Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Key to This Topic
Updates
This topic is updated regularly. For the latest, visit
www.ricksteves.com/
update
. For a valuable list of reports and experiences—good and
bad—from fellow travelers, check
www.ricksteves.com/feedback
.
Abbreviations and Times
I use the following symbols and abbreviations in this topic:
Sights are rated:
▲▲▲
Don't miss
▲▲
Try hard to see
▲
Worthwhile if you can make it
No rating Worth knowing about
Tourist information offices are abbreviated as
TI
, and bathrooms are
WCs.
To categorize accommodations, I use a
Sleep Code
(described on
Like Europe, this topic uses the
24
-
hour clock
. It's the same through
12:00 noon, then keep going: 13:00, 14:00, and so on. For anything over
12, subtract 12 and add p.m. (14:00 is 2:00 p.m.).
When giving
opening times
, I include both peak season and off-
season hours if they differ. So, if a museum is listed as “May-Oct daily
9:00-16:00,” it should be open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. from the first day
of May until the last day of October (but expect exceptions).
For
transit
or
tour departures
, I first list the frequency, then the dura-
tion. So, a train connection listed as “2/hour, 1.5 hours” departs twice each
hour and the journey lasts an hour and a half.
