Europe in 2002

Rick's Annual Roundup of the Latest on European Travel

By Rick Steves

Fresh in from 100 days of travel in Europe, I've collected tips and changes for the new year. Here's the latest on European travel.

France

Paris' newest sight, Paris Story, gives a good film overview of the city's turbulent and brilliant past, covering 2,000 years in 45 fast-moving minutes. The Orangerie, which lovingly displays Monet's water lily paintings, is due to re-open in 2002. To do the City of Light right, study ahead: Paris' tourist information office has a helpful web site, www.paris-touristoffice.com, listing sights, events, transportation options, kids' activities, accommodations, nightlife, and a lot more.

France's newest bullet train, inaugurated in the spring of 2001, gets you from Paris to Provence (Avignon) in 2.5 hours. Provence's Pont du Gard, the 2,000-year-old arched Roman aqueduct, now has a Grand Expo Museum that does it justice. Using a multimedia approach you'll experience daily Roman life and learn how they moved those huge rocks into place and made those massive arches. Many French cities and regions (such as Lyon, Honfleur, and the Riviera) offer museum passes like the one in Paris, saving you money and time (you can bypass lines and scoot right in).

Belgium

Bruges has been named a European Cultural Capital for 2002 www.brugge2002.be. Expect even more events-and tourist crowds-than usual, plus a special exhibition on Flemish artist Jan van Eyck's influence on the Mediterranean world. At Brussels' new Musical Instruments Museum English information is skimpy, but an audioguide plays the international language of music whenever you approach an instrument.

The Netherlands

You'll need reservations to visit Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum from February 9 through June 2, when the museum hosts a major exhibition examining the personal and artistic development of van Gogh and Gauguin. With 120 works from 65 lenders from around the world assembled in the museum's exhibition wing, art lovers can explore the intense and almost legendary relationship of these two artists like never before. Visitors can only enter with a reservation and within the time block assigned. Although a few tickets are available at the museum, you can assure your entry by getting tickets in advance at www.vangoghgauguin.com or in Amster-dam at Uit Buro (Leidseplein 26), VVV Ticketpoints, or Tracks Multitronics (at Schiphol Airport).

Near Amsterdam and just three miles outside Haarlem, the Floriade garden show will bloom big-time from April 6 through October 20. This huge horticultural exhibition, which takes place every 10 years in the Netherlands, draws plant lovers from all over the world. The main entrance features a giant, flat "floating" roof (300 feet by 900 feet). The centerpiece is a man-made hill rising 130 feet above the countryside (which doesn't sound like much, but hey-it's Holland), giving you a bird's-eye view of the surrounding gardens and displays www.floriade.nl.

Scandinavia

It's smart to reserve ahead if you plan to take Norway's stunningly mountainous train ride between Oslo and Bergen during peak season-July through mid-August. Book your seat reservation several weeks in advance (for reservations, dial 011-47-81 50 08 88, press "4" for English). Also in Norway, you'll save 12 percent by getting take-away food from a restaurant rather than eating inside. (the VAT tax on take-away food is 12 percent, for restaurant food 24 percent).

Stockholm celebrates its 750th anniversary in 2002 with a festival (June 1-8) that includes a fancy 18th-century ball, jousting contests, street jesters, and craft demonstrations of barrel making and coin minting the old-fashioned way.

Helsinki's National Museum re-opened after a lengthy renovation. And, like Copenhagen, Helsinki now offers free bikes in summer for anyone to use in the city center.

Austria

Vienna's new Judenplatz Museum has information on 15th-century Jewish life, the foundation of a medieval synagogue, and a searchable database on 65,000 Austrian Jews who were victims of the Holocaust.

The highlight of Vienna's new Museums Quartier is the Leopold Museum, a showcase for modern Austrian art. Vienna's new Music Mile Walk will be completed by summer 2002. This self-guided walk is marked by plaques embedded in the sidewalk that commemorate the city's famous composers (audioguides available).

Switzerland

Opening in May, the Mystery Park in Wilderswil (just south of Interlaken) explores intriguing mysteries from the past to the future, from building Stonehenge and the pyramids to the challenge of maintaining a space station on Mars www.mysterypark.ch. From mid-May through mid-October, Murten and three neighboring towns are hosting Expo.02, expected to draw about 5 million visitors. The theme is modern Swiss culture, with exhibits on futuristic architecture and technology. To promote the expo, a monolith à la Kubrick will rise out of the lake.

