A first! My trip to Europe

What makes a place special when we visit it? It's people? Culture? Landscapes and scenic beauty? Food? Certain special experiences? Or if we are lucky, all of it?

This question was on loop in my mind, as I got the fabulous opportunity to tour a part of Western Europe in May. As an Indian I am happy to say that all of the above reasons are available right here, in India. Whether it is experiencing the 'athithi devo' mentality of shy locals or the rich cultural heritage of almost all states of India, or the myriad scenic places just waiting to be explored or the unparalleled gastronomic experiences that are centuries old. We even have hot air ballooning, river rafting, trekking trails...you get my drift.

And I am digressing. This blog is about my trip to Europe and an Indian's perspective of it.

In spite of all the reasons I have stated above, I must confess that Europe had always appealed to me. I have always wanted to visit the snowy Alpine slopes of Switzerland, taste the exquisite chocolates in Vienna, moon over the castles in Germany, experience the stiff upper lip British culture, check out the fashion in France and Italy, fill my stomach with Belgian waffles and what not. Those places were exotic for me and it was... nope, still is considered worth a visit of a lifetime.

Imagine my happiness and excitement when a visit to Europe just fell into our laps. It started with a good friend's invite to come visit him in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and S agreed, much to my delight. What should have been a one-country visit turned out to be a trip to four countries, as we employed the logic that since we have come this far, why not check out near by places too?

Good thinking na? So we charted our course and started planning for the trip. And I have made a crude map of the places in roughly the order we visited. We used a travel agent only to help us with visa application. We took care of the accommodation, itinerary and logistics.

Here is a very basic map showing our journey through the four countries.

http://goo.gl/maps/Ob4Vg

Before I launch into a country-wise blog update of our travel, allow me to share a few nuggets that helped S and me during the planning stage.

Planning is half the work done:

1. Get the dates finalized.

Easy as this may sound, believe me it took us the longest. S and I are one of those lucky couples who could take off when ever we wanted. So with the whole year looming ahead of us, we could choose any date to visit places. Our parameters were:

• to visit Europe in summer
• to keep our friend's dates in mind as he was working and was hosting us for two weeks
• to be able to catch any special event that we would otherwise miss.

So we planned it between May and June with about 5 days of stay in all places. Mostly we did not regret our decision, except probably in Paris which I thought needed a week at least. Everywhere we went, the sun graciously smiled down on us and only as we reached Germany did the rains catch up. Since it was summer, there was a lot of cultural events taking place all over the place - music, dance, drama, opera, you name it they have it. It made finalizing the dates a big problem. So even though we did have all the time in the world and flexibility of travel, it was so hard to decide the dates.

And that brings me to the second point. 

Do you fancy museums?

Or major tourist sites?

2. Decide what will be the nature of the trip:

This was by far the toughest decision for me. There is so much to see and do, after all Europe is considered the cultural capital of the world. Though S being a true Indian, disagrees and would like to think of it as the 'Western World.'

Or would you rather shop for local delights?

Or even check the cultural offerings everywhere?

• A trip could be planned just to enjoy the summer festivals all over. As I said earlier, there were innumerable concerts, exhibitions, operas and shows on offer. But attending a few of them everywhere would tax your itinerary to some extent.
• Or else plan a trip to just to check the art scene. There are so many museums out there just waiting to be visited and enjoyed. Great masters', Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens (my favorite), Sicily, Van Gogh and others', works are housed in the various museums. 
• If you are like me, perhaps you would like to visit the countryside and soak up the pristine, awe-inspiring surroundings. But then you would miss all the action in the city.
• Or you could prepare your must-do list and blank out the things you'd be missing out, however tempting that might be. 

No prizes for guessing which one I chose...yup the last one. Initially I just wanted to do everything everywhere, but realized early on that I wouldn't enjoy anything properly. For first timers, like me, I think a tour of all the major sights is a must and a day or two could be left to soak in the culture.

A word here. Not many are going to skip and hop across 4 countries like we did. If you are visiting just one country then you needn't have to worry too much, except try and make best use of the time.

3. Be aware of over-selling:

I agree that it does not make sense to read this point after all my gushing earlier. But let's face it. There are places and things that are over-hyped. The Manneken Pis is NOT remotely interesting and so are the many museums listed in travel guides. Even the Arc De Triomphe in Paris was similar to our Gateway of India, and I was not interested in paying 8 euros to check the view from the top of the arch when I did the same from the Eiffel Tower, just a day earlier. The tour guides and books describe certain places in such glowing detail that you feel miserable if you were to have missed it. The best way to beat this feeling this is to take a Hop off-Hop on bus tour in major cities on the first day of your trip and then leisurely visit places you liked. But this wouldn't work with museums and other special experiences which needs to be seen to be believed . The fourth point should help.

