Thursday, June 4, 2009

Sometimes it Pays to Be a Slacker

Anyone planning a trip to Europe that will include a visit to any of the major museums, has probably gotten all sorts of advice about arriving super early so as to get a good spot in the queue. Same for major local attractions such as Pearl Harbor, the Empire State Building, etc. The length of these queues is the stuff of legends: 3-hour waits to see the Sistine Chapel, or the view from the top of the Empire State Building are not unheard of.

Consummate late-risers that we are, we never arrive anywhere before 10am, especially while travelling, unless it's for a flight (for some reason, all our flights seem to depart before sunrise!) But it seems to work out to our advantage and I think I've stumbled on a rarely discussed travel secret. There's no need to get to the Louvre or the Uffizi Gallery at 7:00 am to get a good place in line. Rather, show up shortly before noon (or even later), as is our habit, and you will find all the conscientious and very self-disciplined visitors have already cleared the line!

This straggler approach has rewarded us with an almost solo visit with David at the Accademia Gallery in Florence, a closeup one-on-one with the Mona Lisa, and a mere 10 minute wait at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, when naysayers told us not to bother trying to go there after 10 am. In addition to missing the line, in European locations, our timing usually means everyone else has run off for lunch so we get the double bonus of experiencing almost empty halls.

So for those who have the resolve to obey the 6 am alarm while on vacation, and are willing to spend half the day lining up for a single attraction, more power to you, but we prefer to stay up all night watching funny foreign language tv, trying to figure out what they're saying, while we share a bottle of local wine and review the day's adventures, and we know we can count on you to have the queue cleared for our noon-time arrival after our luxuriously late breakfast.

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