Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday

chetan_l · 25th March 2018, 13:58

13th May 2017

Today would be our last day in Paris. We had booked a guided tour of the Palais Garnier in the morning. The Palais Garnier is an opera house built in 1870s by the till-then unknown architect Charles Garnier. This opera house is perhaps the most famous Opera house in the whole world, and deservedly so! The guided tour is highly recommended as the English speaking guide will give you a low-down on the history and interesting side-stories of the times when this palatial opera theater was built. The place cannot be described in words. Let the pictures do some talking!

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-palais-garniere-3.jpg

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-palais-garniere-4.jpg

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-palais-garniere-5.jpg

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-palais-garniere-9.jpg

After the tour of Palais Garnier, we walked across to the famous Galeries Lafayette Haussman store. The store itself is spread out across several buildings with each one dedicated to various needs. However, we felt that the prices were a little expensive. We had a value-for-money lunch at the store and went to the terrace for a free roof-top view of Paris!

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2150.jpg

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2152.jpg

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2154.jpg

We caught up with the Hindochas over the phone and everyone was in the mood for some shopping to pick up clothes, bags and memoirs for people back home. Being a Sunday afternoon, our choices were limited. We decided to head to Quartier Pigalle which has a collection of several value-for-money shops. Eventually, we all could buy a wide assortment of gifts to carry back home - and add to the already heavy luggage that we were carrying!

We returned to our apartment to find that our host had left us a pleasant surprise! We had one of the most delicious pastries of our trip from the house of Carl Marletti. A big shout-out to the PhD microbiologist from Paris!

Tomorrow would be our final week of the trip with two bases in Switzerland! We were pretty excited to be visiting beautiful Switzerland but I was equally sad for leaving behind Paris. For now, that is!

AltoLXI · 25th April 2018, 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by chetan_l

Tomorrow would be our final week of the trip with two bases in Switzerland! We were pretty excited to be visiting beautiful Switzerland but I was equally sad for leaving behind Paris. For now, that is!

Excellent details and beautiful photographs. Eagerly awaiting the Switzerland part of your travelogue

chetan_l · 29th April 2018, 15:53

15th May 2017

Thanks much @AltoLXI. It has been a while since I last blogged. Your encouragement helps!

Switzerland is a fairly expansive country with extremely well developed infrastructure designed to host tourists and make their visit as stress-free as possible. (Of course, we pay a hefty price for it though). I think literally every corner of Switzerland is fully exploited by its tourism board, tourism operators, innumerable travel bloggers & Vloggers, and the ubiquitous Bollywood industry.

When planning for Switzerland, I had a huge bouquet of offerings to choose from...should I go west towards Zermatt, Gornergrat & Geneva? Or, head to the Mediterranean feel of Lugano in the south? East towards Davos and Chur? The inevitable Jungfrau? I finally settled on two bases:
1. The beautiful village of Lauterbunnen, set in the valley of the Bernese Alps. This place would give us an opportunity to experience rural life amidst pristine nature, while providing a base to explore the mountains nearby
2. The hot-spot of Lucerne which we would use as a base to cover mountain excursions to Mount Titlis and Mount Pilatus. Plus, Lucerne being an hour away from the Zurich Airport, would be convenient for us to catch the flight back to India

Incidentally, the Hindochas had also planned to stay in Lauterbrunnen for 3 Nights before they would head west to Zermatt. And they had booked a cabin at the absolutely beautiful Camping Jungfrau Holiday Park! While I could not get a similar accommodation, I did get a much loved alternate - a stay in one of their static campervans!

Back to the travelog.

Purely by coincidence, both the Hondochas and ourselves had booked the same route - and the same train schedule! We caught the early morning TGV Lyria with tastefully done first-class carriage designed by Christian Lacroix, leaving Gare de Lyon at 7:07 and arriving at Basel 10:26 - a distance of over 550 kms covered in just over 3 hours! This train reaches speeds of up to 320 kmph - we were almost flying on land

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-train-switzerland-1.jpg

View of the landscape on the French side:

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2189.jpg

The first views of the Swiss Alps:

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2203.jpg

Next, we changed over to a Swiss regional train to Interlaken Ost, where we again had to change to the beautiful slow train to Lauterbrunned.

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-train-switzerland-4.jpg

In Switzerland, it is quite common to switch multiple trains to go from point A to B. This is because the major cities are served by the Swiss national trains while the towns on either side would be served by the local train at that region. Since trains run accurate to the minute, it is very easy to plan such changeovers; also, the train stations are well designed for you to switch platforms. The only challenge again would be the amount of luggage one carries! :(

While the whole of Switzerland is ethereal, the train journey from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen chugs slowly along numerous meadows and streams with the picturesque Alps dotting the backgroun! This journey in itself is worth a visit. We were super excited to be in the land of our dreams - despite the hype and exposure, Switzerland's beauty manages to take your breath away for sure.

We reached Lauterbrunnen on time at 13:25 hours. Since Lauterbrunnen has only a single bus line - which anyway doesn't connect to our hotel - our hotel had arranged to pick us up from the train station. So, here we were - a group of 4 adults with 10-12 bags between us waiting for the transport to arrive...but no such luck! It transpired that the hotel manager had forgot to inform their cab guy to pick us up! And since it was lunch time, the hotel office was closed for what seemed like a long lunch followed by siesta! :(

We wasted - no, waited - almost an hour before the hotel receptionist took our car, apologized profusely, and sent across the cab to pick us up. I can't use the word 'wasted' since we were simply enthralled by the beauty of the place!

