Visit to Europe The Grand tour

DENNIS CALLAN '67

 The tour brooding about a visit to Europe? Here's some advice from a guide .

 Many of us like to TRAVEL. a selected FEW HAVE MADE a career out Of it. one among those is Dennis Callan '67, who runs guided European trips through his Honolulu-based company, Tours by Train. 

After graduation, Callan earned master's degrees in anthro- pology and politics , with further studies in urban and regional planning at the University Of Hawaii. His YouTube videos on European travel have received 15 million views, and he's the author Of the multimedia e-book Rome on Foot. 

BAM Why Europe, aside from its history?

 what's particularly compelling about European cities 

today? CALLA N they need a comparatively compact and dense configura- tion where you've got walkable pedestrian neighborhoods. In European cities, most of the people don't sleep in suburbs. Americans are becoming stuck in traffc more and more. In Europe, that's not the case, because their cities are dense, and their mass transit works more efficiently

. 

BAM Why do your trips involve trains? 

CALLAN Trains between the cities are just an excellent thanks to get around. they're efflcient, clean, modern, and not terribly expensive. The station is true within the heart of town. you'll ride a high-speed train 175 miles an hour to subsequent city during a few hours. On the opposite hand, if you would like to travel to little villages, then you are going to require to rent a car.

 BAM what is the best thanks to find lodging?

 CALLAN In smaller cities, I just use a Google map Of the town. I see where the station is. [Google] has many hotels plotted right the map. A map-based app may be a great way to urge a preliminary BROWN ALUMNI MAGAZINE selection Of hotels, then you would like to drill down and appearance at their reviews and pictures. within the bigger cities—London, Paris, Rome—stations are out on the sting Of town, and you would like to seek out lodging that's more central. 

BAM What are the must-sees in Europe? 

CALLAN First Of all, London, Paris, and Rome are a requirement if you've got not been to Europe, for a minimum of three days each. you'll easily spend every week in all of these . If you are doing stay every week , you've got time for day trips outside Of town. 

BAM What kind of day trips?

 CA LLAN If you're in London, you'll mount a train and go right down to Bath or go up to York. In Paris, you'll leave to the Loire Valley, or Rouen, into Normandy. you'll purchase little van tours which will take you out there, or some places you'll attend by train. For Rome, you'll attend the Tivoli Gardens or to Ostia Antica; you'll actually take the Rome metro to the seaside. most of the people never leave there, but it's almost sort of a Pompeii.

 BAM What quite preparation does one advise for European travel? 

CALLAN Walk. that is what I always tell my clients. one among the good joys is walking around in these places. I Say walk a minimum of half an hour each day for a few Of months before your trip. Read up a touch bit On these places, establish some goals, some particular museums that you simply 're curious about , [and] some particular artwork. an excellent thanks to affect the research is to save lots of it as an internet archive. Then you'll just transfer that to your mobile device. Also, scan in chapters from travel books. When you're there, the night before you are going to go to the place, that's when the reading really pays off. it isn't a nasty idea to possess your schedule planned, with the hotels booked. 

BAM What about time of year?

 CALLA N you actually don't need to travel within the winter. It's too cold and dark. You know, it gets dark at five o'clock. Summer is just too hot and increasingly crowded. the simplest seasons are spring and fall: middle of April to beginning of June, and middle of Sep- tember to early November. Italy is sweet just about year-round. 

BAM How did Brown prepare you for being a world tour guide? 

CALLAN The humanities were really important. They really, really paid Off on behalf of me in my life in unexpected ways. In my English composition class, Professor [W. Nelson) Francis told me something I've never forgotten, which is you write the way you speak, you write during a conversational way. I've become an honest salesman using my words. I lead groups through many museums while describing the good works, so two other impor- tant professors were [New Yorker cartoonist) Ed Koren, from whom I took a studio art course, and Vincent Tomas, teaching philosophy of art. -KENT ROBERTS '00 For more on Dennis Callan's guided European tours and to access his travel video library