by Colin Dennis

Created on: April 01, 2009   Last Updated: October 17, 2009

My son and I began our conquest of Europe in Manchester, England, where we had arrived from Toronto. After a day spent worshipping at the shrine of European and Premier League soccer, Old Trafford Stadium, where Manchester United plays, and a brief stop at the Manchester Museum, we made our way by bus to London.

In London we validated our Eurail Global Flexi passes. Along with our Eurail passes we had come armed with London and Paris Museum passes. The London Pass includes a free Travelcard, discounts at theaters and restaurants, museum tours and free entry to over 50 attractions and special exhibitions including the London Aquarium and the Globe Theater. The Paris Museum pass allows free entry, without queuing, to over 60 museums and monuments in Paris.

This trip was in part, celebration of my son's recent graduation from one of Toronto's French high school, and in part a father-and-son bonding trip. We had no elaborate plans besides trying to visit as many European countries as we could. We were of course limited to participating countries in the Eurail global universe: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France (including Monaco), Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

We had spent a great deal of time researching various travel options available to us before settling on the Eurail Global Flexipass, which suited our travel flexibility but which cost over $1,000 per person. This did not include the cost of the London and Paris Museum passes. We had also booked rooms in student hostels in Paris, Amsterdam and Budapest through a link we had found on low-cost airline Ryanair's website.

The Flexipass offers first-class travel for two to five persons traveling together. We considered the Flexi Youth Pass, which offers second-class travel for youths under the age of 26 and would have saved me money if I had purchased one for my son. But it would have meant our separation, so we opted for two adult passes. Our passes allowed us 15 unlimited travel days over two months.

During our two-day stop in London, we saw the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and visited the Tate Modern where we got to see the works of Jackson Pollack, Dali and Picasso among others. We also shoehorned the Big Red Bus Tour of London into our visit. This took us past famous sites like Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral and the

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