What’s New in Europe
Check This Out When You Make your 2006 Travel Plans
Article and Photos by Rick Steves
Each year as we update our European guidebooks, we’re able to highlight major changes for travelers. Here’s some news that can help you put together the best possible travels in 2006.
Italy
In Rome, you can avoid the longer-then-ever lines at the Colosseum by buying a combo-ticket at the nearby Palatine Hill. Recently damaged by heavy rains, Nero’s Golden House has closed and won’t reopen for at least two years.
In Tivoli, a medieval hill town just east of Rome, the 16th-century Villa d’Este has been restored and the villa’s much-loved fountains are in full spray.
While locals can’t stop Venice from sinking, they are raising the entire level of St. Mark’s Square. In a process that’s been carried out repeatedly over the centuries, they’re taking up the pavement stones, adding a layer of sand, and then replacing the stones.
After waiting up to an hour to get into St. Mark’s Basilica, many tourists are turned away because they can’t bring bags into the church. The good news: After checking your bag at the nearby Ateneo di San Basso church, you can show the gatekeeper your bag-check tag to skip the line and go directly into St. Mark’s Basilica. Once inside the crowded interior, watch your valuables. This is the place you’re most likely to be pickpocketed in Venice.
The island of San Giorgio Maggiore, across the lagoon from Venice, has long lured tourists with tantalizing Venetian views from its church’s bell tower. Unfortunately, the tower will be closed through 2006. Catch your views from the bell tower on St. Mark’s Square instead.
In Milan, because of the hype surrounding Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code, you now need to reserve at least a month in advance to see Leonardo’s Last Supper. Also in Milan, the glorious facade of its cathedral will be covered with inglorious scaffolding through 2006, and the Duomo Museum will likely be closed for renovation. Perhaps the most underrated sight in Milan, its Monumental Cemetery with evocative tombs dating from 1870 to 1930, is welcoming visitors.
Florence’s biggest sightseeing news is that tickets for entry to the Uffizi are now sold out up to a month in advance. Your best strategy is to get reservations for both the Uffizi and Accademia (home of Michelangelo’s David) as soon as you know when you’ll be in town. Hotels are accustomed to offering this service free to guests—just request it with your room reservation. You can also book tickets directly from the Uffizi by calling 011-39-055-294-883 from the U.S. Night-owls take note: the Accademia will be open and free on Tuesdays in July and August from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Also, a new weekly magazine called The Florentine, geared for English-speaking tourists and expats, comes out on Thursdays and is free at tourist offices and hotels.
Great Britain
London, always a brilliant city for museum fans, now has the exceptional new Churchill Museum. Located within the actual Cabinet War Rooms that Churchill used during World War II, this new museum introduces you to the man behind the famous cigar, bowler hat, and V-for-victory sign.
Harry Potter fans can now make pilgrimages to sights throughout Great Britain where the movies were filmed. Among the Potter-themed attractions is the 84-mile “Hogwarts Express” steam train journey, which leaves from Fort William, Scotland (www.steamtrain.info).
Ireland
In Gaeltacht regions the signs in the “parks” for preserving the traditional culture, mostly on the West coast, are now only in Irish (a.k.a. Gaelic). To find the Dingle Peninsula on the westernmost tip of Ireland, for example, you’ll need to look for signs to “An Daingean” (Irish for Dingle).
France
In Paris, there’s plenty of museum news: You can now enter the art-packed Orsay Museum free of charge—but only if you get there precisely when the ticket booth stops selling tickets (usually at 5:00 p.m. daily but at 8:45 p.m. on Thursday; closed Monday). Two landmark museums—the Impressionist-filled L’Orangerie and the sculpture- and painting-rich Petit Palais—are scheduled to finally reopen in the spring of 2006 after very long renovations.
At the site of Napoleon’s Tomb in Paris, the Army Museums’ West Wing, focusing on World War I history, should reopen. But the museum’s East Wing, starring Napoleon’s artifacts, will likely close for renovation.
Paris’ venerable La Samaritaine department store has been immensely popular among tourists for its rooftop café overlooking the Seine River. Unfortunately, the store has been closed, having violated beaucoup safety codes. Paris’ best department-store view is now from the rooftop café at Galeries Lafayette, near the old Opéra.
Versailles will be undergoing a major renovation from 2006 through 2010. Although the royal palace will remain open, prices and entry details will be in constant flux for the next several years. The first step of the plan: The grand gardens will be free in 2006 (except on spring and summer weekends, when the fountains spurt to life and entry costs $7). In Versailles’ gardens, which seem to stretch forever, you can now rent a golf cart to give your feet a break.
World War II buffs heading to Normandy will want to include the WWII Memorial Museum, located in the town of Caen, in their itinerary. Be warned: At about $23 per person to enter, it’s now the most expensive museum in France...and perhaps Europe. But the museum is so good that it’s still a fine value.
