[Fauji]

As usual, Tanveer at his best!! Waiting for more to come.

[v&v]

Congrats Tanveer on your Sonata Europa trip. This sector is one of my dream to do. Wanted some what the similar way you did. Partial driving in a sports convertible enjoy the winding roads.

Under 15k per day is a steal. I am hooked. Rated 5*

[shuvc]

Wonderful ! Will be glued to this. You have lived our dream ... this is exactly what we have always wanted to do. Someday surely !!

[arvi86]

Excellent photos, amazing write-up and I know that I am looking at what is going to be a lovely European Travelogue here. Europe is a place where most of us aspire to go atleast once or twice in a lifetime and I am glad that you were able to do that and relish in that beauty. Glued to this thread.

[Ace F355]

Wow Tanveer. As if earlier TLs were not beautiful enough! You are going to make many of us sit in front of our computer screens and drool over, again and again! Europe is one of my favorite holiday destinations, especially, the English and Italian countryside. Haven't seen rest of it and I am sure I will go through that part of the world, someday. Thanks for sharing all these beautiful pics and such an awesome travelouge!

[dkaile]

Next time take me along. Fantastic Start...

[adalvi]

Fantastic start mate. Reminded me of my 4 years of stay in Switzerland & the travel I did during this period in Europe, visiting various countries.

Europe is absolutely gorgeous and yes, you have to "Do Europe" and not just see it. Forget those cheap travel deals you get in India. Just explore it yourself and I am sure the memories would be carved for your life time.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

awesome and kicka$s stuff boss. I can see hungary and switzerland and a bit of italy (or italian switzerland part?) in the pikchas. Very nicely done. You make me nostalgic

You can see Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Hungary in these pics

Originally Posted by VCheng

I post only rarely on TBHP (but lurk often), and this thread, with its wonderful photos and witty caption, deserves to be appreciated. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by pankaj_sachdeva

and tsk1979 strikes back!! Amazing pics Tanveer, such pristine vistas. It is a treat to see places through your eyes and lens.

glued to the thread and eagerly waiting for the next installment.

Originally Posted by woof

Awesome pictures Tanveer. It will be great if you can share itinerary and costs as well - will greatly help people like me who are interesting in doing Europe

Thanks for your comments, as I post each leg, I will put up hotel costs etc., too

Originally Posted by pawan_pullarwar

Congratulations on Europe trip, photos are awesome. Although you have good public transport to travel most of the part of Europe but having car gives you lot of flexibility to stop anywhere and enjoy the nature.

Thanks for your guidance pawan. Your tip about holiday home website was our starting point. From there we got a fair idea of what to expect

Originally Posted by v&v

Congrats Tanveer on your Sonata Europa trip. This sector is one of my dream to do. Wanted some what the similar way you did. Partial driving in a sports convertible enjoy the winding roads.

Under 15k per day is a steal. I am hooked. Rated 5*

Actually, I haven't added the 20,000(approx) INR skydiving cost in 2.2L cost I gave you. As for convertible, if we did not have so much luggage I would have booked a mini cooper convertible for 10,000 extra(9 days approx)
However, lack of a diesel could mean much higher fuel costs, which in our case were miniscule. As the log folds, you will realize how much cost cutting a frugal car can do to your trip!

Originally Posted by arvi86

Excellent photos, amazing write-up and I know that I am looking at what is going to be a lovely European Travelogue here. Europe is a place where most of us aspire to go atleast once or twice in a lifetime and I am glad that you were able to do that and relish in that beauty. Glued to this thread.

Thanks arvi!

Originally Posted by Ace F355

Wow Tanveer. As if earlier TLs were not beautiful enough! You are going to make many of us sit in front of our computer screens and drool over, again and again! Europe is one of my favorite holiday destinations, especially, the English and Italian countryside. Haven't seen rest of it and I am sure I will go through that part of the world, someday. Thanks for sharing all these beautiful pics and such an awesome travelouge!

Thanks Ace

Originally Posted by adalvi

Fantastic start mate. Reminded me of my 4 years of stay in Switzerland & the travel I did during this period in Europe, visiting various countries.

Europe is absolutely gorgeous and yes, you have to "Do Europe" and not just see it. Forget those cheap travel deals you get in India. Just explore it yourself and I am sure the memories would be carved for your life time.

