Aloha !
Yes. Here it is. With a small delay. The all mattering review of one of the two only shows of this tour that actually mattered (Cologne being the other one). I’ve been asked several times, either by PM or on this board, about how I organize these trips I do to see Bon Jovi play in other countries. Often people seem to think they cost loads and loads of cash, while in most cases quite the opposite is true when looking at the amount of travelling and sightseeing I do. I’ll try to give a complete overview on how my latest trip came together this time around, the experience I’ve had and somewhere along the lines I’ll include the review for the Milan show. This is going to be a long read, so if you’re not interested, make your snarky comment and sod off. If you only care for the review, scroll down. Really, this isn't meant as a review. It's included somewhere, but it's merely a tutorial as to how to combine a Bon Jovi concert in a proper holiday, as opposed to just flying up and down.
If you have serious interest in doing multiple shows or have interest in travelling through Europe, read on. There’s plenty of tips in here no travelling agent will give you because it saves you money by sorting your business yourself as opposed to letting someone else do it.
This tour I’ve only done one show, though had close to finished plans for 5 shows; Stuttgart, Cologne, Lisbon, Madrid and Milan. Once Richie was out I cancelled all plans apart from the one for Milan, considering I’d already booked flights I just couldn’t cancel and I’d planned a few days in other cities as well that it made the trip worth it, would the show be disappointing. My advice is never to travel solely for a show anyway, but cancelling a trip for a show you might not like when you’ve got 4 additional days planned in a foreign country is a bit over the top.
Preparation
How to start? Google maps. Google maps has, ever since I started using it in 2009, been of the best help out of all the travelling websites there are. I’ve used it to plan an entire road trip through Canada, used it to see how much I could travel in the States, and used it for a road trip through Europe in 2011. The site has never, ever been wrong in regards to how long it takes to travel from A to B. If anything, it often takes shorter to get there, unless you don’t follow the route your GPS suggests and decide you know better. Obviously you need to use a bit of common sense. 100km often takes you 1 hour or less, unless you’re driving through the alps, then it’ll take you a bit more. You’re also not driving 1400km in 14 hours. You need bathroom breaks, just the occasional break to stretch your legs or an actual break for food. Sure, you can do it in 1 day, but you’d like to arrive well rested, right? Your holiday starts the next day, there’s no point in being completely ****ed the next day because you felt you could save time by doing the drive in one day. Besides, covering it in two days often gives you the chance to actually drive or stop in a cool city for the night, so why not make the drive more fun by stopping in a city you think is beautiful anyway? Therefore, look up what cities you’re passing, and then try to find out what you could be doing there. I remember driving from Newark to Washington, finding out Baltimore was pretty close and it had one of the biggest aquariums in the world. Not bad for a stop. Cities you think are worthless might surprise you.
So Bon Jovi plays a show in (insert city)? Look up what cities are close to said city. Chances are there’s an additional city not too far away worth visiting. Ever since I started looking into organizing trips like these I enjoy looking at Google maps, so I’ve build up some experience and knowledge in regards to how the world is put together, even up to the point that in 2011, when I was in a hotel room in Rome during a trip, I’d started planning a new trip for who were then my parents in law, and I’d already looked up information for how to travel around Italy. They claimed to love Italy, so why not look into how I could give them a few more days there without it costing me an arm and a leg? Unfortunately for them, their trip never happened, but the research I did back then came to great use now. Considering how this review is supposed to be about the holiday in Milan I’ll obviously focus on this one, and to clarify things a bit, this is where the insane amount of pictures come in.
So let’s have a look at Italy, and especially the era around Milan, and see what Google maps indicates as the bigger cities in the area. Don’t worry yet as to how to get there, just focus on what cities are close to Milan.
Why focus on these cities? Well, smaller city names might have a nice ring to them, but they are just that; small.
Now go check out what there is to see in every city. Some cities are bigger than others, but some have not much to offer while others have a very old city center which is nice to walk through. Go check for museums. Don’t think museums are boring, try to be surprised by what you might find. See if the zoo or something like it is fun to visit, the options are endless. This is a time consuming job, but gives you a pretty good idea if a city is worth visiting or worth avoiding. Italy is the country of the Roman empire, but not every city has a lot of buildings left from this Roman empire. There’s plenty of cathedrals spread all over Europe/Italy, but not every single one of them is worth visiting. Wikipedia travel is a good help, though usually if you just type “[name of city] + Sightseeing” you get a few websites. What I do is a put balloons in a city at every single sight I’d like to see, meaning Milan looked like this before I actually left Holland;
There’s no way you’ll be seeing all of it, but this way you get a good idea of what a city has to offer. If you can only fill a city with 5 of these balloons chances are you’ll be utterly bored, which again, is a waste of money. You can use those cities to travel through though, in case you’re passing them by on a journey to a next city. Drop off your luggage at a train station, walk through the city, have a bite to eat and then travel to your next destination. The downside of this is that you’re doing a lot of travelling on one day, as opposed to doing a lot of sightseeing.
Now apart from the bigger cities offering the most value for your money there’s another benefit. Pretty much all of them have their own airport, and thus more airlines will fly to these places. Don’t think “I’ve got to start in Milan”, think “Somewhere along this holiday I’ve got to end up in Milan”. It gives you plenty of options when looking at the amount of airports located around Milan and gives you more options in regards to when you’re flying in and flying out. Further on, don’t think you need to arrive and leave from the same airport, if you do this you always need to come back to a place you’ve been before, meaning you spend a day travelling to a place you’ve already seen, which is a waste of time.
So look up all your options. Check what flying in at Bologna, leaving in Milan costs. Check it the other way around. Check flying in Torino, leaving in Genova, check it the other way around. This is a lot of work, but can save you hundreds of Euro’s when done this way. Check different dates, leaving on a Sunday might save you a day off from work, but leaving on a Sunday often means a pricier ticket, so what you save from taking a day off could result into a more expensive ticket, thus not making up for saving on that vacation day. Some airlines like Ryan air or Easy Jet fly to airports located outside of the city for a lot less but realize that you will then need to take the train into the city, which costs time and money, often a lot more than you think because these airports know they can ask a lot more for their shuttle service. Once checking out flights, you’ll find out similarities between prices and airlines. Alitalia, KLM, Delta and Air France are all pretty much the same airline, so prices will be similar. Once you find an airline with the cheapest prices, check their own website. Chances are the airlines are advertising with actions not put on websites like orbitz.com or a similar site. Call them for an offer, they’re sometimes able to put you on a return flight arriving with Alitalia, leaving with KLM, another thing not possible when looking up schedules on websites.
For us, flying with KLM from Amsterdam to Torino and leaving from Milan was financially the most attractive. Actually, at first I’d booked a flight arriving in Milan, leaving from Torino, but a month after said booking, Alitalia no longer flew from Torino to Amsterdam and KLM rescheduled my flight to first landing in Rome and then have a connecting flight to Torino, meaning it would take us 8 hours from Amsterdam to Torino…No thanks. Can airlines do this? Sure, but once your flight chances you’re entitled to a refund, so I again looked into flights, and then changed it to flying in at Milan, leaving from Nice. A bit of a hassle, but it’d be really worth it in the end.