Salzburg + southeast Germany

wrote:

Between Merano and Bolzano if you follow plainly the signs you will
detour so many little villages and find yoursef into unnecessary
tunnels.

Errata Corrige
I meant north of Merano, between Merano and Prato allo Stelvio.

Sergio
Pisa

wrote:
wrote:

Between Merano and Bolzano if you follow plainly the signs you will
detour so many little villages and find yoursef into unnecessary
tunnels.

Errata Corrige
I meant north of Merano, between Merano and Prato allo Stelvio.

....... and, further down, looking for the way out of Merano to Lana
d'Adige and Bolzano..
At Lana d'Adige I recall seeing many foreign bike riders desperately
searching for the bike trail to jump back onto, again.
As Jobst correctly says, it is not easy at all to find the old route
for Bolzano; you need to hop to the other side of the river, but no
signs point you there. As a matter of fact, once you hit that road you
rejoice, since there is so little traffic. No wonder!

Sergio
Pisa






Sergio
Pisa

R Brickston wrote
Unless Cingular has significantly dropped their international
roaming rates, it is cheaper to buy the SIM card and use an unlocked GSM
phone.

Yes, I think that getting a local country SIM card is generally cheaper, if
you're going to use the phone a lot. Usually you need to have your own
_unlocked_ GSM phone in order to use them. Both unlocked phones and country
SIM cards can be purchased from Web stores.

U.S. mobile services other than Cingular also offer international roaming
accounts for GSM phones. If you intend to use the account for multiple
trips, I'd suggest finding a deal that lets you take only their SIM card,
and use it with your own (unlocked) GSM phone -- instead of renting or
purchasing a package with a locked GSM phone that will not permit you to
switch to a local-country SIM card.

Advantages of a local-country SIM card for GSM phone:
* often cheaper rates in the local country -- provided you intend to send or
receive enough calls to use a significant amount of the prepaid minutes.
* if you have local-country riding partners who want to call you, then your
number will be an in-country call for them.
* some of the local-country plans also have international roaming. (e.g. the
Sunrise SIM card I've got for Switzerland worked fine in other countries.)

Disadvantages:
* if you use up the minutes on the SIM card, you have to purchase a
recharge -- available at lots of local shops (some services have ways to pay
for recharge by phone call or website)
* phone menu prompts might not be in a language you know well (some SIM
cards allow you to select English)
* voice-mail prompts might not be in a language you know well (some services
allow you to select English)
* some SIM cards expire after 9 months, so if you come back to Europe every
year around July, you might have to purchase a new SIM card with a new phone
number (but some Euro SIM cards stay active for 12 months, and at least one
says it will hold your phone number for 18 months)

Advantages of an account provided thru a U.S. company:
* no limit on minutes, no need to recharge
* phone number does not expire
* phone text prompts and voice-mail are in English
* if you don't travel often outside U.S. + Canada, tends to reduce
complexity.

Ken

Ken Roberts wrote:
R Brickston wrote
Unless Cingular has significantly dropped their international
roaming rates, it is cheaper to buy the SIM card and use an unlocked GSM
phone.

Yes, I think that getting a local country SIM card is generally cheaper, if
you're going to use the phone a lot. Usually you need to have your own
_unlocked_ GSM phone in order to use them. Both unlocked phones and country
SIM cards can be purchased from Web stores.


Of course, either strategy presumes one has a phone with the proper
bands. For those who do not follow such things, GSM in Europe (and
most of the world) is 900MHz and 1800 MHz bands, in the US GSM is on
1900MHz and 850MHz. The older 900 MHz band is most widespread, so it
is imperative in most any phone you want to use outside the US.

- rick 'who always carries a quad-band unlocked GSM phone'

wrote:
Ken Roberts wrote:
Europe is rather varied, I reckon.
Let me talk Italy.
Identification numbers of the roads are not always easy, nor possible,
to spot.
You invariable have to rely on signs telling destination towns: these
are always there.
Which towns in that direction is up to the Authority that put up the
signs; so often they are simply stupid, and they can be quite
misleading.

Based on riding in South Tirol and across the Po Valley towars Torino I
have to agree with Servadio. The destinations on the signs seem to be
randomly chosen, it's a nightmare. Anytime the road number was
sign-posted it wasn't marked on my TCI map (and that's Italian). In
South Tirol things are easier because of the narrow valleys, you can use
your nose, as Jobst said. Driving around Sicilian country roads had the
same difficulties, signs are cryptic.

France is easy, since every junction has the road number marked,
Switzerland is easy since every junction has both the logical
destinations and the road number sign-posted.

Jan Lindström

Good point on the frequency bands.

The other thing to consider is who you're _call_ on the phone if you get in
trouble out on a ride and don't know much of the local country language.
Good to do that research in advance -- not wait until you're standing on a
lonely roadside in the cold rain with your front rim in a pretzel shape.

Of course there are the country's emergency numbers.
But sometimes it's not a "true" emergency -- more like a major mechanical
breakdown, for which you might want some help, so . . .

Other likely possible phone numbers to find people to speak English a
* local tourist office (for hours when they're open)
* hotel where you just stayed last night, or are planning to stay this
night - (If you included "likelihood of speaking English" in your selection
of possible lodging for the area -- sometimes the proprietors don't speak
English, but their daughter learned it from TV + movies + songs).

Those numbers are pretty easy to find in a Web search before I leave. I
don't put most numbers into my phone, just have them printed or written down
in a dry place.

If you want to have more options available, there's other phone numbers
which might come in handy:
* taxi services
* bicycle shops
Doesn't hurt to have multiple phone numbers, just keep calling different
ones until you find someone who can speak enough English to help -- or some
Taxi companies advertise English in their phone directory listings.

The telephone directories of lotsa major European countries are on the
web -- searchable much like U.S. "yellow pages" by type of business -- but
sometimes figuring out the search interface and guessing the right business
topic words and place names is not easy. So whether Sharon and I get those
numbers depends on how fearful we're feeing and how much time we have free
before we leave the U.S. -- and how much we're feeling like finding phone
numbers in another country is an interesting puzzle.

Ken