[dave7377]

Originally Posted by nowwhat?

Thanks, Amit for details about the B&B in Rome! I really, really want to go there!

Just to give you a little bit of background, I lived in the US for many years. We, my family, used to prepare and have Indian food. However the utensils were mostly purchased from India on my occasional trips here and all ingredients were easily available in Indian shops in the US.

The truth is, it never struck me that I could make a trip to Europe lugging some essentials from here. The last time I landed in Switzerland from the US, I was shocked at prices even in the interior parts of that country. I still remember the ignominy of paying separately for a sachet of ketchup on top of the already inflated price of french fries at McDonalds (Again bear in mind I came from the US where MickeyD is considered pedestrian).

I don't think I can survive on microwave cooking for more than a day.

Now if only you or Chetan can put together a small list of what I should take!

Hi,
Rome is really beautiful and take enough time with you to visit the city. Regarding what to carry would depend on a number of things like
- Number of days you are travelling.
- number of persons and luggage you have with you excluding the eatables / utensils
- your budget
- for how many days can you eat italian or local cuisine
(for example even though we rented the apartment in Rome we only had breakfast and food for our 2 yrd old child there as we liked italian food and so though of tasting authentic italian food when you are in Rome. But then we were in ROme for only 3 days and so could survive on Italian food).
But in general my advice is that one should always try to taste local cuisine as far as possible as it also forms a part of your travel experience.

Also at some places Indian food is not that costly. For example recently in Prague we ate at an Indian restaurant called Golden tikka and cost was quite reasonable comapred to EUropean standards. Like we paid Czk 560 (approx INR 1490 or approx 24 EUro for 4 adults and 1 child for an alacarte menu).
So you can check beforehand the various indian restaurants in the cities you wanna visit, their prices and then accordingly decide what and how much you need to carry.
if you need any help do feel free to contact me
regards
amit

[Chethan B G]

Originally Posted by dave7377

Hi,
Rome is really beautiful and take enough time with you to visit the city. Regarding what to carry would depend on a number of things like
- Number of days you are travelling.
- number of persons and luggage you have with you excluding the eatables / utensils
- your budget
- for how many days can you eat italian or local cuisine
(for example even though we rented the apartment in Rome we only had breakfast and food for our 2 yrd old child there as we liked italian food and so though of tasting authentic italian food when you are in Rome. But then we were in ROme for only 3 days and so could survive on Italian food).
But in general my advice is that one should always try to taste local cuisine as far as possible as it also forms a part of your travel experience.

Also at some places Indian food is not that costly. For example recently in Prague we ate at an Indian restaurant called Golden tikka and cost was quite reasonable comapred to EUropean standards. Like we paid Czk 560 (approx INR 1490 or approx 24 EUro for 4 adults and 1 child for an alacarte menu).
So you can check beforehand the various indian restaurants in the cities you wanna visit, their prices and then accordingly decide what and how much you need to carry.
if you need any help do feel free to contact me
regards
amit

. Self-catering is viable only if the total travel duration is more than 10 days. Otherwise, it is not worth the trouble! - Definitely not for a one week trip. Idea is - Self catering gives us scope to stretch the duration of the trip with the same budget, if we are on a shoestring budget.

Tasting local cuisine is a must - Definitely a part of the travel experience. On a long trip, we get a lot of opportunities to do that, since we can not cook every day. 80% is the best we have achieved - Balance 20% of the time we eat out - Sometimes, that can be a local cuisine.

Indian restaurats are not always costly, like you said. The problem is that we may not get the right one when required. In Rome, there is one Indian restaurant beside "Vittorio Emanuele" Metro station. Restaurant name is "Sri Krishna". This is a good one. But if we are near Colosseo, and want to have lunch, this is the nearest one. That can be a problem sometimes, if we are on a 3 day trip to Rome and do not have time.

I would say that a minimum of 3 full days are required to meaningfully see things in Rome. That is excluding the day of arrival and departure. 5 days would be comfortable if you need to visit a couple of museums.

Colosseo and Roman Forum - 1 day
Vatican city, St.Peter's Basilica, Vatican Museum & S.Maria in Trastevere - 1 day
Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Piazza Venezia and other attrations in the city - 1 day

[AlphaKilo]

Chethan sir, superb travelogue. Fantastic planning and summed up nicely. I guess you visited almost the all the important places and yes one has to sacrifice one for the other. Jungfrau hasnt got much to see and on the whole Swiss is damm costly. I was in geneva in the last week and experienced it first hand, but 5 mins of travel, you cross into the french side of geneva and you are back in cheap lifestyle again!!surprising but true. I stayed in a hotel Mont Blanc with a view of mont blanc near geneva airport. our visit was to CERN so this was the closest.

If you plan to visite europe again, do drop into Weingarten(wine garden) one awesome village around lake constance. Well, you can even visit Lindau and in general baden-wüttenberg/bayern is always quite beautiful especially between april - august or nov-jan(for winter lovers). One whole vacation can be spent alone for the villages around these two states.

[M00M]

@Chetan: Great pictures and detailed travelogue. Can you shed some light on how you booked the apartments every where you went ? do you have some links or websites ? Thanks.

[Chethan B G]

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

Chethan sir, superb travelogue. Fantastic planning and summed up nicely. I guess you visited almost the all the important places and yes one has to sacrifice one for the other. Jungfrau hasnt got much to see and on the whole Swiss is damm costly. I was in geneva in the last week and experienced it first hand, but 5 mins of travel, you cross into the french side of geneva and you are back in cheap lifestyle again!!surprising but true. I stayed in a hotel Mont Blanc with a view of mont blanc near geneva airport. our visit was to CERN so this was the closest.

If you plan to visite europe again, do drop into Weingarten(wine garden) one awesome village around lake constance. Well, you can even visit Lindau and in general baden-wüttenberg/bayern is always quite beautiful especially between april - august or nov-jan(for winter lovers). One whole vacation can be spent alone for the villages around these two states.

Thanks!

I will keep this in mind. This place is in South Germany - Right?

Originally Posted by M00M

@Chetan: Great pictures and detailed travelogue. Can you shed some light on how you booked the apartments every where you went ? do you have some links or websites ? Thanks.

Thanks!

I booked the apartments through Internet, 2 months before starting my trip. Websites and links are listed in my Itinerary. Please go through the first post on this thread.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by Chethan B G

Thanks!

I will keep this in mind. This place is in South Germany - Right?



Thanks!

I booked the apartments through Internet, 2 months before starting my trip. Websites and links are listed in my Itinerary. Please go through the first post on this thread.

Yes sir. Baden-wüttenberg is the state in which Stuttgart is located and Bayern is the state where Munich is located. Both are down south bordering, swiss, austria and bit of France too.

[Chethan B G]

For the benefit of everybody, I am posting all the links related to our accommodations in Europe.

Vienna: http://www.interhome.in/english/austria/vienna/wien+20.bezirk/at1200.400.1

Salzburg: http://www.interhome.in/english/austria/salzburg/salzburg/at5020.165.1

Interlaken: http://www.interhome.in/english/switzerland/bernese+oberland/interlaken/ch3800.250.1

Florence: http://www.interhome.in/english/italy/florence+city/florence/it5270.765.1

Rome: http://www.oh-holidays.com/en/italy/rome/rome/apartment_14735/

If you enter any arbitrary dates, you can see the rates.