European Travel Necessities

[Barmaid]

OK, so neither of us have been abroad for donkey's years and now all of a sudden we are off to France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria and Belgium next week.

To save my last minute panics what else do I need (we are going by coach if that helps).

1. Passports
2. European Healthcard jobbies
3. Travel insurance
4. Euros
5. Electrical adaptor thingummy jigs.

What have I forgotten?!

[sandyRoe]

Imodium capsules. Hopefully you'd not need them.

[Psybbo]

Because I forgot them once :-)

[Barmaid]

Pysbbo - I have "form" for this (unfortunately).

Hopefully it wont be too arduous. First night in France, n2 in Switzerland, n3-9 in Italy, n10 in Austria, n11 in Germany, n12 in Belgium. We don't be doing much sightseeing anywhere other than Italy (the point of this trip is taking my grandpappy to Anzio where he fought in the war).

Thank you all, some good suggestions. Stuff I hadn't even thought about.

Meanwhile, I have to find our passports (I had to dash to Scotland 3 weeks ago for the funeral of a close friend and entrusted the passports to Mr BM to let my mother know the details). They have not been seen since.............

[tamborine]

Invest in an iPhone with Siri
So easy to speak And print responses

[tamborine]

^^ All my responses are spoken To print

[jno]

scan in the information pages of your passport and email them to yourself so you can access them anywhere should you need to, which heaven forbid.

Might be worth checking if your hotels have in-room safes. If not, maybe rather than lug millions of euros around with you all day, take an ATM card and get them out of cash machines.

You could also try checking whether the hotels have "amenities"; if so you might leave your soap and shampoo behind. Take a face flannel, though, Europeans don't know what they are. A chambermaid in Italy took mine away because she thought it was a tiny towel and I never saw it again.

[diddlydo]

If staying in hotels and you like your cup of tea/coffee in the morning, buy a cheap travel kettle and take a mug and teabags as very few continental hotels provide drinks making facilities (you can buy long-life milk for drinks when you're there).

[society]

Sunblock
Extra pair of glasses

[coccinelle]

A mini kettle, tea bags and cups if not you won't be getting a decent cup of tea.

[wolf63]

@@Fred - you owned a lingerie shop? Are you related to Sqad?

@@Barmaid - I hope that you have managed to find good quality humans to care for your non-humans. Did you see that there was a swan called ASBO (and his son son-of-ASBO) in the papers the other day.

Have a great holiday - may it be peaceful and nobody annoys you enough for you to want to throttle them.