Italy

In Rome, ATAC's hop-on hop-off bus tour provides a good budget orientation to the city. In two hours you'll have 80 sights pointed out to you (by a live guide in English) and have a chance to get out at various stops and catch a later bus. The new Archeobus (also hop-on hop-off) provides a hassle-free ride from downtown Rome (Piazza Venezia) to the ancient Appian Way sights, including the catacombs. To avoid long lines at the Colosseum, purchase your ticket in advance at the Forum or Palatine Hill, or get a combo-ticket (sold at the Forum, Palatine Hill, National Museum of Rome, and Baths of Caracalla).

Milan's Opera House and Museum, now closed for renovation, will re-open in September. Until then, the museum will find a new home, probably across from the church that houses the Last Supper. The Opera will move, too, likely to Theater Arcimbaldi out of town (for the latest, check www.teatroallascala.org.

In Venice, you can beat the long peak-season lines at St. Mark's and the Doge's Palace. For St. Mark's, you can get a free reservation (prenota) ahead of time at www.alata.it. (Currently web site is mainly in Italian, but still manageable.) For the Doge's Palace, buy a combo-ticket at the Correr Museum across St. Mark's Square (which allows you to bypass the line at the Palace), or reserve a Secret Itineraries tours of the palace-which includes your admission (call 011-39-41-522-4951 several days before your visit).

Pisa's Leaning Tower is supposed to maybe actually open soon. For the latest, call 011-39-50-560-547 or email info@pisa.turismo.toscana.it . Padua's Scrovegni Chapel, plastered by Giotto and recently renovated, should re-open in January.

Spain

Barcelona welcomes 2002 as the "International Gaudi Year," marking the 150th anniversary of Gaudi's birth, "Gaudinian" festivals and more www.gaudi2002.bcn.es. Salamanca, along with Bruges in Belgium, has been designated one of Europe's two Cultural Capitals for 2002. For this "Back Door" city, a two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Madrid, this honorary status means a busy slate of activities-such as theater, concerts, dance-and possibly a new modern art museum www.salamanca2002.org.

To reserve tickets for Granada's Alhambra, it's still simplest to get a reservation by dropping by any BBVA bank anywhere in Spain.

To daytrip to Tangier, Morocco, from Spain, you'll have to catch the ferry from Algeciras or Gibraltar. The route from Tarifa (Spain) is currently closed to people who aren't members of the European Union.

In Spain, roundtrip train tickets are 20 percent cheaper than two oneway tickets. You can get a roundtrip discount even if you start with a oneway ticket-as long as you save the ticket and make a return trip. Just bring the ticket to the station to show the clerk when you buy your oneway ticket back.

Great Britain

In 2002 Britain hosts a Golden Jubilee Celebration to commemorate the 50-year reign of Queen Elizabeth. Expect festivities throughout the U.K. as the queen makes her rounds from May through July. The biggest celebration is in London from June 1 through 4, with concerts at Buckingham Palace, bell-ringing across the U.K. (June 2), fireworks (June 3), and a Procession to St. Paul's plus a Carnival Pageant (June 4). In honor of the queen's reign, a new covered Jubilee Bridge will cross the Thames, to the delight of pedestrians frustrated by the closed, wobbly Millennium Bridge. This new bridge (one bridge east of the Mill. Bridge) does what the Millennium Bridge was supposed to do-provide a pedestrian-friendly way to connect North and South Bank sights.

London's Victoria & Albert Museum, along with the Natural History Museum, will offer free admission starting in 2002. The Tate Modern art museum hosts a Matisse-Picasso exhibit mid-May through mid-August, while the Tate Britain unveils new and renovated galleries (see www.tate.org.uk for both museums).

Britain's BT Phonecard Plus is the most advanced phone card around, functioning as an insertable phone card as well as a PIN card (with a Personal Identification Number) that you can use from any phone, even in your hotel room. When you've used up all the time on the card, you can recharge it by calling a toll-free access number and buying more time with your credit or debit card.

Ireland

Dublin's biggest news is the Guinness Brewery's new Gravity Bar, which offers beer and a 360-degree city view atop the brewery's new museum. The museum's glass atrium is shaped like a beer glass-14 million pints big. Cheers!

RICK STEVES (www.ricksteves.com) is the host of the PBS series Rick Steves' Europe and the author of 30 European travel guidebooks, including Europe Through the Back Door, all published by Avalon Travel Publishing.