Europe

Europe is conventionally considered one of the seven continents. Physically and geologically, Europe is a subcontinent or large peninsula, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and to the south by the Mediterranean and the Caucasus. Europe's boundary to the east is vague, but has traditionally been given as the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the southeast: the Urals are considered by most to be a geographical and tectonic landmark separating Asia from Europe.

Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement, starting as far back as the Palaeolithic, although this is true for the rest of the Old World as well. The recent discovery at Monte Poggiolo, Italy, of thousands of hand-shaped stones, tentatively carbon-dated to 800,000 years ago, may prove to be of particular importance.

The origins of Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece, though numerous other distinct influences, in particular Christianity, can also be credited with the spread of concepts like egalitarianism and universality of law.

The Roman Empire divided the continent along the Rhine and Danube for several centuries. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of changes arising from what is known as the Age of Migrations. That period has been known as the "Dark Ages" to Renaissance thinkers. During this time, the Ottoman Empire conquered Istanbul formerly known as Constantinople and finished the Byzantine Empire and became the most important power of all Europe. Isolated monastic communities in Ireland and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled written knowledge accumulated previously. The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of a period of discovery, exploration, and increase in scientific knowledge. In the 15th century Portugal opened the age of discoveries, soon followed by Spain. They were later joined by France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

After the age of discovery, the ideas of democracy took hold in Europe. Struggles for independence arose, most notably in France during the period known as the French Revolution. This led to vast upheaval in Europe as these revolutionary ideas propagated across the continent. The rise of democracy led to increased tensions within Europe on top of the tensions already existing due to competition within the New World. The most famous of these conflicts was when Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and set out on a conquest, forming a new French Empire that soon collapsed. After these conquests Europe stabilized, but the old foundations were already beginning to crumble.

The Industrial Revolution started in the United Kingdom in the late 18th century, leading to a move away from agriculture, much greater general prosperity and a corresponding increase in population. Many of the states in Europe took their present form in the aftermath of World War I. From the end of World War II through the end of the Cold War, Europe was divided into two major political and economic blocks: Communist nations in Eastern Europe (with the exceptions of Turkey and Greece) and capitalist countries in Western Europe and Southern Europe. Around 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Eastern bloc disintegrated.

Area: 10,431,299 sq.km.
Population: 709,022,061

Language: The sub-division in several linguistic and cultural regions is much less subjective than the geographical sub-division, since they correspond to people's cultural connections. There are three main groups:

Germanic Europe
Germanic Europe, where Germanic languages are spoken. This area corresponds more or less to north-western Europe and some parts of central Europe. This region consists of: United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the Faroe Islands, German speaking part of Switzerland, the Flemish part of Belgium, the Swedish-speaking municipalities of Finland, and the South Tyrol part of Italy

Latin Europe
Latin Europe, where the Romance languages are spoken. This area corresponds more or less to south-western Europe, with the exception of Romania and Moldova which are situated in Eastern Europe. This area consists of: Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Romania, Moldova, French-speaking Belgium, Romandy, Romansh-speaking Switzerland, and Italian-speaking Switzerland.

Slavic Europe
Slavic Europe, where Slavic languages are spoken. This area corresponds, more or less, to Central and Eastern Europe. This area consists of: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

Religion

Germanic Europe
The main religion of the region is Protestantism, (except for `France and Ireland) but the further south you go, you encounter more countries with a Catholic majority (particularly Austria but also Belgium).

Latin Europe
The major religion is Catholicism, except in Romania and Moldova.

Slavic Europe
The main religions are Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism, with large Muslim populations in some parts formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

Currency: Most countries use the Euro as their unit of currency. Exceptions are Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Switzerland and Finland.

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Traveling in Europe seems to be underestimated, especially by the younger generation and budget travelers. To say it clearly: Europe offers more than most other regions in the world. There is hardly anything that cannot be found in one of the mega cities, like London, Paris, Rome or Berlin.

Southern Europe offers great beaches and "Dolce Vita": good food, good weather, beautiful people, charming towns and cities. It is hardly surprising that Italy, Spain, Greece and France are always top of the bill when it comes to most popular holiday destinations.

