Best Way to See Europe; Bus Tour or Hotel Stay? Good Science Fair Project

Best Way to See Europe; Bus Tour or Hotel Stay? Good Science Fair Project

by Mort Barish

Word count: 802

I have lived in Europe for over six years, and have made dozens of separate trips all over the Continent, Eastern Europe, the British Isles and the Mideast. Much of my time was spent on my own yacht where I had the opportunity to visit over 200 harbors all over the Mediterranean.

For those who really want to get into the innards of an area or part of a country, there are many different ways to have a great vacation and to really learn a lot about the area of interest. This subject is great for a science fair project.

Most people who visit Italy for example, go to Rome, Venice, Florence and perhaps to the Cinque Terre. In a similar manner, each country has its favorites. In Spain the Alhambra, in Greece its Santorini, in Turkey its Istanbul, in Israel its Jerusalem, in Croatia its Dubrovnik and so on.

There is a reason why these cities are selected by tour operators and vacation planners. They are all very special places for different reasons. Dubrovnik in Croatia, for example has its medieval walled city. On a busy day, as many as ten cruise ships will pull into the port of Dubrovnik as well as 500 or more tour buses with 40 passengers in each bus. Three large cruise ships can deposit as many as 13,000 tourists in one day. Imagine how many people ten ships will bring in. In addition to private boats, cars, and trains, perhaps 50,000 tourists will cram the medieval walls of old city Dubrovnik in just a few hours.

If you are really interested in savoring the sights, sounds, essence and soul of a country or a city, a bus tour may be your answer. It isn’t perfect but it isn’t too bad either. On a typical day, your bus tour guide will leave a 6.00 a.m. wakeup call for you. You will have two hours to get up, get dressed, enjoy a great breakfast, and get ready to board your bus at 8.00 a.m. You will then experience about two hours of a panoramic visit to the city of choice with your tour director constantly offering history and tidbits about the surroundings. You can ask questions and he or she will know all the answers for after all the tour guide was born in the area and is a professional tour guide. After the bus tour which ends about 10.00 a.m. you will then do a two hour walking tour of the city.

You may get a new guide for this tour, someone who was born in the city and knows everything about it. You will get a receiver that you plug into your ear so that even if you are 100 yards away from your guide, you will clearly hear everything that is said. After your two hour walking tour, you will get two hours of free time to shop the open markets, visit the stores, have a great local lunch and meet your tour bus about 2 pm. You will then tour nearby places of interest, make ½ hour stops and get back to your hotel about six p.m., just time enough to shower, change clothes, and get ready for dinner.

After ten days at this hectic pace, you will be a walking encyclopedia of the country being visited loaded with facts, tastes, smells, visions and attitudes. It is a far cry from a hotel vacation where your typical day is so much different. Get all this good stuff down for your winning science fair project. At a typical resort hotel, you get up at ten, have a leisurely breakfast, go down to the pool, sit in the sun for two hours to improve your tan, get ready for lunch, then back to the pool. On a busy day, you may play golf, go into town to shop and browse, and then back to your hotel. You will probably dine at the hotel every night, for after all, it is included in your costs. You will meet a lot of fellow Americans and probably a lot of Canadians as well. The hotel vacation will be restful, perhaps boring, certainly not as exciting as the bus tour, which will admittedly be exhausting. The choice is yours, which kind of vacation do you want.

If you decide to do a science fair project on this subject, you can gather a lot of information and graphics on a typical bus tour. Take Croatia for example. You will probably tour Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Bosnia and there is a ton of good stuff that you can use for your science fair project on these wonderful countries.

For information on 400 award winning science fair projects, visit http://www.terimore.com.

####

You can find additional info at the following links:

Click Here for more information
Click Here for more information