Italy and Switzerland 2018
Posts from our trip to Italy and Switzerland from September 25 to October 9, 2018. Heather and I took Heather’s parents on an itinerary that included Rome, the Tuscan countryside, Siena, Assisi, Florence, Varenna (on Lake Como), finishing in Luzern, Switzerland.
Welcome to Luzern! (View If Lake Luzern from our hotel room.) (Hirschmatt – Kleinstadt, Lucerne, Switzerland)
Posted on October 7, 2018
Lunch stop in Erstfeld. Beautiful scenery, even from the train station. (Erstfeld, Uri, Switzerland)
Posted on October 7, 2018
So those are the tools I’m using on this trip. I hope you found one on my list that you’ll find useful. And now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re entering the Alps and I have some sightseeing to do! ?
Posted on October 7, 2018
Finally, for air travel, there are two apps I find useful. First, the Delta app for flight status. Second is the Mobile Passport app which makes it easier and faster for those (like me) without Global Entry to get through immigration at supported U.S. ports of entry.
Posted on October 7, 2018
Lacking a “DuoLingo for travelers” app, the best I’ve found (but still pretty bad) is an iPhone app called “Trip Phrases” which acts as a phrasebook for travelers and translates to several languages. There’s a big hole in the market for language learning for travelers.
Posted on October 7, 2018
Google Translate is great, but it’s still useful (and polite) to learn a little bit of the local language. I’ve looked long and hard for an app like DuoLingo that is aimed at tourists rather than those who seek fluency, but no app of the sort seems to exist. (I’d pay good money!)
Posted on October 7, 2018
For overcoming the language barrier, the Google Translate app is the best I’ve found. It can translate text you type in, or live translate text in the camera view, or even spoken words so you can (sort of) converse with others with whom you don’t share a language. Super useful.
Posted on October 7, 2018
For sightseeing in the Alps, the PeakFinder app is a lot of fun to use to identify the mountains you’re looking at. It’s also one of the most useful examples of augmented reality I’ve seen, overlaying peak names over your Alpine view. Very cool. https://www.peakfinder.org/mobile/