Since 1989 Eastern Europe has become a very popular destination as well. Magnificent cities such as Prague, Budapest, Moscow,Yerevan and St. Petersburg all attract many visitors.

In the heart of Europe you find Germany , the most populated country of Western Europe. It has romantic castles, beautiful nature, fast paced life in big cities such as Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt and great highways.

South of Germany you find the Alps. Great for skiing, but Austria and Switzerland have a lot more to offer. Vienna, the capital of Austria, for example rates as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

The North of Europe is not as cold as you might think. In summer cities like Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki are among the most pleasant places to be. The people are easy going and very friendly and cultural life is rich.

The United Kingdom and Ireland have that special island mentality that keeps you coming back. The Celtic spirit is still very much a life in many of the more remote areas of the islands.

Travel in Europe, especially in the rich North West, is not particularly rough or demanding, with the exception of the Balkan, Russia and the Caucasus. In Western-Europe things are well taken care of, it is easy to get from A to B, but all this comfort has a drawback: you pay for it. However, despite the high price of Europe there are still many affordable ways of having a good time without breaking the bank. Take a train from Denmark to Switzerland for less then 25 Euro with the whole family for example. But at the same time hardly any region in the world is so easy to hitch-hike like Central Europe: with the help of Germany's highways you can make with a bit of luck 1000km per day!

Toledo, Spain
Spain's historic, artistic, and spiritual capital is so well-preserved that the entire city is protected as a national monument. Toledo is filled with tourists day-tripping from Madrid, 90 minutes to the north. Miss the bus and spend the night! While Toledo's Parador Nacional Conde de Orgaz is one of Spain's most famous luxury hotels, I'd enjoy its grand city view over coffee without suffering through its stuffy management and clientele over night. Instead, sleep in a 17th century cardinal's palace built right into the old town wall, the Hostal del Cardenal.

After dark, Toledo is much more medieval almost haunted in some corners. Explore its back streets and marvel at the great cathedral with a sacristy full of El Greco masterpieces. Munch on obleas, communion wafer-like cookies the size of paper plates. End your day with a feast of roast suckling pig somewhere in the dark tangle of nighttime Toledo.

Collioure, France
The small resorts of the French Riviera line the beach like prostitutes on bar stools, waiting for tourists in search of a good time. But Collioure, just before the Spanish border, aims its charms at its own people and a few savvy passersby. And while most of France's Mediterranean coast is condo city, the stretch around Collioure is more like a camping village. Like a cultural Baskin-Robbins, it offers 31 flavors of pastel cheering up its crowded port town lanes, six scooped-out sandy little beaches, a craggy coastline promenade, and a winking lighthouse. With all this under a once-mighty castle and the peaks of the Pyrénées, painters and local families feel no need to struggle with the Cannes-fusion that grabs the typical Riviera-bound visitor.

Collioure comes with a splash of Spain. In a district called Catalane, the town flies a flag that looks just like Barcelona's over its tiny bullring and greets you with its own accent. In some ways Collioure has turned its cobbled back on France. But the ambiance of Collioure is what was so charming about the Cote d'Azur back before the introduction of the paid vacation turned the Riviera into France's holiday beach. Collioure is within two hours by car or train from Avignon, Carcassonne, and Barcelona. And by car, you're an hour's climb to Peyrepertuse, the most breathtaking castle ruin of the many that dot the Pyrénées.

Bruges, Belgium
Bruges (pronounced BROOZH, in French), or Brugge (pronounced Broo-guh, in Flemish), is Belgium's medieval wonderland. Bruges has enough art to make a big city proud. Let a local guide show you the town's treasures: fun modern art, an impressive collection of Flemish paintings, a leaning tower, and the only finished Michelangelo statue in Northern Europe. Formerly a textiles trading center riding high on the prosperity of the Northern Renaissance, Bruges' harbor silted up, the shipping was lost, and the city was forgotten until rediscovered by modern-day tourists. Once again, Bruges thrives. And Bruggians are connoisseurs of good living — specifically fine chocolate. You'll be tempted by chocolate-filled display windows all over town.

