Exploring Europe - a self planned trip to few cities in Europe
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Thanks, much appreciated.
I have this bad/good habit of penning down each and every expense, even if it’s a single rupee I spend so I will put up the category/city and currency wise expense too in some time.
It would have been much better if u have made a complete vlog and upload that on youtube..
I myself don’t like to watch vlogs so I don’t think I would have made one either. It kills the fun of exploring and enjoying the moment, would rather spend time in recording things if I were to create a vlog
Done with penning down first 2 days of the trip and it’s already a super long post. Looks like I need to publish a mini book now
Superbly written. Anxiously waiting for the forthcoming parts.
Thanks. Will update more either tonight or tomorrow.
Very well documented.
Liked the expenses spreadsheet xD
Are the total expenses yours alone ? Or did you include expenses of your partner too ? ( Flights , food etc. )
Keep the updates coming
Thanks. All the expenses listed are for both of together, for 2 adults
I searched for the best deals and made sure I am not spending too much for any and every booking I made before starting our trip but once we were there I never restricted either myself or my wife if we had to go out to have a meal or have a dessert or go see something.
Thanks you
Just sharing my experience so that it motivates and makes it easy for others to travel too
Updated all the details right until I exit from Switzerland. Will write my experience about Paris and Rome later. Thanks for the interest so far guys
Updated Few relevant videos from my experiences in Switzerland
Amazing… Glued to this …
how much is Swiss pass for? I had calculated.. it was not much worth for money you end up paying..
Looking forward for Italy and France updates….
Thank you
A 3 day Swiss pass costs CHF 225 per person and the per day cost goes lower as you take a longer duration pass. A 15 day pass costs CHF 485 only in comparison.
Swiss pass saves a lot if you go around quite a bit. Again, it depends on your schedule and itinerary.
For us, a ride from Zurich airport to lucerne costs CHF 30 per head, only Lucerne to interlalen round trip costs CHF 66, ride up to Stanserhorn costs CHF 70, Titlis costs CHF 92 but we paid 50% anyways, Schilthorn costs CHF 96 I guess. We used the pass for trains to Lauterbrunnen and Murren as well apart from this. Also, a round trip on the boat in lake Lucerne apart from these. Basically, we ended up saving a lot by having the swiss pass.
Will update my experiences at Paris and Rome too, mostly today for Paris. I want to pen them all down when my memories are fresh.
Thanks and KG for the detailed Post. Much appreciated.
Would love to see the details of the remaining tour
Experiences in Paris
And then we head over to Paris. Having spent 3 nights and 4 days in Switzerland, the entry into Paris was very contrasting. We moved away from the lush green mountains, snow, deserted and pleasant villages to highly populated city that’s buzzing all day and all night!
We wanted to ensure we reach our room with all plans set in place so we spent time at the tourist information centre right at the Charles De Gaulle Airport before starting our journey.
Before reaching Paris, we heard a lot about how big an issue pickpocketing is and how easily they target people with “Tourist” all over their face. So even though we got a travel pass that ensures travel right from Airport to the city as well we still were looking for alternatives to travel in a safe way. I mean, it’s too difficult to handle the heavy luggage in a crowded metro and also try and protect our pockets.
Travel in Paris
Well, to being with, there are many passes that offer a mix of monument/museum entry to local transport access only to a mix of both and added things like hop on hop off bus and other added attractions too! I will talk only about the most sought after passes, their benefits and the one we ended up choosing.
Before I begin, Paris is divided into 5 zones. Almost all the tourist attractions are in the core of the city which is the busiest part and these are called Zone 1-3, the other prominent places to keep track of in Zone 4-5 are CDG airport, Orly Airport, Palace of Versailles, Disney Land and Roland Garros (now that the French Open is going on ).
Navigo Decouverte – the cheapest and the one 99% of the tourists are not aware of. People get to hear about it rarely and so they skip. Even the tourist information centres fail to mention about it and up sell an expensive version specifically made for tourists called the Paris Visite Pass.
Navigo Decouverte has two parts, the card itself and the validity. The pass is a RFID card that costs Euro 5 per person as a one time fee. Do note, it is a must to stick a passport photo and sign the card else it’s deemed invalid. So make sure you carry a passport photo, in the worst case scenario there are instant photo booths all around that you can rely on but why spend more when you can carry a photo and save some money?