4. Troll the internet:

There are innumerable excellent websites that warn or cajole an enthusiastic traveler, if you are willing to go through the volume available online. Some websites which were useful for me were:

• Tripadvisor (rated by other travelers, so there is lesser bias)
• Lonely Planet (gives precise details and descriptions)
• Rick Steve's website (but is more suitable for Western audience)
• blogs like - Unknown Paris, Timeout Amsterdam, Frommer's Europe to name a few. Francetravelplanner and Why Go Paris being one of the best ones on Paris budget travel
• the reliable, Wiki travel, and
• the official websites of some of the countries we were visiting. Amsterdam's especially was very good and informative.

Paris and Amsterdam had the most comprehensive data on the internet. 

A word about the Hop Off-Hop On bus tours - The local tourist information centers would have a better idea and there is a better chance of this being cheaper than private companies. 

5. Walk whenever possible:

Europe is meant for walking. In places like Brussels, Brugge, Paris one can walk for miles without realizing it, taking stock only when one loses all sensation below the knees and is unsure what is propelling him/her forward. When such a feeling overcomes you, find a cafe and collapse in to one of those sturdy steel chairs, order a cafe au lait and pastry and watch others do what you were doing a while ago.

We had the best time in Paris, Brussels, Brugge and Weesp...where we had to drag each other from straying off to capture a good photo op and walk on to discover more such delights.

6. Transport and Commuting:

In spite of boasting of our extensive railway lines, I am wary about using the public transport here, in India. Delays, crowds, unclean facilities are a few deterrents. But in Europe the public transport is a different ball game altogether. The trains are clean and well connected, and the best thing...they are on time! You could confidently plan your trip down to the last minute by train and never get disappointed.

• Trains -  The Metro is the best bet for commuting with in the city. In all places, we found the Metro to be good but not as well connected as in Paris. I shall elaborate on those points when I blog about each place. 

          Hi-speed trains take you inter-city and they can be booked online. 

• Trams - The trams here are not at all like the dusty yellow ones we see in Kolkata. They are sleek and clean and are on time...to the last second! This is another nice way to commute in the city.

• Buses - We didn't use much of the buses in any of the cities, as we were content walking most of the time. For longer distances, we used the Metro or the tram. 

          We, however, used buses to travel between countries and between cities. The Eurolines was a great option. It was far cheaper than the best trains, it was clean, comfortable and afforded a great view of the countryside. Also, we booked all our tickets online much ahead of our travel, so we had hassle-free travel every time.

7. Accommodation:

The last point in this blog. This makes or breaks your entire budget. S and I were very particular of our accommodation as we wanted a place which we would like to come back to and if possible to lounge around a bit when we were not sight seeing. And we stuck to a budget of 50-70 euros a night for our stay, as we were going to other places too.

We first toyed with the idea of using Couch Surfing, a portal that connects you to people all over the world who are willing to lend their 'couch' for a few nights. It works on a general good will of hard core travelers. But I guess we were a bit old for that. We realized that we wanted privacy and some comforts and somebody accountable if things didn't meet our standards. That would be possible only if we were willing to pay for our stay. S got some good deals online.

The links which were useful for us were:

1. Bed and Breakfast
2. Airbnb
3. Late rooms


Only Airbnb.com had the facility to book and pre-pay online, confirming your holiday. The rest of the sites allowed us to only book the rooms but there was no facility to pay online. This got tricky as we had to pay them in person at the end of our stay and that too in cash. None of these B&Bs other than Airbnb accepted card payments. So if you, like us, are late in booking rooms and not through Airbnb, then be prepared to carry a lot of cash around.

We were able to book a good, clean place for as low as 50 euros per day in Paris, Brugge, Cologne and Frankfurt and that included breakfast/ use of a competent kitchenette and it interacting with people from other countries and with knowledgeable hosts; which suited me just fine being the chatterbox that I am.

There are plenty of other points that I would probably remember as I keep updating posts on this trip. But these were predominant in my planning list.

Since the tedious part of the trip is already over, you can now relax and have a nice, peaceful holiday and hope for no unpleasant surprises. Or can you? ;)