Internet planning

Ok, when I started thinking about going to Europe, I was warned that there isn't a lot of information online. Well, I've found that's true and false. There isn't a lot of easily found information, particularly with our search engines. However, I will say that there is a massive amount of stuff online...so far using travel books and the online tourism websites are proving to be very helpful - it just requires some internet savviness to find these sites and to navigate around. For example, the Bordeaux Tourism Office Website is very helpful and has nice one stop shop packages that include hotel stay, tours, wine tastings, etc, as well as has many accomodations listed AND you can actually search by price range, feature, etc, although of course beware that things may not be in the right price range. You might have to go to the individual hotel or B&B's website (sometime there is a link, sometime there isn't) to get info and cross your fingers its in English. (Which, the good news, is that there usually is English information available online- just maybe not quite as much as is available in French)

So far, I'm actually overwhelmed with the information that's available online. Even places that have 5-6 rooms total are online. I do hop over to Trip Advisor to check out what fellow Americans say about these hotels, and of course, take all severely good and severely bad reviews with a grain of salt. So far we don't even have one hotel booked (something we hope to change in the next 2 weeks), but we're considering doing the Bordeaux package for 2 nights or staying in Bordeaux "city-centre" for one night, just because we'll be arriving at night and maybe staying 2 nights here - you have to click around, but there's info on the rooms available. Doesn't it look beautiful???

But good news for those travelling to Europe - there is info out there, believe it or not.