The tip: Don’t confuse Venezia Santa Lucia with Venezia Mestre.

Whatever city your in(touristic city, capital), you can find a Tourist Information Desk in the train station, the airport or the touristic center.

Just look for the sign with the letter “i“.

If you’re planning a travel adventure that includes visiting a few places, surely you don’t want to be limited or conditioned  by some hostel bookings.  Maybe you don’t have a fix itinerary.  For example, after two days in Prague, you realize you haven’t had time to see everything you wanted.  So you can decide to stay another day or two.   This would be complicated if you have  a booking in Bratislava for the next night and another booking in Budapest after 3 days…

And where to go after Prague?  Kraków or Bratislava?  IT’S UP TO YOU!

Either way, you know you’ll  find a Tourist Information Desk with good accommodation offers, maps and everything.

Important notice:   The Tourist Information opening time is somewhere between 08.30/09.00 to 19.30/20.00 .   So, if you’re too late or too early(especially if you travel by train) a laptop would come in handy. You can always go online and find accommodation. Free WiFi at any McDonald’s  or KFC.

First are the malls for the rich people, with original big brands, that have European prices. There, everything is very expensive.

Second are the stores with good clothes, that do not belong to a known brand. These stores have more accessible prices.

Third are the malls/stores with fake brands, that have written at the entry “No bargaining“ and have prices displayed for every item … These are the malls that usually have good and very good prices for stuff.

And last, there are the  “bargaining malls“. Most of these malls have no prices displayed and you have to ask the seller for the price. These kinds of malls have savage employees.  You don’t even need to glance at  someones boutique and the seller will run after you with all kind of stuff in his hands, telling you again and again “very gooda, very gooda”. You will constantly have 5-10 sellers in your face that will try to convince you to buy from their store. Very loud and very impolite. First time I entered in this type of mall I was more than confused … I didn’t know what to do, how to react  … good thing that I was with my cousin. She was used to this and told me what to do:  display a mean face and start cursing them:))) … very efficient method to keep them away.  She also thought me how to bargain here.

Important rule: Never ever ever pay the amount of money the seller is asking, especially if you are white(be certain that they will try to take as much money as they can from you). My advice is to ask somebody that knows how “things work”  to come with you on your first shopping spree. Perfect would be to go with a Chinese person that you can trust. You will surely not be ripped off.

These sellers usually are asking three times more than the actual price. Here is the bargaining/buying procedure:

1. You see something you like;

2. You ask for the price;

3. The seller is typing his price on a calculator and shows; Only 1% of the sellers I met knew English.

4. Here two things can happen:  The wrong thing – You can pay the amount the seller is asking, take your stuff and go on. Or you can do the right thing - Make a very surprised face like it is way to expensive and  try and turn to go away from his shop;

5. In 99% cases the seller will do anything to stop you and will hand you the calculator to input the price you would pay for the item. Always, always keep in mind that the product you want to buy, can be found in many other places.

6. Input  a price that is around 3 times smaller that his original price.

7. The seller will first act totally surprised and will try to tell you that it’s no way you will get the item for that price. And will take the calculator from you and will input a price that is just a little smaller that the original price.

8. Here there are three ways of dealing with this …  one is to input another price(but not more than half of the original price), second is to turn around and leave. Third way is the bad way – to pay what the seller is asking;

9. If you input another price, step 7 and 8 will repeat.   If you turn around an leave two things can happen. One is when the seller is happy with the price you are willing to pay and realizes that he can’t get more from you. And says  Ok! Ok! – you got the item for your last price offer. Second is when the seller isn’t happy with your price and let’s you go.

10. If he lets you go, be sure that he is mad now and will not sell you the item with less than what he initially asked, even if first he was willing to sell you for less at start.  So you need to go to another  store and repeat these steps, but be sure to raise a little the price you offered the first seller – you are now sure that the item you want to buy costs more that the price you were trying to get.

From my bargaining  experience in Dalian, I can say that  about 50% of all the things I wanted to buy/bought, I got/could of gotten them for three times less that the initial price.  About 45% of them I got for a price between 1/3 and half the initial price. And the rest with a pretty big cut of the price.  So when you agree to pay more than half  the initial price, you will almost certainly be riped off.

Let me give you some examples of things that I bought and the prices I payed.

First thing I bought was a fake Rolex, you can find Rolex watches anywhere. I payed 80Yuani for it.  The guy initially asked for 200Yuani. I knew that all the watches were fakes, but anyways … it was cool to have one. They have an efficient method to make you think there are valuable watches:  They have some normal watches on sale, and when they see a foreigner checking out their store, they bring out a shiny suitcase, with big brand watches, like Rolex, Mont Blank, Philip Patek, Bvlgari and other. Most of them, very good replicas. They will ask for 400-600Yuani(40-60Euros) depending on the watch and your attitude.   But none of them cost more than 100Yuani. There are only few watches that are amazing  replicas and can get to 200 or even 250Yuani, but you will find those only in some malls, in some private rooms in the back(destined for foreigners), full with well made fakes(thousands of dvds, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton bags, Armani stuff, Rolex watches, etc.). But you must know somebody to have access there.