The validity. A week long validity for all zones 1-5 costs just Euro 22.8 per person. This includes access to bus, metro and RER lines which are the only one you need when you travel across Paris as a tourist.
One major drawback is that the week pass starts every Monday of the week and ends on Sunday so if your travel is split across two weeks, such as Friday to Tuesday, the you will have to get the pass for 2 weeks.
Paris Visite – this is specifically made for tourists and is a much expensive option that is promoted across all the tourist information centres too. It provides same access like the Navigo Decouverte pass does but costs much higher. Typically, a 5 days (any 5 continuous days) for all zones 1-5 costs 72 Euros.
Paris Pass – It’s an offering from a private company that provides access to all major attractions, zone 1-3 transport access, 1 day hop on hop off tour, Seine river cruise and more attractions but it starts at 160 Euros for a 2 day pass and around 196 Euros for a 4 day pass. Not really useful as you hardly have enough time to cover so much.
We went for a one week Navigo Decouverte pass as our stay was for 4 nights from Thursday to Monday with just a checkout on Monday morning.
One other thing to keep in mind. No matter where you are in zone 1-3 you will always find a metro station in less than 500 meters, amazing connectivity. They literally built a while city underground. You see a few metro stations having platforms 5 level deep too!
Would like to discuss further about the metro system. The only difficult part to navigate is to find the platform of the train you would like to board, each route has a dedicated platform so in short once you reach the right platform just board the train that comes in front of you without even bothering to check as trains of that route only come on that platform. To make it easier you find the whole route put up before entering the platform to check if that’s the train you have to board and even after you get in the train, each and every door has the route paste on top of the door for reference. Makes it lot easier to check how many stops you have to wait before you get off the train.
On day 1
Having reached Paris late on day 1, at around 07:30 PM, we just rested for around 30 minutes and started with our dinner chores. Oh, by the way, we were staying in an AirBnB rented place so that we have an option of cooking our breakfast and dinner each day. We carried some basic stuff to prepare basic south India meal for dinner each day so that our bodies get a break from the typical European food that have to eat all day during our trip.
Once done with our dinner we headed over to a place called Trocadero. Each evening, from 10:00 PM to 10:05 PM, that’s just a span of 5 minutes, the Eiffel Tower is illuminated with sparkling lights and it’s as beautiful as it can get. The sky just barely lit with a dark blue background and the Eiffel Tower glitters in glory, a sight to fall in love with!
The glittering Eiffel Tower captured at 10:00 PM in the night, well it’s still not completely dark even at 10:00 PM
Eiffel Tower gloriously glittering. A view from Trocadero
PS: you find hawkers selling eiffel tower key chains and other souvenirs. Will be surprised to see them talking in bit of hindi too. Thank you Indian tourists, you made it happen!
On our way back, it was almost 11:00 PM by the time we reached the metro near our stay which was just 350 meters away. While getting out of the metro we were afraid how things would be on the streets that late into night but damn this city felt safe. We have seen many single women going around too without any fear. We returned back home most of the days in Paris and not one were we uncomfortable or unsafe.
And that’s a wrap for a tiresome day 1.
ADDING MORE PICS AND CONTENT LATER.
@kiranmrk thank you.
@rainmaker thank you. The remaining part of my trip will be updated too soon, will try to complete Paris travel experience by tomorrow as I anyways have 24 hours to make any edits to the post.
@dearajay thought about it but skipped it. My wife does not get on board even a single or simplest of the rides as she has a fear of such things so Disney Park was out of question and we were not sure if we would really want to spend time at Disney World so skipped it completely. We will anyways travel to either Singapore or Hong Kong or USA in the next two years so will cover Disney there. Spending so much on each day of stay in Europre we didn’t want to go for Disney but rather use it for something else. Stay in US or Singapore is lot cheaper as in US we anyways stay with friends/relatives and Singapore as such is lot cheaper than Paris.
Photo booth always help to make our trip memorable.
Stopped updating this post as I was working on putting it all up on a blog to consolidate better.
So here is a post on my experience in Switzerland, sub blogs coming up soon. Also, will pend down different posts for Paris and Rome.
@raghupro did you try falafelL’as du Fallafel ? It is something not to miss…..
@raghupro what was the total cost. I mean all inclusive…? I’m planning for next year.
Mentioned in the first pic along with split up. It cost us 3.7 lakhs for a couple and that’s all inclusive, right to every minute expense we incurred apart from shopping.
