Tips for Choosing Your European Sightseeing

An important factor is the simple convenience of the site’s opening hours. Many museums are closed on Monday, but don’t assume anything.  Check carefully for what will be open on the days you would like to spend in a city. Sometimes I adjust my itinerary by simply trading days, moving the Monday sights to Tuesday and choosing outdoor sights or different museums for Monday.

You will need to watch for holidays too. Other than Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Easter, the most likely holiday is May 1.  I was able to find sights that were open in Florence on that day, but I sent an email in advance to make sure that would be the case. Then about a week later on May 8 or 9 will come some variation on a victory in Europe day. Various saints’ days are popular, and the United Kingdom has what are called bank holidays.

Usually public transportation operates on holidays, possibly at a different frequency, and in tourist areas there will always be some place to eat.

I was in Dresden, Germany, on a holiday that I had thought would be minor in impact. That turned out not to be true at all. I was staying in a hostel next door to a large hotel that had a couple of restaurants. One of my hostel roommates who was from another town in Germany had told me about the holiday, but I thought surely one of the hotel restaurants would be open.  That was not the case. Grocery stores were closed too. I ended up having to buy sandwiches and a snack in the nearby train station.  Sightseeing also was curtailed severely, although I had not planned much other than wandering around.

Another issue could be simply the hours of a sight.  If you schedule a large museum for 1 p.m., you may not make it to another sight that closes at 5 p.m. Be aware that most art and other museums will start closing rooms before the announced closing time, so even if you are in the building, you may not be able to see what you wanted if you arrive toward closing time.

A second practical consideration is geography, and its corollary, transportation.  Is this sight on the outskirts of town?  If so, are you willing to take a potentially expensive taxi ride or cobble together public transportation that might not be as convenient as usual?

It is rare that a sight in the heart of a city is not well served by public transportation.  Admittedly, the quality of the systems varies.  For example, I found Rome much less well served than London or Paris. We could draw many other such comparisons.

You also may want to undertake going to another town or city for a day trip. (A day trip means you go there to spend the day and then come back in the evening.)  I am fine with a day trip that requires two hours of transportation each way, but that is because I am a morning person.  I will not mind at all being out of my accommodations by 7 a.m., but if you are likely not to want to leave the city where you are staying until 10 a.m., then you will need a correspondingly shorter travel time.

In my opinion, you should not be planning crazy day trips that are three hours each way, but that’s for you to decide. (I bet if you do that once, you won’t do it again, but I could be wrong.)

When it comes to day trips, motivation is key.  If you are only so-so in your interest in a place, probably the best answer is not to do it. An exception may be if you really are getting claustrophobic in a city–and this happens to many people who prefer the countryside–you might need to take a train ride somewhere just to change the scenery.

A third consideration of course if money. If a sight is extremely expensive, whatever that might mean to you, you need to evaluate whether you will be disappointed if you do not see it.  A current example from this summer’s trip is that I had planned to see the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. Maybe I hadn’t paid attention to the entrance cost, or maybe I just recorded the cost of an audioguide only or something. But when I found out this was going to cost me a pretty penny, I weighed how important this sight was to me. In such a situation I ask myself if there is a substitute sight that is less expensive that might offer similar rewards. In this example, I decided that I had other Jewish sights in Budapest in mind and that I could walk around the Jewish Quarter without going into that synagogue. There were also plenty of other beauty sights I planned to see in Budapest. I made the substitution and was satisfied with the decision.

Some of you will want to hire a guide, audioguide, or paid tour at a sight, and of course that will add to your cost consideration as well.  Incidentally, I think if money is any kind of concern, you should think carefully about whether you need these extra services.  Some sights will offer excellent interpretive signs in English, while others offer little to no interpretation, with even the minimal signs in another language.  Some sights are easy to understand, whereas others have a lot of history and back story that you would miss if you simply walk in and look around.

Since I am writing for older women, a fourth big consideration is demands on your stamina or physical capabilities.  Some sights require huge amounts of walking, a lot of steps, slippery surfaces, uneven terrain, or tolerance for sustained periods of loud noise. Be smart about what you are going to encounter if you have any physical limitations or strong preferences. I ignored this at my peril when I bought a ticket for the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, a very popular tourist destination, and then found out from my son that the “stairs” to the attic were more like a ladder.  I said nope to myself, and wasted the ticket I had purchased.  This year I’ll be seeing if I can actually scale the Acropolis or not; I am told that the elevator there is often out of order.