I bought a charger for my camera. Funny story …  He first asked for 30Yuani, I said 10, he said 25 and I got it for 15. I was happy about myself for that bargaining. 15Yuani is 1.5Euros … pretty cheap for a charger, right?  But, the next day, in other store, I saw the same charger at 6Yuani. I felt a little stupid.

The day before I left, I bought a medium/big troller for all the stuff I bought there(I went to China only with a small backpack ). I payed 100Yuans for it, after a pretty big bargaining. The initial price was 350Yuans. Good deal.

If you happen to go to Dalian, or anywhere else in China, I hope that by reading this article you  will save some money. Happy shopping!

In my experience, in this period the temperatures are actually too high!  In July, the temperatures are most of the times over 40degrees Celsius(on the south islands even 45degrees). It can get very unpleasant to spend a few days in this kind of heat(let’s say your accommodation does not have an air conditioning).

Actually, in July and August you can find the best vacation deals( in resorts like Paralia Katerini ), mainly because the accommodation  does not have air conditioning.

Last year I was in Athens, Greece  around the 10 of May, and the temperature was already close to 30degrees Celsius if not higher. Even at night it was very very hot. The friend we stayed at did not have any air conditioning so it was kind of difficult to catch some sleep.

The weather was  perfect for going to the beach. We actually caught some good tan in just two days.  The only downside for this period of the year is that the sea water is not that warm.

My advice here is to avoid the month of July and beginning of August  for your summer vacation in Greece. In my opinion, the perfect “summer” weather in Greece is between 20 of May – 30June  and 15August – 10Sept.

But if you happen to find a great deal for a vacation in Greece in July, be sure that your accommodation has air conditioning! You will need it.

I will give you more than a few solid reasons and if you feel that I left something out, please don’t hesitate to share it:

1. The beaches in Greece are just amazing! Check out the top 5:  Sarakiniko beach (in Elafonisos Island, Peloponnese) ; Egremnoi beach (in Lefkada); Myrtos beach (in Kefalonia); Erimoupolis beach (in Crete Island) ; Myrtidiotissa beach (in Corfu Island);
2. The food is delicious and very very healthy. I bet everyone heard about  dishes like the famous “Greek Salad”, the moussaka, about the tzatziki sauce, the feta cheese and of course, for those that like to have a drink from time to time, ouzo and metaxa.
3. It has a great number of beautiful islands. The most popular are: Mykonos, Santorini(the top image), Crete(the biggest island in Greece – here was the center of  the oldest European civilisation – The Minoan Civilisation), Hydra, Corfu(Second biggest island), Rhodes, Skiathos, Ios;
4. Greece is the birthplace of the Olympic Games;
5. The capital of Greece is Athens, the  home of Plato‘s Academy and Aristotle‘s Lyceum( Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles);
6. Greece  was a great ancient civilisation, it has an endless amount of artifacts;
7. Greece has many historical landmarks(statues , museums, theatres, temples), like the Parthenon, the Olympic stadium,  the Acropolis , The National Archaeological Museum, Mycenae, etc.
8. Greece is the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and Western drama including both tragedy and comedy;

I had the opportunity to visit Greece last year.  I loved it very much. It was a short trip(3 days) and I could only visit Athens and stop for a coffee in Thessaloniki. But it was enough for me to remain with great memories and I hope to visit Greece again soon and see all the other stuff that I missed.

You can check out my own Greece photo gallery.

This Pass is available for European residents only. Non-European residents can buy an EuRail Pass which is basically the same as InterRail.

Countries:

The InterRail Pass is valid for train travel in the following 30 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxemburg, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, FYR Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey and on the ferry between Italy and Greece operated by Attica Group.

Passes:

You can choose the InterRail Global Pass or the InterRail One Country Pass.  You can buy you Pass online or from any big train station. If you’re under 26, hurry up  and take advantage, the pass is cheaper.

Reservation Fees

Besides the pass price, you have to pay seat reservation fees for most trains. Exception make regional trains(trains that travel between 2 cities in the same country). Here are some examples of reservation fees:

From Budapest(Hungary) to Trieste (Italy) the seat reservation cost 4Euros. From Nice(France) to Barcelona(Spain) the seat reservation cost 5Euros.

Get more info on the InterRail Pass.

P.S. When I say “adventure trip”  I don’t mean  7 day all inclusive package at some big resort.