Euro trip prep!

When my country's economy was in doldrums, when the exchange rate had caught up with my grandfathers age and when it was most likely that my access card would mysteriously stop working, we (my wife and I, we agree on these kind of decisions) decided to troop off to europe for a 14 day holiday. 

Disclaimer: You could replace I with We everywhere  in the rest of the note, but since a lot of these are opinions I am keeping it to “I” so I don’t get the boot later. At the same time, it might be in my best interest to admit my wife was phenomenal in finding out great things to do during our trip which made this one of the best holidays ever!

Its funny how when you add expensive tickets (september is peak season, or just off, maybe the second highest peak), expensive hotels ("We arent college students anymore. There was a time for backpacking, we should stay in good hotels now!" "Ofcourse we want the mountain view, I dont care if it costs the same as another room"), expensive currency (Damn you exchange rate. Damn you to fucking hell")....its funny when you add all the above (Unhelpful trivia: In France you could ask for the bill or ask for l'addotion (phonetically its luddi cyon)  which means addition but also means the cheque!), its funny how when you add all of the above what you end up with is a priceless holiday.

I would like to tell you a bit of what we did, how we travelled around, what we ate and saw, the people we met and the places we avoided. Any useful tips or tricks I shall italicize.

The Flight to

We took the Lufthansa flight to Paris, it took off just after midnight and reached at 10:30 am Paris time.

Tip 1: I guess experiences on flights vary, but I am never going to do Lufthansa again. They DID NOT have inflight entertainment. I mean they did have gujjus but I don’t think we can give Lufthansa credit for that. We flew Swissair back, much nicer crew!

Paris -> Basel -> Interlaken -> Basel -> Mulhouseville -> Nice -> Pisa -> Grosetto-> Rome ..is what we ended up with.

  

Currency

I took enough euros to cover for 100 euros a day (that’s budget for two people for food, museum tickets, fridge magnets and the like, more on this later). I also took enough euros for the entire hotel stay so that I didn’t have to take out my credit card. This was in some ways a budgeting trick so I didn’t spend more than I had as well as ensuring the credit card was open for emergencies (having to rebook or some other emergency God Forbid). This was also good to not be impacted by currency fluctuations. Fact: I actually ended up spending more because I bought euros, the exchange rate moved in favour of the rupee during my stay, but a known devil is one I prefer. I am definitely not in the business of trying to make or lose money on buying / selling euros, instead I would like to have a fixed budget for a holiday and not be surprised at the end of it.

Tip: Stow the money in multiple bags / locations so that in case it gets stolen you have backup.

Tip: We also kept a count of how much we spent by noting it down on the phone. This helps because the spends during a day really add up. You will be surprised how after doing nothing during the day you will have 100 euros less. A gelato here, a water bottle there, a few museum tickets, one boat ride, god I have to have another pink and green macaroon, a few more museum tickets and BOOM. The other thing it does is noting expenses helps pull you back from making spends you will regret and also helps push you to spend on some other crazy stuff you will enjoy. E.g Didn’t buy a burberry bag. Did spend an extra 20 euros to go up the Montmarte building to get a glorious view of the Eiffel Tower. Never hold back on expenses related to seeing, eating, drinking on holiday. I would hold back on high street - retail expenses especially if you aren’t on a splurge spree (Ladies please note, my wife did some good shopping in Rome but she found it pointless as did I to buy 150 euro boots in Paris)

  

The Eurrail Pass and How I went about it

The Eurrail pass is a handy tool that lowers cost of travel within a country, within two countries, three or the entire bunch of them. It also gives you discounts on some local boat rides, metro tickets and some shopping. I found the site www.eurrail.in very handy since the prices are in rupees and they delivered the tickets to my address in India within 3 days of booking the tickets online.

First we made an iternanary (this word itenary is something I shall never be able to spell without autocorrect or the dictionary on Microsoft word).

So as I was saying, first we made an itinerary of places we wanted to see. Checked all the rates on the website for intercity travel and then did the same thing again after clicking the “I have a eurrail pass” option. I found the two country France-Switzerland pass saved me money so decided to buy that one. They have two classes on the train – conveniently named first and second with the first class ones usually costing a tad more than second. The passes are usually valid for 3 days / 4 days / 5 days. You need to write the date on the pass, and as long as you write the date, all travel within or between the countries where the pass is valid is free!.

Tip   : Take the second class tickets unless you have over-night trains. On overnight trains first class tickets are sleepers and second class tickets are well reclining seats. Also make an excel file comparing the rates by booking directly and with the pass. You also don’t need to make reservations for traveling within a country on the local trains. We made the mistake of making reservations for local trains by paying 8 euros each but you could use the pass to just sit directly on the train without a reservation! You do need a reservation though for all overnight trains, inter-city trains and some scenic trains (some trails in Switzerland cost more because the views are gorgeous)

I suggest you take second class, I paid maybe 10-15% more for the tickets and travelled first and didn’t find it particularly fantastic. There was no wifi, there usually wasn’t much food and unlike India where the difference between first class and third class can mean air conditioning, a hygienic bathroom and the opportunity to have your gold chain stolen, the standards of air conditioning and hygiene in the bathroom are high everywhere in Europe. They also didn’t seem to be snatching chains on the train in general.

Tip: An overnight train isn’t very strenuous. It also saves 100 euros worth of a hotel stay. I wouldn’t suggest finding one just to save hotel money, but if it so happens that you need an overnighter to go from city 1 to city 2 do not rule it out. The trains are fabulous and the savings don’t hurt.