The Loire region has invested heavily in bike paths, making 2-wheeled transport a more agreeable option than ever. The company called Amstercycles even delivers a bike to you, enabling you to do 1-way rides between the Loire’s magnificent castles (www.amstercycles.com).
The Burgundy region of France is most famous for its fine wine. But the Château de Guédelon, a 2-hour train ride southeast of Paris, is giving visitors another reason to stop by: A gang of committed medievalists is building a castle from scratch, using only tools and techniques from the Middle Ages. This kid-friendly sight, which will take 25 years to complete, comes with plenty of English descriptions.
The new and flashy Museum of Prehistory is finally open in Les Eyzies, in the southwest Dordogne region. It makes a good first stop for Cro-Magnon fans before hitting the many prehistoric caves found in the area.
On the Riviera, visitors to Antibes will experience their own Blue Period—that town’s Picasso Museum will be closed for major renovation until 2007.
In Provence, art-lovers will flock to Aix-en-Provence—Cézanne’s birthplace—in 2006 for a centenary celebration for the artist. Normally, you wouldn’t find any Cézanne artwork in Aix, but this year the town will host a large exhibition at the Granet Museum and open several “Cézannean” sights, including his home and gardens, to the public.
Germany
The biggest news for 2006: Germany will host the World Cup soccer tournament from June 8 through July 9. Matches will take place in about a dozen different German cities, including Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Köln, and Nürnberg. As these places will be inundated with generally rowdy soccer fans, reserve hotels way in advance...or avoid these cities when matches are scheduled (for specific dates, see fifaworldcup.yahoo.com).
In Munich and Berlin, several free upstart walking tour companies are giving the established organizations some serious competition. They all boast young, irreverent, entertaining, and native English-speaking guides and savvy PR skills, publishing free and genuinely informative magazines and offering free—with tips expected—”orientation tours.” (They then sell you on other tours, such as their extremely popular and rowdy pub crawls.) While the jury’s still out on these companies (such as New Munich, New Berlin Walks, and Insider Tours of Berlin), the tried-and-true favorites remain Radius Tours in Munich and Original Berlin Walks.
In 2006, Rothenburg will celebrate the 125th anniversary of the creation of the Meistertrunk myth, when the town’s mayor supposedly drank the city to freedom—downing a giant tankard of wine in one big gulp. Expect huge crowds July 15 through July 23.
The Romantic Road bus, once a friendly, informative, and scenic tour through the best of medieval Germany, is no longer a good value. A Spanish company has taken over, and they’ve raised the prices, cut back on departures, and decreased the stopovers in characteristic places that made the route so much fun.
As always, Berlin is changing fast. Most notable: In 2006 the city plans to open its new Lehrter Bahnhof, the primary long-distance train station for all of Berlin. But since this station—located north of the Brandenburg Gate—is close to nothing interesting, use it mostly to transfer to Berlin’s fine subway train system to take you where you really want to go. (The Bahnhof Zoo, which was West Berlin’s main train station through the Cold War, will remain open but become little more than just another subway station.)
Berlin has become the continental European hub for budget airlines easyJet and Air Berlin. Floods of low-end budget tourists, especially the English, have had a big (mostly negative) impact on the city, adding heavy-drinking “hen and stag” party crowds to the mix.
Berlin’s vast new Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe features 2,711 symbolic pillars. This immersive exhibit includes an underground museum that studies the Nazi system of extermination. Humanizing the victims, it traces stories of individual families with vivid personal accounts and describes 200 different places of genocide.
Dresden celebrates its 800th birthday in 2006 with special events all year long (www.dresden.de/800). The Frauenkirche, Dresden’s iconic and glorious domed church bombed in World War II and rebuilt in a heroic and global undertaking, is now open to visitors. And Dresden brings the bling in 2006, re-opening the famous Green Vault treasury collection, a glittering treasure-trove of ivory, silver, and gold knickknacks.
Austria
Salzburg will celebrate the 250th birthday of its beloved and most marketable son, Mozart. In 2006 you should expect price hikes for hotels, as well as a symphony of musical events honoring the maestro.
Vienna will also celebrate its favorite composer this year with a veritable Mozartpalooza: concerts, opera performances, exhibits about his life and work, and plenty of modern compositions inspired by his genius (www.wienmozart2006.at).
Switzerland
The Swiss Museum Passport—which covered virtually every museum in Switzerland for a surprisingly low price—has been discontinued. In its place in 2006, the railpass called Swiss Pass will now include free entry to all of those sights, as well as increased discounts on other attractions and on rail travel. The combination makes the Swiss Pass an even better deal than it has been, and worth careful consideration.
