Since writing about my travels to Lisbon, Spain and Provence (Town Crier, April 6), my trip has come to a close, my gap year has concluded and I am back in Los Altos for the summer.
Here’s a summary of the rest of the route my friends and I took in April and May.
After Provence, we took the train to Lyon, then detoured into Switzerland, visiting Lake Geneva and Lucerne through scenic trains in the Swiss Alps and Zurich. We then re-entered France, visiting Strasbourg and Paris. After a few days in Belgium (Brussels, Ghent and Bruges) and a week in the Netherlands during tulip season (South Holland and Amsterdam), we flew to Naples. We worked our way up Italy via Rome, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Milan and Venice; I was so excited to be in sunny weather and to eat pizza, pasta, gelato and drink cappuccinos all day. We then headed east, visiting Ljubljana and Lake Bled in Slovenia, Croatia’s capital of Zagreb, plus Plitvice Lakes National Park (we sadly didn’t have time for the coast), and finally our easternmost point of Budapest.
We then circled back and headed west into Austria after a quick stop in Bratislava, Slovakia. In Austria, we visited Vienna and Salzburg before crossing into Germany, where we explored Munich, Nuremberg, Dresden, then Berlin and Cologne after a detour in Prague. From the Frankfurt airport, we flew to Dublin for a two-night visit, then flew to London to catch our return flight home.
In total, our trip lasted 76 days, and we stayed overnight in 35 cities. The longest places we stayed were Amsterdam and Florence (four nights each). It was tiring picking up and moving so often, sometimes dragging our suitcases across cities to get to the train station in pouring rain or scorching heat, but it definitely made things interesting, and we were never bored because we were always in a new place.
Travel highlights
Overall, my favorite cities were Lisbon, Lyon, Ljubljana and Lake Bled. This is not to say that they are the “best” cities in Europe, but they were my favorites because they exceeded my expectations the most. I didn’t expect the sunny weather, delicious food and tiles and murals that cover the city in Lisbon; the food and the colorful architecture (distinct from Paris) in Lyon; the serene, car-free city center of Ljubljana; and the fresh air and picturesque, postcard-worthy views of Lake Bled.
I also liked Germany because it felt like the only fully modern country, with a more diverse population and culture; it wasn’t just cool architecture and museums with artifacts from many centuries ago. Visiting many World War II sites – Dachau Concentration Camp, the site of the Nuremberg trials, the former Nazi rally grounds and the Berlin Wall – was informative and fascinating. It was also especially refreshing to see Germany’s honest attitudes toward Nazism. Many cities have Nazi documentation centers examining that city’s role in the rise of Hitler, and all WWII-related sites are free to visit in Germany.
There are many things to appreciate about European cities that I hope the U.S. will emulate, including robust public transportation systems and denser, walkable cities where everyone can afford to live where they work. Downtown Los Altos, for example, could be a car-free zone like the city centers in many European cities, and there could be a high-speed train to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a few hours.
As for my gap year, I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who has the support and resources to do so. It’s the first opportunity in your life where you have a long period of time to do whatever you want – work, travel, live abroad or explore your passions – and the first time since you were a toddler that you aren’t in school. It’s a time to rest, take time for yourself and grow into yourself before the next phase of life. I probably wasn’t ready to head to college a year ago, but I feel more ready and refreshed now.
Now that I’m back home, there are so many great things that I can appreciate about Europe. I love California for the weather and the food, and that’s something Europe cannot replicate for me. Sometimes, you just need to feel the sun on your skin.
Christina Cheng is a Los Altos resident and former Town Crier intern who graduated from Woodside Priory in 2021 and will attend Stanford University in the fall.