Holland
The Netherlands will tempt you with splashy tourist towns communities of clichés where women with the ruddiest cheeks are paid to stand on doorsteps wearing wooden shoes, a lace apron, and a smile. A local boy peels eels, there's enough cheese to make another moon, and some kid somewhere is posing with his finger in a dike. These towns (such as tour bus-friendly Volendam, Monnickendam, and Marken) are designed to be fun, and they are. But make an effort to find a purely Dutch town that is true to itself, not to tourism. Rent a bike and enjoy exploring this tiny, flat country with your own wheels. In Holland, you can rent a bike at one train station and leave it at nearly any other. My favorite village is little Hindeloopen (near Sneek). Silent behind its dike, it's hard-core Holland, right out of a Vermeer painting. The towns of Haarlem, Delft, and Edam are pleasant small-town bases for easy day-tripping into sometimes seedy Amsterdam.

England
England loves quaintness. Every year she holds most-beautiful-town contests, and from Land's End to John O'Groats cobbles are scrubbed, flowers are planted, and hedges shaved. With such spirit, it's not surprising that England is freckled with more small-town cuteness than any country in Europe. Ye olde pubs and markets, combined with townspeople who happily eat, breathe, and sleep their history, make any rural part of England a fine setting to enjoy tea and scones or a pint of beer.

While you're likely to find a small, prize-winning town just about anywhere in England, the Cotswold Hills and the southeast coast tuck away some of the best. Both regions were once rich, but shifting seas and industrial low tides left them high and dry. Today, their chief export is coziness with a British accent. The southeast coast has five former ports, the "Cinque Ports," that now harbor tourists for a living. One of them, Rye, is commonly overrated as England's most photogenic village. England's quaintest port of all is farther north, on the coast beyond York. Staithes, Captain Cook's boyhood town, just north of Whitby near the York Moors, is a salty tumble of ancient buildings bunny-hopping down a ravine to a cramped little harbor.

A Few More
Europe has become a scavenger hunt for tourists, and most of the prizes have been found. But there are many towns that time forgot and tourists neglect. Passau in Germany, Hall in Austria's Tirol, Rouen in France, Sighisoara in Romania, and Erice in Sicily are just a few. Even with tourist crowds, which are now a standard feature in the summer months, the tiny well-pickled towns of Europe give the traveler the best Old World preserves.

European cuisine is extremely diverse, characterized by each country. Here are a few examples of some cuisines.

Spanish cuisine consists of a great variety of dishes, which stem from differences in geography, culture and climate. It is heavily influenced by seafood available from the waters that surround the country, and reflects the country's deep Mediterranean roots. Spain's extensive history with many cultural influences has led to a unique cuisine with literally thousands of recipes and flavors. This international diversity in cuisine is perhaps most evident in the city of Barcelona, where one might find a shop selling ready-made falafel, an Asian food restaurant, and a tapas bar, all located close to one another.

British cuisine is shaped partly by the country's temperate climate and its island geography; and partly by its history; first through interactions with other European countries, and then through the import of ingredients and ideas from places such as North America, China and India that were gathered during the time of the British Empire.

As such, traditional foods with ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, and freshwater and saltwater fish, are now matched in popularity by potatoes, tomatoes and chillies from the Americas, spices and curries from India and Bangladesh, and stir-fries based on Chinese and Thai cooking. French cuisine and Italian cuisine, once considered alien, are also now admired and copied. Britain was also quick to adopt the innovation of fast food from the United States, and continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world.

German Cuisine varies greatly from region to region. The southern regions of Bavaria and Swabia share many dishes among them and with their neighbours to the south, Switzerland and Austria. In the West, French influences are more pronounced, while the eastern parts of the country have much in common with Eastern European cuisine and there are marked Scandinavian influences in the northern coastal regions.

French cuisine is characterized by its extreme diversity. French cuisine is considered to be one of the world's most refined and elegant styles of cooking, and is renowned for both its classical ("haute cuisine") and provincial styles. Many of the world's greatest chefs, such as Taillevent, La Varenne, Carême, Escoffier, or Bocuse were masters of French cuisine. Additionally, French cooking techniques have been a major influence on virtually all Western cuisines, and almost all culinary schools use French cuisine as the basis for all other forms of Western cooking.

