how to explore the byways of Europe

Roman amphitheater in Verona (c) 2017 by David Ourisman, all right reserved

Excellent advice was offered in today's column by Rick Steves in many Sunday newspapers: avoid destinations congested with tourists and look for what he calls back doors. In Steves' words, "Many travelers go to crowded, touristy places — then complain about the crowds." Here's my takeaway from his article.

Seek out secondary destinations. Rome is a very crowded tourist destination, and the Colosseum has long ticket lines. If getting up-close-and-personal with an ancient Roman colosseum is on your bucket list, consider the smaller (and very walkable) town of Verona in northern Italy. Pictured above is the Arena di Verona, a historical colosseum minus the crowds. You can even attend live opera there in the evening.

Avoid (what have become) tourist traps. While the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay are both world class museums in Paris, you'll have to contend with the crowds. If you want to check the Louvre off your bucket list, enjoy the spectacular but relatively empty Napoleonic bedrooms and avoid the hundreds of tourists pushing up in front of the (tiny) Mona Lisa. If you love the French impressionists, visit the lesser-known Marmottan Museum (that houses the world's biggest collection of Monet's art).

Spend the night in destinations that are crowded during busy daytime hours — but are perfectly delightful in early morning and evening. Saint-Paul-de-Vence is a cute little town near the French Riviera. The pedestrian pathway through the town's center is inundated by day with visitors from bus tours and cruise ships ... but if you spend the night at Virtuoso hotel Le Mas De Pierre, you'll have the town practically to yourself.

Look for ways to skip the lines. Google secret entrances to the Louvre; you don't have to queue up in front of the pyramid. Purchase museum passes — or timed admission tickets — and bypass ticket lines entirely. It's even possible to arrange private tours before and after regular hours for many popular attractions.

Best of all, you don't have to figure this out on your own. Together with our trusted Virtuoso travel partners all over Europe, we get you Insider Access. Do you want to plan a trip that maximizes your precious time? that explores the byways of Europe? that takes advantage of the lesser-known back doors that local experts know best? Just drop us an email, and we'll help you Discover More.

copyright (c) 2017 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

so much better than booking.com ...

booking.com quote for Le Meurice as of 2:50 p.m. PDT, June 25, 2017

Rick Steves posted a Facebook article yesterday in which he offered his alternative to making hotel bookings through online wholesalers like booking.com and expedia.com. Hotels have to pay a 20-25% commission to OTA's (online travel agencies) in return for having their rooms available online. He advises travelers to contact hotels directly and negotiate:

Those who book direct through a hotel’s website (and not through the booking agency site, thus saving the hotel about 20 percent) can be offered a free breakfast or free upgrade. Or, simply don’t book “online.” Just book by direct email or phone, in which case, hotels are free to give you whatever price they like (usually able to split the difference: charging 10 percent less and making 10 percent more).

You don't need this hassle! Over 1250 luxury hotels around the world already offer an even richer set of value-added amenities through Virtuoso, the world's leading consortium of luxury travel advisors, hotels, cruise lines, and tour companies. And we can often do even better than Virtuoso, thanks to our relationship with all the leading hotel companies in the world — Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Dorchester Collection, Rosewood, Belmond, Peninsula, etc.

Free breakfast is already negotiated, as is an upgrade upon availability (sometimes guaranteed at booking), as is an extra amenity valued at $100, as is free WiFi... and we'll even contact the hotel to VIP your stay.

We can do so much better than booking.com for luxury hotel bookings. Say you want to spend the evening of August 4 at Le Meurice, one of my very favorite hotels in the world.

Booking.com offers the "jackpot deal" seen at the top of this article: Double Room — $963 without breakfast, $1028 with breakfast

Here's what's available to me right now as a Dorchester Diamond Club agent: I can book a Classic Room at 760€ = $850. As a Diamond Club booking, my clients receive a guaranteed upgrade at booking to a Superior Room. And there's more! You get ...

• a 100€ hotel credit that can come right off your bill, so you pay 660€ = $739 with breakfast.
• a full breakfast, in any venue including in-room dining, literally anything on the menu except caviar and alcohol. Tax and gratuity are included.
• full premium internet access for unlimited devices.

Assuming you'll want to have breakfast at the Alain Ducasse restaurant at Le Meurice, you save $289, get personal recognition as a Diamond Club guest, get free internet, and order anything off the breakfast menu, service included!

copyright (c) 2017 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

make the most of your time on vacation

make the most of your time in Paris (or anyplace else)

How to avoid long lines? Rick Steves sometimes comes up with gems collected in one succinct article, and such is the case with a recent travel column he wrote for USA Today.

Time is your most precious commodity when you travel. If you're traveling, say, to Paris, and have just a few days, you want to make the most of your time on vacation. You can easily waste hours in line waiting to buy tickets to various attractions — the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay (Impressionist art museum), the Georges Pompidou (contemporary art museum), Saint Chapelle (and its gorgeous stained glass windows), Notre Dame (the iconic cathedral of Paris), etc. — and you'll be frustrated. Precious time is slipping through your fingers.

Here are some tips to make the most of your time on vacation.


(1) Consider a private guide. Yes, private guides are expensive, but it's an investment in making the most of your stay with the least possible frustration. Not only will your guide be able to procure tickets in advance, she can tailor your visit to your interests and reduce stress immeasurably. I remember a great tour at the Prado Museum in Madrid, a huge museum in which you could spend days wandering aimlessly around. Our guide knew the museum intimately, and she treated us to a great visit of the museum's Velasquez and Goya paintings. Though they were scattered through many galleries, she knew exactly where to go. Not a wasted step, not a misspent minute, and we were treated to an informative show-and-tell of the paintings of these two great Spanish painters. Expensive? Yes… but we enjoyed these highlights of the Prado in one hour … and were off to the next stop on our itinerary.

(2) Buy a museum pass for the city you're visiting. Conventional logic says to compare the cost of the tickets you want to buy and the cost of the pass … and buy whichever costs less. But think outside the box! A museum pass lets you skip the long ticket lines at many of those places, saving you hours. Even if you've "overspent" by 10 or 20 euros, you're buying more time to enjoy everything you want to see — a small price to pay!

(3) Concentrating on maximizing your time, not minimizing your expenses. This may seem like counter-intuitive wisdom in this age of internet shopping. So what if you can save $100 by flying home a day earlier? It's a false economy. If you're spending thousands of dollars on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris, or Venice, or Bali, why cut that experience short just to gain some minor savings?

Travel is one of the most life-changing and enriching experiences in life, and you'll always remember the trips you've taken. What you spend on travel is an investment in your life, just as important (if not more so) than your stocks and bonds, and you measure that investment by its return on life.


make the most of your time on vacation (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2012 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.