1992 · Paris · Zurich · Northern Italy
Paris, Zurich
The very first international trip. Fly into Paris, out of Rome 17 days later, no arrangements in between — Rick Steves as the plan. A 2-star hotel with a toilet in the room but a shower down the hall. The Mona Lisa before the crowd barriers. Versailles via the wrong Metro system. French Francs accepted at the Italian toll at 10x the rate. Sharon navigating Venice alone in the rain on the wrong vaporetto.
(These posts were written during the Great Shutdown of 2020. Memory isn’t this good — internet searches filled in a lot of holes.)
The first of our first international trips for Sharon and I, back in 1992. The original concept was to fly into Paris and out of Rome 17 days later and not worry about any arrangements in between. Sharon had high school French, which was a little helpful. I was between assignments and had already spent a couple of days driving cross-country from Louisiana to Maryland. Email was just becoming used widely in my company but the concept of having to check email while on vacation had not arrived yet — so it was truly leave work, no contact, and show up in a new place with basically a new job 21 days later. In the final arrangements we ended up flying into Paris, overnight train to Zurich where we rented a car to drive to tour Northern Italy and back to Zurich where we flew home. I don’t remember why Zurich…must have been cheapest. We had to use a phone and travel books to make the arrangements, Rick Steves was a must.
Landing in Paris, we stuck with the plan of no advance hotel and took the cheapest transport into the city and after a while we did find us a 2-star hotel that had a shower down the hall but a toilet in the room so that was a nice compromise — we stayed there a couple of days. We visited all the major sites. We had a combination of pictures and video and we do have hours of video (which helped with recollection). But pictures much more useful now — but as you remember pictures in 1992 were much more complicated as you actually had to have film and get them developed.
We took a hop-on hop-off bus the first day and went to Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower with sunset at Sacré-Coeur. We spent a day at the Louvre as well. We did quite a bit of exploring by Metro and found out the hard way that there was actually 2 Metro systems and when we were going to Versailles which I remember being a bit frustrating of not being able to find the train — we were actually on the wrong system anyway. Once we found it the train went the opposite way than we expected, but we eventually got to Versailles. I took a trip on my own to La Défense, which was state of the art at the time.
La Défense is Paris’s purpose-built business district located just west of the city proper, home to the Grande Arche — a hollow cube building completed in 1989 that frames the historical axis from the Louvre through the Arc de Triomphe. In 1992 it was indeed state of the art, featuring some of the most modern office architecture in Europe. The “two Metro systems” confusion is a real and recurring trap for visitors: Paris has both the traditional Métro (13 lines within the city) and the RER (suburban express network that extends to Versailles). To reach Versailles you need the RER C line from the city — not the Métro — and the two systems share some stations but use different ticket types. Getting on the Métro heading toward Versailles direction is a mistake visitors still make.
Email was just becoming used widely in my company but the concept of having to check email while on vacation had not arrived yet — so it was truly leave work, no contact, and show up in a new place with basically a new job 21 days later. This detail is worth sitting with. A 17-day trip across Paris, Switzerland, and Northern Italy in 1992, with no mobile phones, no email, no advance hotel bookings, Rick Steves as the only plan — and it worked. The 2-star hotel with the toilet in the room and the shower down the hall was found by walking around after landing. The Italian toll was navigated with the wrong currency. Every logistical problem was solved in real time with a phrase book and a map.
After going to Italy, we headed back to Switzerland driving through the Alps. Bad weather and not a lot of pictures. We stopped in Bellinzona for the night and Lucerne the next day and walked around the old city a bit before taking a flight back out of Zurich.
After taking the overnight train from Paris to Zurich where we rented a car to drive to tour Northern Italy with stops in Genoa, Portofino, Pisa, Bologna, Florence, Venice and ultimately back to Zurich where we flew home. We drove right by Cinque Terre (hill towns) as we took the Autostrada and not the local roads. On the way back to Zurich, we drove by Lake Como on a foggy day — so missed two of the great tourist sites and I still haven’t made it back to them in 30 years.
We had smooth sailing in Switzerland but once we got to Italy, ran into some issues. First was the toll on the Autostrada…only took Lira…and spoke no English. After blocking the toll gate for it seemed like forever, we gave them French Francs (at about 10X the rate) to get through. Shortly afterward we needed gas at about 1pm in the afternoon…the Autostrada service area was closed for siesta and we had to sit in the parking lot and wait for the pumps to open. Since this was one of my first big international trips, I was still in the “but in the USA we wouldn’t have this BS” mindset. But even 30 years later I fall into that mindset, instead of accepting when in Rome…
Ultimately we made it to Genoa and then drove along the Italian Riviera to Portofino. We drove through and couldn’t find a place to stay so ended up a couple of miles away in Santa Margherita Ligure at a pensione (step up from hostel) next to the train station — a lot cheaper than Portofino. Nice, but not quite the same.
From Portofino we went to Pisa (bypassing Cinque Terre — didn’t know about it) and to Bologna. Spent a half-day in Bologna (home of my fraternity) wandering around trying to find landmarks…was marginally successful.
We pulled into Florence and found a place on the outskirts that was cheap with direct bus access to the historical centre. It was pretty much raining most of the trip, so we stood in line for the Uffizi in the rain and were shocked to find it closed from 11am–2pm…we finally made it in as well as the Duomo, Santa Croce, and Ponte Vecchio. We were starting to run low on cash, everything was 2–3 times as much as the USA, but I was really hungry and decided to splurge on a nicer meal. Paid about $10 each (1992 dollars) for a real meal — was less than about 4 oz of roast chicken for both of us combined…very depressing. Pretty much grocery stores after that.
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence houses one of the most important collections of Italian Renaissance art in the world, including works by Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Caravaggio. The gallery occupies a U-shaped building commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1560 and opened to the public in 1769. The midday closure described — shutting from 11am to 2pm — was typical of many Italian museums and businesses in 1992, following the traditional riposo (rest) schedule that has since been largely abandoned at major tourist sites. The Uffizi now operates extended hours without midday breaks and requires advance booking during peak season. The queue described — standing in rain, finding it closed — would be familiar to any visitor in that era.
Off to Venice and still raining. We found a cheap place on the island and I was tired and Sharon wanted to go to see the glass blowing on Murano Island — so a long nap for me and when she returned 4 hours later and woke me up, she had a rough time…in her own words:
Complicating her return, was that our pensione was located in a very hard to find alley on the island. Venice is basically a maze with only directions to key landmarks. Rain continued the entire time we were there. Venice is pretty amazing and now that it is sinking, if you haven’t been it should be on your bucket list.
We left Venice after a couple of days and headed back to Zurich.
“Venice is pretty amazing and now that it is sinking, if you haven’t been it should be on your bucket list.”