The baking class my wife attended cost 10k and one lunch at Swiss cost us almost 7k, cut down these two and you can easily complete the trip in 3.5 lakhs all inclusive. We never restricted ourselves in terms of what we want to do or eat and enjoyed everything we wanted to.
Great Post Buddy…will surely look into this in future.
VU & lots of KG bro……really mesmerized by the minute details and pics/videos you shared…..Dream destination
@raghupro just now saw, u mentioned flight tickets costed you 57k up and down… i am unable to get anything below 80k… was there any major sale going on then?
No major sale bro. It’s all about picking the right combination and dates.
The only possible combination was the dates I travelled on and from mumbai to Zurich return ticket. Any change pushed the price much higher.
We visited last year 11 days total trip, 5 days Paris (1 day extra due to train cancellation), 1.5 days Switzerland, 1 day Venice, 2 days Rome, 0.5 day Munich. The half days are due to travel. My initial budget was 2.75-3lacs for 2 people when I planned, but it got over 3.25lacs due to increase in Euro rates. (74 → 80-82). Self planning took a lot of patience and lost night sleeps, but it was totally worth it. Will do it again if I can save that much again.. not likely for next few years though. Based on my rough calculations, we saved approx 1 lacs on what travel agencies would have charged.
about the flight tickets bro?
Well written @raghupro thanks for helping me to plan our trip. I have few doubts regarding europe trip.
1. Schengen visa – is ITR Mandatory? I am self employed with 2 yr itr with 4L income. And i have only 1L in bank account after all bookings- flights,hotels, attractions etc. But i have 8L limit in credit card. Do they accept credit card limit?
2. Can you help me with the flight tickets? Dates are flexible anytime after may.
4 days in dubai
15 days in europe
I always rely on Google Flights for finding the best deals. Typically you get best fares from Mumbai/New Delhi but at times you would be finding surprisingly good deals from Bangalore and in rare cases Hyderabad.
Search as source: Mumbai and Destination: Europe. It shows fare to every location on the map, the more you zoom in the more number of places that are visible. Typically Rome/Geneva/Paris have a bit more affordable prices for flights.
As far as financials go, DM me.
Sorry for digging a very old thread out. I was pleasantly surprised by a refund email that I received few days ago and wanted to share about it.
My flight plan to return back to India during my europe vacation was to take a flight from Rome to Zurich in the night, then catch a flight from Zurich to Mumbai and then Mumbai to Hyderabad on the next day. But sadly, in the last minute, the flight from Rome to Zurich was cancelled by Vueling Airlines and we missed out flight to India as well subsequently. I was quite stressed at that moment but immediately checked for flights and booked a flight from Rome to New Delhi for the next afternoon which costed me Rs. 51k for 2 adults (felt it was a good price booking flight a day before travel). But the flights from Delhi to Hyderabad cost us additional 30k more for 2 adults.
But the best things happened post that.
1. We got an overnight relaxed free stay and free food at a 4 star hotel until we boarded the flight next day, this provided by Vueling Airlines for their mistake.
2. Against spending 81k for flight tickets rebooked. We got refund of Rs. 70000 from ICICI Lombard for having travel insurance (Rs. 35000 per head which was the limit) and Rs. 40000 (Euro 500, Euro 250 per adult) as compensation for sudden cancellation of flights as per EU norms. So a profit of Rs. 30000 approximately for cancelled flights
After we reached India, having heard terrible feedback about Veuling, we filed a complaint on AirHelp.com to help us with compensation of 500 Euros for cancelled flights. AirHelp said they will charge 250 Euros as their fees for court charges etc and we would eventually get only 250 Euros when we do. We accepted to it.
2 years later and even after getting compensation directly from Veuling after battling for 3 months, we received an email from AirHelp 2 days ago that they won the case and paid me 250 Euros as compensation for cancelled flights. So additional 21k refund that we got
So for spending 81k to rebook flights, we could get a refund of 1.3 lakhs and a relaxing stay at a 4 star hotel. I guess things happen for a reason in the end
So for spending 81k to rebook flights, we could get a refund of 1.3 lakhs and a relaxing stay at a 4 star hotel. I guess things happen for a reason in the end
Bhagwan aisi kismat har kisi ko de mere bhai.
One question, for traveling purposes which card offers minimum forex rate charges? Debit or prepaid cards and not the credit one’s?
From where did you buy the insurance?