The worst part is that those travel deals cost more than what we spent in 2 weeks.

[bobster]

what a simple yet brilliant write up, i must put this as one of the things to do before i die.. excellent photographs as well especially the matterhorn pic..brilliant composition, pl let me know which camera are you using.

[LongDrive lover]

So you were doing Europe for a change, all these days, and not the Himalayas. Doesn't matter for lesser mortals like us, as our task remains the same, glued to our computer screen and enjoy the narration and wall paper quality pics as ever.

Great trip and equally meticulous planning. Photographs are awesome.

[DKG]

Awesome and what gorgeous pictures!! Was this your first trip to Europe?

[tsk1979]

Bags are packed and we are ready to go.
No
Not quite.
There is a pile of clothes on the bed + lots of other stuff. Food, clothes, cosmetics etc., are my wifes department.
WE are going to follow the golden rule.
Collect everything you need, and then pack half of it.
WE are trying to pack half of it, and it does not fit.

Time for me to climb stools, and search the loft for our "Other big suitcase".

you see, for foreign travel to USA, you can carry 4 big suitcases if you are a couple.
For travel to Europe, you could just carry one each, and each of them should weigh less than 23kg, or was it 20.

Never mind that.
We decided to carry one bag and one big suitcase. Those typical huge foreign travel suitcases.

Thanks to my new tripod, which was big and heavy and had to go in the suitcase, we were out of space for half we decided to take.

Then meeting family there meant that family here had given us "little bit stuff". If you are a Punjabi, you will understand that Little bit usually weighs more than a 747 and occupies twice the space.

So the eve before our early morning flight, we had lots of clothes on the bed, and one big suitcase, and one "Reebok bag" of such good quality, that it was partially torn.
Good that we saw it. I had a sneaky suspicion that it won't last. Why? Because my reebok shoes also did not last.

And that reminds me, we had to carry an extra pair of shoes each. If out current footwear goes wet.

Now sports shoes do not weigh much, but they do occupy space.

Hence I was on the stool.
And I got the other big suitcase down.

The zipper was partially broken. Hurray!
But it was too late. We will take this with the partially broken zipper. We found a position where it will work.

So as my wife started packing it all in, it was time for me to pack the other stuff.

I am very forgetful. I forget names of people, names of places, and sometimes my own name too. On our last ladakh trip I forgot the tripod, and after a few phone calls I had two tripods.
No such luck in Europe I presumed. We had no phone, and not many people to call there who would have a tripod.

So from the past few days I had started creating a list of things. Every few hours I would go through it, and add whatever I think was needed.

So my list was huge
It was a google spreadsheet categorized with
Equipment
Now this was huge. Cameras, batteries, memory cards, tripod, car gps, phone for gps, GPS antenna, magnetic compass, 2 phone chargers, one car GPS charger, USB cables, car AC adapter, plug adapter, Hot water kettle, Magnetic compass, laptop and chargers
Documents
This was simpler, passports, and health insurance, along with DL and IDP + the Bernese Oberland regional pass
Printouts
All the hotel booking with addresses and phone numbers, Some route printouts with names of exits and towns on the way(major), expressway numbers, local road numbers for various sections, List of free sections of our travel pass, some hike details and notes and my software codes for oziexplorer
Software
Oziexplorer, some photo editing(did not need to use it there), GPS softwares. Now all these were already on laptop and phone, but I still decided to make a list.
Misc
Reflective jackets. Thanks to sudev they were easy to get. In Europe, to drive you must have atleast 1 reflective jacket(if one person in car) or 2 if there is another. If there are 4 people, you do not need 4. Just 2 suffice. Rental cars come with 1 jacket usually, and sometimes with none. So we decided to carry

So this was the list, and it took me an hour to check and double check.
We also packed a small backpack in the "big suitcase" for use on hikes there.

After that it was time to carry the suitcases to the apartment gate to weigh them.
One was 18kgs, and other was 25!!

No can do.
Time to come back, and reduce the maggi content, and rearrange stuff.

So couple of hours later we had 20 and 21. Purr-fect.
We did not intend to do any shopping in Europe, so food will lessen, and even if we get little bit something from Hungary, it will hopefully not be bigger than the little bit something we are taking from here.

