Phoning home from Rome; Carl in the foreground.
Before our last trip to Spain and France I bought a phone that could be used there as well as in the U.S. (quad band, but simple). That allowed folks here to reach us at my regular number, and combined with a low-cost international calling plan we could call back home relatively inexpensively.
That part worked great, but calls within Europe, even in the same city, were outrageously expensive. I only realized after getting the bill that my calls were routed through the States. That may have been my fault, as my stored numbers contained all the international dialing prefixes. The two links below have ideas on how to avoid big surprises, especially for those of you with smartphones.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/travel/01prac.html?ref=travel
http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/best-options-for-cell-use-in-france.cfm
Taken from the train near the Spain/France border
And here's a link to a discussion I started about buying train tickets. I got lots of useful information as a result and will post more about what I learn as we go along. The TGV (Train Grande Vitesse, or very high speed) should be fun. We'll also take an older, slower train from southern France to Barcelona, a trip we made in the other direction last year. It barely saves time compared to driving, but I'd rather relax for 3.5 hours. And - this is a big deal - the drop fee in a country different from where the car rental originated, in our case France, costs as much as the train tickets, if not more.
http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/tgv-tickets-in-advance.cfm
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