The Paul Klee Center in Bern is finally open. Displaying 200 of Paul Klee’s works in a custom-built, wave-shaped pavilion, the museum is the best place in the world to learn about this artist and his lively, semi-childlike style (www.paulkleezentrum.ch).
Switzerland’s heavily promoted scenic rail journeys, with their modern domed panorama cars, are scenic indeed. But don’t forget the fine alternative: any standard train that follows the same route. While you won’t get the domed roof cars, you will get windows that open, fewer tourists, more departures, and lower prices. This alternative is available on most, but not all, of the scenic routes (for example, segments of the Glacier Express are only traversed by tourist trains).
Netherlands
In 2006, Amsterdam celebrates the 400th birthday of Rembrandt. The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum are co-sponsoring an exhibit of works by Rembrandt van Rijn and Caravaggio, the Italian predecessor who pioneered the light/dark style Rembrandt perfected. The exhibit runs from February 24 through June 18 at the Van Gogh Museum. A €25 combo-ticket—the best deal—gets you into both museums and the special show. Look for special events at Rembrandt’s House and other museums around the city (see www.rembrandt400.com). A great way to beat the art-loving crowds at either the Van Gogh Museum or Rijksmuseum is to stop by on a Friday evening—the museums are open until 10 p.m.
The Amsterdam History Museum hosts a special exhibit, “Anne Frank—A Life in Letters” (April 12-September 3), giving us a new look at Anne’s remarkable powers of observation and her growth as a writer from 1936 to 1944.
Spain
Granada has a new Great Mosque. Overlooking the city, the mosque offers visitors sweeping views, a minaret with a live and unamplified call to prayer five times each day (Islam unplugged), and an information center that gives the Muslim perspective on Spain’s history.
Eastern Europe
The big news this year throughout Eastern Europe: the arrival of no-frills budget airlines. Westerners are arriving en mass, and newly popular destinations are improving their tourist infrastructures. In some places, such as Kraków, the increase in demand has sparked the creation of better-value accommodations. In other places, including Budapest, supply isn’t keeping up with demand, and prices are going way up. Budget airlines are increasingly using the airport in Bratislava, Slovakia, because of its proximity to Vienna—about an hour away.
In Warsaw, the new Warsaw Uprising Museum commemorates citizens’ brave insurrection under the Nazis in World War II (www.1944.pl). While far from the main sightseeing zone, it’s an excellent museum.
Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast—long a headache to connect with the rest of Europe—is becoming more and more accessible. A new expressway and a sleek new “tilting train” with banked tracks connect Zagreb to Split in six hours or less, and budget flights remain a viable option. A speedy new catamaran also now connects Split to the popular Croatian island, Korčula, four mornings each week.
In Dubrovnik, Croatia, big, expensive hotels are renovating so they can “add a star” and begin charging even more astronomical rates, while the selection of good-value sobe (B&B-type rooms in private homes) is steadily increasing. Recently war-torn Dubrovnik now hosts a new gallery called War Photo Limited, exhibiting true-to-life photographs of warfare from around the world (www.warphotoltd.com).
Denmark
Copenhagen has a new Danish Jewish Museum. The exhibit is small and good, but the real attraction is the building itself, by American architect Daniel Libeskind, who is redeveloping the World Trade Center site in New York City. The floor plan, a seemingly random squiggle, is actually in the shape of the Hebrew characters for Mitzvah, which loosely means “act of kindness.” The uneven floors and asymmetrical walls give you the feeling that what lies around the corner is completely unknown...much like the history of Danish Jews.
Copenhagen’s tourist information office—which used to be called “Wonderful Copenhagen”—has changed its name to the more demanding “Copenhagen Right Now.” Regardless of the name, it is not an “information service,” but an ad agency promoting businesses for a fee that make money off of visiting tourists.
Copenhagen still has no direct night trains to Oslo or Stockholm—but you can sleep your way to either destination on night trains that depart from nearby Malmö in Sweden (just a half-hour ride away over the Øresund Bridge).
Norway
Oslo’s Munch Museum has reopened after the headline-grabbing heist of some Edvard Munch paintings. In a classic case of “closing the gate after the horse has left,” the museum has dramatically bolstered its security system. Some of the alleged robbers are now on trial, but the missing paintings have still not turned up.
The Nobel Peace Center, also in Oslo, has opened near the harbor front. It celebrates the spirit—and winners—of the world’s most prestigious award (www.nobelpeacecenter.org).
Throughout Europe, tourist boards are notoriously overconfident in their assessments of opening dates. When making your plans, Google your favorite sights to get the latest. As this information is excerpted from the 2006 editions of Rick Steves various country guidebooks, see those books for the complete details on any of these sights. Happy travels!
Rick Steves is the author of 30 books on European travel, including Europe Through the Back Door, and is available at bookstores or at www.ricksteves.com.
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