15 minutes before time, our taxi arrived. It was 12.5rs/km to the Airport + toll tax. the 2.5 was for night charges, regular rate is 10.0

The taxi was in a pretty horrendous condition. It was an indica, and seeing its condition we felt at home.
and it took us to the airport for around 400INR all inclusive.

See, money saving had started.

We went to our Aeroflot counter, and completed all the formalities.
Remember, always go to customs and declare that you are taking the cameras etc., out of India. Get the serial numbers on your E-ticket printout.

Now let me digress about flight booking.
you can fly to Europe in around 8 hours non stop. Or less.
however, those flights are expensive.

The cheap flights are through Moscow(Aeroflot). Total flying time is around 10 hours with a stop in between.

Its a lousy airline. When you book seats through Expedia, it will let you choose seats only one way. Coming back you will have nasty surprises.
More on that when you come back.

Anyways, when you book online, it will show you 63000 to vienna.
When you actually click on that and are about to enter your CC number, it will tell you "prices have changed" and its 69000

This is the case with everyone, whether its expedia, or cleartrip or whatever.

So for 69000 we got tickets for 2 people.
Delhi-Moscow-vienna and then Budapest-Moscow-Delhi

apart from that our pre trip expenses were
9500 for Austrian Schengen Visa - You need to take visa from the country you fly to first
14500 for two Bernese oberland passes(1+1) free. They cost 260 CHF. With frank climbing, things are really expensive. Since we chose Bernese oberland as our place of residence and travel, these made the most sense. swisspasses.com has information about all their passes and discount periods.

To get discounts, you need to buy them online and pay 30CHF shipping charges for express delivery by DHL.

Anyways, we go through our security check, and head towards our gates.
The T3 is huge, and empty. Its made big because its designed for a time 100 years in the future when we will need so many gates.
And its good to look.

So I decide to take out the camera and click one pic.
Of something really good looking


We also roamed around the terminal. It was not India anymore. Mcdonalds burger cost 2$.
so it was not even USA. Probably Europe. We were already in Europe, since a coffee was for 2$ too.

After that we found a charging point, and watched TV on laptop in a quite corner, and boarded our flight.

4am in the morning we are on an Aeroflot flight which has TV and is new. Yipee. Talk about luck!

Food as usual is truly horrendous, but you should cherish any food you get when you go to Europe, because once you are there, you would cringe when you see the prices. Good bless whoever invented MTR.

We also watch some in flight entertainment, which was actually a collection of some silly stuff I do not even remember.
The earphone did not work properly because my seat terminal was faulty.
But atleast the seat had decent legroom and it was a couple seat by the window, just 2 rows, W and A. No third person.

since its impossible to sleep, I count all the words in their one page safety brochure, and this makes me drowsy. I did not write it down, so I do not remember how many words.

And then after 6 hours and change we make a landing in moscow. Nowadays they show nosewheel camera when you land or take off

Its nice and sunny, and we have just over an hour.

there is not much rush and we board our next flight.
This flight did not have screens for entertainment. But it was 2.45 hours only.

And right on time, at around 11am local time, we land in Vienna.

Hurray, we were in Europe!

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by bobster

what a simple yet brilliant write up, i must put this as one of the things to do before i die.. excellent photographs as well especially the matterhorn pic..brilliant composition, pl let me know which camera are you using.

Thanks, I use a Nikon D7000 and a Panasonic FZ35

Originally Posted by LongDrive lover

So you were doing Europe for a change, all these days, and not the Himalayas. Doesn't matter for lesser mortals like us, as our task remains the same, glued to our computer screen and enjoy the narration and wall paper quality pics as ever.

Great trip and equally meticulous planning. Photographs are awesome.

thanks longdrivelover!

Originally Posted by DKG

Awesome and what gorgeous pictures!! Was this your first trip to Europe?

Nope, second trip.
The first one was truly memorable. I spent 8 hours in Europe at the London airport out of which 5 were spent sleeping on the floor. Changeovers are fun, I tell ya

[dkaile]

You have already started giving me ideas. Time to transcend from 'World from Above' (on Discovery HD) to actually planning that trip... Keep it going mate.

[jnpai]

Sir, Great photos which capture the essence of this beautiful continent . They say a picture is better than a thousand words. Your pictures of Europe convey the real spirit of that saying. I do hope some of the pics were taken on the Fz35, which I am using too. It is indeed a marvelous write up too. But the pics steal the show. Thank you for sharing.