Ferme des 3 Maillets is one of those rare finds that only happen if you let go of your inhibitions and get off the beaten path. Even though the staff spoke very little English and Natalie and I spoke very little French, we all managed to get our points across and have a great time.
Often, I have people ask about the idea of the “French being a bit arrogant.” First of all, I don’t buy into the idea and secondly, experiences like this one are proof that this is just a stereotype. The staff at the inn were wonderfully hospitable and went out of their way to make our dinner and our stay a grand experience. I’d go out of my way to eat and stay here again.
Summary
So when you’re traveling, just remember not to panic when things don’t go as expected. It is often the unplanned adventures like this one that turns out to be the most fun. And if you are ever in the Loire River Valley near the town of Avaray, find La Ferme des 3 Maillets, stay a night, have a great dining experience, and really get a chance to explore another side of France.
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David McGuffin is Founder and CEO of David McGuffin’s Exploring Europe, Inc., based in Middleburg, Florida. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+,LinkedIn and YouTube. David spends his time in Europe organizing and leading small group and independent tours to European destinations. In business since 2001, David has provided exceptional travel opportunities to several thousand satisfied customers. You can find out more about David and his European tours at his website, https://davidmcguffin.com.
A few years ago, I was hiking in the Alps near Interlaken, Switzerland. I was exploring on my own and checking out some new destinations for my tours. I decided to take on a rather challenging day hike high up in the mountains. Early in the morning, I took a train up to my starting point, and off I went through green meadows that seemed to cascade endlessly down the steep hills under a blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. It was a perfect day for hiking! 
