The Ever-Evolving Euro Trip

One of the statues on the Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana.

When I first decided to do a two-week trip around Europe between coaching jobs in Budapest and Prague, the itinerary looked completely different than the trip I'm now halfway through.

Originally planned as a trip to do some freelance writing on NBA players who were playing overseas while the league's owners locked them out, that went up in flames when the lockout ended in November. So I decided that after moving my stuff to Prague, I'd head further north to Berlin, then into Sweden to check out Stockholm and then train down to Copenhagen in Denmark before wrapping up in Amsterdam. That was until I saw how expensive it would be to make that trek - especially the stay in Stockholm - so went from Plan B to Plan Three.

So I wound up planning in my first week to head to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, then Milan before heading to Zurich to visit a friend from the states for the weekend. But after a few friends over here gave some underwhelming reviews of Milan, I decided to instead head to the birthplace of Mozart, Salzburg, a nice city in the Austrian Alps, and then over to Zürich.

Week two? Well, as Katie, my friend in Zürich will tell you, I couldn't possibly have waffled more about where to go from there, where I was as I began to write this blog in a Starbucks down in the city's shopping district. I knew I'd like to head to Germany somewhere, then considered Bern - the capital of Switzerland - then was set on Stuttgart, then Cologne, and now finally booked a train to Munich, which is backtracking a bit on my way up to Amsterdam to meet my buddy Dave Holmes this weekend, but I figured a cool place to go and sit at the Hofbräuhaus for a couple of beers on my birthday tomorrow. I'll stay there for a few days, hopefully get out to see a bit of Bavaria, then take the night train up to Amsterdam on Thursday.

Statue of Mozart in Salzburg, his place of birth in Austria.

Confused yet? I'm with you. But as I sat stressing about where to go, I asked myself, "Why are you stressing about where to go next during a vacation in Europe, this isn't supposed to be stressful" ... as I sipped on my hot chocolate that ran me eight swiss francs, about $8.50 in USD (yes, the economy here is doing quite well).

Anyway, moving along. So, the first week of the trip? It was pretty cool, actually.

In Ljubljana, which is kind of a secret gem and an entrance of sorts from the central region in Europe (Italy, Germany, Austria, etc.) into the Slovak countries in eastern Europe, I really enjoyed the small-city atmosphere and the view from atop the castle. I met a nice Spanish guy who spent time in France but had married a Slovenian woman and therefor moved there to open the coffee house I was eating breakfast in. He was a perfect example of what you meet in this region, a well-cultured individual who is multilingual (he spoke Spanish, French, Slovenian, English and some Italian) and enjoys meeting an American to talk about what it's like back home, politics (which I try to avoid like the plague) and the inevitable questions about the rules and history of baseball once I tell them the reason I'm overseas.

In Salzburg, I flip-flopped from the southern end of the Alps to the northern end, and it was a pretty amazing train ride between the two cities. As I mentioned above, it's the birthplace of Mozart, and I was able to check out the house he was born in and the statue they have of him in their square. It rained most of the time I was there, but I was still able to get out and about to check out the sites, find a cool little pub where the locals hung out and hit on the girl at the candy shop. In that order.

The Grossmünster in Zurich, a well-known city landmark.

And finally, to end the week, I stayed this past weekend with a great host in my friend Katie, who took a transfer from her employer, Swiss-owned UBS Bank, from New York City to come live a couple years in Zürich. After showing me around the city, which boasts Europe's largest clock face above St. Peter's Church, a gorgeous view of the Alps from beyond Lake Zürich and a great old town shopping district, Katie and her friend Lauren took me to have cheese fondue, a must if you're ever in Zürich, and then out for a couple beers at a bar that boasted a decor perhaps a little racy for my PG-rated blog (I'll explain details if you'd like over email; no, it wasn't a strip club or anything like that!). On my last day, I was able to check out the city's museum and to be honest, just enjoyed walking around taking a look at the expensive sports cars and window-shopping $25,000 Swiss watches.

From there, I headed to Munich - where I'm finally finishing this Bill Simmons-like marathon of a blog - and where I'm going out to celebrate my birthday this evening. Stay tuned for an update on that in the next couple of days.

In the meantime, here's some links to pictures from the trip thus far!

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Salzburg, Austria

Zürich, Switzerland