Italian cuisine is extremely varied: the country of Italy was only unified in 1861, and its cuisines reflect the cultural variety of its regions: Roman cuisine, for example, uses a lot of pecorino (sheep's cheese) and organ meats, while Tuscan cooking features white beans and bread without salt; the pizzas of Rome are thin like crackers, while Neapolitan and Sicilian pizza is thicker. The most important regional difference is the choice of fats: northern Italians tend towards rich dairy fats such as cream, butter, and mascarpone cheese; this is often perceived as excessive by southern Italians, who substitute olive oil. Northern Italian dishes tend to be somewhat influenced by French cooking, due to the proximity of the French border. Emilia-Romagna leads Italy in wheat production, and is known for its stuffed pasta. Italian cuisine is regarded as a prime example of the Mediterranean diet.

Greek cuisine is the cuisine of Greece or perhaps of the Greeks. Given the geography and history of Greece, this style of cookery is typical of Mediterranean cuisine, with strong influences from Italy, Middle East and, to a lesser extent, from the Balkans. The basic grain in Greece is wheat, though barley is also grown. Important vegetables include tomato, eggplant, potato, green beans, okra, and onions. The terrain has tended to favor the production of goats and sheep over cattle, and thus beef dishes tend to be a rarity by comparison. Fish dishes are also common, especially in coastal regions. Olive oil, produced from the trees prominent throughout the region, adds to the distinctive taste of Greek food. Some dishes use filo pastry. Too much refinement is generally considered to be against the hearty spirit of the Greek cuisine. Traditionally, Greek dishes are served warm rather than hot.

There is need for a getting around section for Europe. There are hardly any travel restrictions; all countries in Western Europe have a good infrastructure. Boats, low-cost airlines, fast euro trains and buses can take you anywhere. Hitchhiking is good, particularly so in Germany. Most of Eastern Europe is the same with the exception of Belarus and parts of Caucasus. It is in the Caucasus that things really get exciting and you have to keep an eye on political developments in order to know if the beaches of Baku and surroundings are safe.

Car hire in Europe would be the recommended mode of transport. It gives you the flexibility and the roads are excellent in most European countries. Do look for speeding or driving under influence as this is a major offense in all European countries.

All of the major car rental agencies are available throughout Europe including Hertz, Avis, Alamo, National and more. Europcar and Sixt are also reliable vendors. All of these have locations throughout any of the countries you are traveling so one-way trips are possible.

Depending on the length of your trip, here are my recommended priorities. Assuming you're traveling by train, I've taken geographical proximity into account. Start off with the 5 day plan, and add the following cities as you extend your trip.

5 days: London, Paris
7 days, add: Amsterdam, Haarlem
10 days, add: Rhine, Rothenburg
14 days, add: Salzburg, Swiss Alps
17 days, add: Venice, Florence
21 days, add: Rome, Cinque Terre
24 days, add: Siena, Bavarian sights
30 days, add: Arles (Provence), Barcelona, Madrid
36 days, add: Vienna, Prague, Berlin
40 days, add: Copenhagen, Bath

This whirlwind itinerary represents the best three weeks and 3,000 miles that Europe has to offer

Day 1: Depart U.S. for Amsterdam
Day 2: Arrive in Amsterdam
Day 3: Amsterdam
Day 4: From Holland to the Rhine
Day 5: The Rhine to Rothenburg
Day 6: Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Day 7: Romantic Road, Dachau, Tirol
Day 8: Bavaria and Castle Day
Day 9: Over Alps to Venice
Day 10: Venice
Day 11: Florence
Day 12: Rome
Day 13: Rome
Day 14: Italian hill towns
Day 15: Drive the Italian Riviera
Day 16: Free on Cinque Terre beach
Day 17: Drive to the Alps
Day 18: Alps hike day, Gimmelwald
Day 19: Free in Alps; evening to France
Day 20: Colmar, Alsatian villages, wine
Day 21 On to Paris, stop at Reims
Day 22: Paris

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