No grand typo tour would be complete with out a pilgrimage to Trajan’s Column.

Do a bit of traveling around Holland. It’s not big, and the design culture can be seen in everyday things like signs, architecture, transit, etc. I’m always blown away by the quality of Dutch signage!

—John

Sadly, Trajan’s Column “or at least the inscription part” is covered by scaffolding right now. You can make out that it’s there, but it’s hard to get a good look. Rome is chock full of other inscriptions, though. There are some real gems in the Forum.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/sculpture/cast_courts/index.html

Casts of Trajan’s column are available at the V&A in London.

Tim

There’s lots of old shop signage in Madrid, (or there was when I went 8 years ago anyway). It’s a very underrated city BTW - everyone goes on about Barcelona, but I liked Madrid better.

Nick Cooke

You could go to Budapest, the places, the people, the museums are great, not to mention the hungarian food.

I can recommend Berlin heartily. There are a lot of day-trip destinations that you can sort of radiate out to that are type-appropriate.

Barcelona scores high on all of your checklist

I highly recommend Florence, Paris, and Barcelona and even Rome. They all have lots of museums and interesting cultures and foods. I haven’t been to Berlin before, but that’s one place I’d love to go to someday. Amsterdam has some nice things too. I have to admit I wasn’t a type fanatic before going to Europe in 1999, and I hadn’t even taken a graphic design course yet, but I know if I went back now I’d just eat up all the design.

Of course, Italy is home of the Vespa and the Ferrari. The BMW factory/museum is in Stuttgart.

You could to go Bern, Switzerland, and see the home of Swiss modernism.

>The BMW factory/museum is in Stuttgart.

The BMW factory/museum is in Munich. DaimlerChrysler is in Stuttgart.

Thessaloniki this June would be my choice if someone had made a gift trip.

ChrisL

You could to go Bern, Switzerland, and see the home of Swiss modernism.

i’d rather say you should come to zurich. way better nightlife, a nice design museum and a beautiful lake ;)

berlin is great, as is barcelona, london and paris.

How long do you plan on staying?

Maybe the best advice about (continental) Europe is that it’s so small, you’re always near something interesting.

If you end up anywhere near Belgium (say, France, Germany, Netherlands) I strongly suggest a trip to Antwerp to see the Plantin Moretus-Museum.

In fact, if you’re under 25 and you own an international student card, many train trips will cost you half the regular rate.

Don’t forget to get the student-priced Eurail card.

So many choices!

The Eurail Student Pass looks really cool. Also, I’ve never even been on a train before!

A question:

We’re (My girlfriend and I) looking very seriously at Berlin and surrounding areas. (However, this is definitely subject to change, as I find all European places intensely interesting) How much German should I know while in the Berlin area? I want to make myself understood, but I also don’t want to be so basic that I’m talking like a German caveman.

Zurich and Antwerp are two other places we’re interested in...The printing museum in Antwerp looks VERY interesting (for me, at least). Is it feasible to stay in Berlin and visit these other cities?

I’ve got 2 weeks, and I want to see a lot, but also be relatively low key as far as amount of time traveling.

Thank you all so much,

Eric

I speak German fluently, albeit with a horrendous Baltimore accent. However, one can get by as a tourist quite well in Germany with just English. In my experience, this has been a little more difficult in Italy and France. Here in Germany, though, many will immediately switch to English when they begin to hear me talk, which is not necessary, although I always appreciate that they are trying to be helpful.

If you stay in Berlin and want to go to Antwerp and Zurich, it would be best to take the train to one of them, and then stay in that city for a night or two (or longer!) and then return to Berlin. Zurich must be 8 hours away from Berlin, even via fast train. Maybe Antwerp can be reached in four? But don’t forget Dessau and Weimar. These are easy day trips from Berlin.

zurich is probably more than 8 hours by train from berlin. you can take an overnight train though, http://www.citynightline.ch/citynightline/view/eng_index.shtml. if you book those things early you’ll get it quite cheap, too.

if you only have two weeks though, i’d hardly do more than 2 cities. for me 4 days is the smallest amount of time possible to get to know a city (a tiny little bit), and esp. with you having never been to europe, maybe one or two cities really would be the best.

in zurich you should easily be able to get by with english only, just the other day i helped two indonesian girls to find their way around the city. we’re nice people ;)

Ah, yes, Weimar and Dassau. Those are definitely on the list too :)

There’s just so much to see, it’s hard to decide what to see first!

last summer, i visited Didot’s grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris...

and the Trajan Column in rome (back to carol twombly...)

@ChrisL: Why Thessaloniki? What’s happening there this June?

@Brad: Below is a link to their conference site:

http://ictvc.org/3/125/

ChrisL

The Trajan column....I remember studying that in Art History.
I’ve tried looking up Durer...I’d really like to see some of his work in person, but I can’t find anything on a Museum related to him...anyone know if he is being shown anywhere?

I was crushed to discover this is the view of Trajan’s Column right now:

But there are plenty of other gems around town:

A shot of it in the Victoria & Albert Museum cast court.

Those crazy Romans and their crazy Latin abbreviations!

If you find the Plantin Moretus-Museum interesting, I would highly recommend that you also go to the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz.

Man, I didn’t know there were contextual alternates thousands of years ago! Look, there is a substitution for U with V :-)

ChrisL

I believe the Klingspor museum is also in Mainz. We visited the Gutenberg and the Klingspor in the same day. IIRC.

CHRISLYOVRESVCHAFVNNYGVY·SVCHAWONDERFVLSENSEOFHVMO[V]R

anksThay icEray :-)

ChrisL

My vote would go for Holland, as I’m also very impressed by the overal amount and quality of design in everything. There’s also interesting modern architecture to see if you dig around. It’s nice to rent a bike and drive around.. remember to visit other places than Amsterdam too.

For a two week trip it’s worthwile to visit East Berlin, there’s certainly a lot going on currently.

EDIT: Just wanted to add as a human, not as a designer, that I’ll rather travel around Eastern Europe, and not only because it’s cheaper and the food is better. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like the places are more alive. You also get along with a very slow english and making signs. Maybe a train trip like Prague-Krakow-Budapest-Kroatia? I’ve never been to Kroatia, but I think maybe this summer..