At the hotel, the manager was extremely apologetic and offered us a crate of beverages to make up for it! Anyway, it was only a minor hitch and we put the instance behind us quickly. Oh, another thing - there are no cabs in the town, and so the only alternative would be to walk down the ~1.6 kms. Which is exactly waht we did over the next couple of days - but we couldn't do it on the day of our arrival with our luggage in tow.

The Camping Jungrfrau Holiday Park in itself is a destination. It is a camping ground where RVs/Campervans come and pitch their tents. They also have wooden chalets, bungalows, cabins and the static vans like the one we had booked. We fell so much in love with the place, which was right at the foor of the Staubbach falls.

We decided to just cook some home-made food, and spent the evening within the park and took a late evening stroll into the town. That's when we quickly realized that this town goes to sleep after sunset literally.

It was a long day, but the freshness of the valley kept us in great spirits. We planned to go Grindelwald the next day and then retired for the night.

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2234.jpg

Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday-2017-eurotrip-2241.jpg

jaaz · 8th June 2018, 00:04

This is just to thank @chetan_I, with all his inputs, I could complete my Europe Tour without any hiccups. You don't understand fully, when conversing, but in real situation, yes, all the inputs come alive into your RAM.

My trip was exactly opposite in planning. Everything was done adhoc. Infact, my Flight ticket was booked just 1 day before our trip, and the return ticket, just couple of hours before reaching the Airport for departure.

Hats off to you @chetan_I, not only you've planned well in advance, but also remember each and every minute details. Catch you up sometime.

selfdrive · 11th June 2018, 09:06

Interesting and detailed travelogue sir. I am sure it will be helpful for other travellers to plan their holidays.

We had spent our holidays in the Black Forest, Bavaria and Switzerland when we were living in Paris in 2009-11. It is a long time ago, but the memories are fresh almost like yesterday; some of the most cherished of my otherwise uneventful existence

. I could almost wake up today and never realise that I have been away. Thanks for bringing back memories of my then hometown Paris.
I started a TL years ago, which I never finished; in case you would like to reconcile some places. The sights just do not change despite time moving on and that is the real beauty of central Paris. Je t'aime Paris indeed
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...itzerland.html

I hope to return for a visit in the next few years, so I hope I will complete it then.

I look forward to seeing more of Lauterbrunnen; I hope you were able to make it to the transport museum in Lucerne.

AlphaKilo · 25th June 2018, 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by chetan_l

5th May 2017
...
O: You see that camera over on your windscreen?
Me: Yes....?
O: It is illegal to shoot videos with a dash-cam in Germany. You are violating German rules!
...
Phew!!! I never knew that I would be violating a German rule so inadvertently. Anyway, all was well in the end...
...

Not anymore!!

The German court has allowed Dashcams

, next time have fun with your Go-pro but make sure its road legal!!

Just look for "StVO zugelassen" when buying such a camera or its stand. Better to ask for one from the Sixt guys itself.

chetan_l · 25th June 2018, 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaaz

This is just to thank @chetan_I, with all his inputs, I could complete my Europe Tour without any hiccups.
...
Hats off to you @chetan_I, not only you've planned well in advance, but also remember each and every minute details. Catch you up sometime.

Happy to have been of help, @Jazz. Doing a lot of research helped me remember these places well after the tour

Do you plan to write a travelogue? Will be good to read how the tour panned out for you. Of course, we should meet up sometime!

Quote:

Originally Posted by selfdrive

We had spent our holidays in the Black Forest, Bavaria and Switzerland when we were living in Paris in 2009-11. It is a long time ago, but the memories are fresh almost like yesterday; some of the most cherished of my otherwise uneventful existence

. ...
I started a TL years ago, which I never finished; in case you would like to reconcile some places. ...
Je t'aime Paris indeed
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...itzerland.html
...
I look forward to seeing more of Lauterbrunnen; I hope you were able to make it to the transport museum in Lucerne.

@selfdrive: I read thru your travelogue half-way and will complete it soon! Yes, Europe will remain cherished for us Europhiles

I haven't been able to add more to the Switzerland leg of my tour; will do over the weekend - hopefully.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlphaKilo

Not anymore!!

The German court has allowed Dashcams

, next time have fun with your Go-pro but make sure its road legal!!

Just look for "StVO zugelassen" when buying such a camera or its stand. Better to ask for one from the Sixt guys itself.

Ah, that's some very good news! Like I blurted out to the cop, how could one not capture the beauty of the German roads along the countryside on your car camera?!
Hopefully, I will get to go back again soon!

anilkumar · 9th December 2018, 07:47

Well planned trip
loved every detail and the photography

thanks for letting us know that self planning is not so much of a pain afterall

chetan_l · 10th December 2018, 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by anilkumar

Well planned trip
loved every detail and the photography

thanks for letting us know that self planning is not so much of a pain afterall

Thanks much @anilkumar! It requires a bit of planning but if you devote some time for research, you can pull off a self-planned trip.

In fact, right now, I am on my second European tour - traveling solo on a budget to 9 countries over 41 days

And this time, despite spending 50k on flights and 30k on inter-city travel (I have traveled to over 15 cities), and spending money on concerts, ballets, museums, pubs and a couple of bus-tours, my total spend has been less than Rs 2.8 lakhs for > 40 days!

anilkumar · 10th December 2018, 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by chetan_l

Thanks much @anilkumar! It requires a bit of planning but if you devote some time for research, you can pull off a self-planned trip.

In fact, right now, I am on my second European tour - traveling solo on a budget to 9 countries over 41 days

And this time, despite spending 50k on flights and 30k on inter-city travel (I have traveled to over 15 cities), and spending money on concerts, ballets, museums, pubs and a couple of bus-tours, my total spend has been less than Rs 2.8 lakhs for > 40 days!

Thats fantastic would love to see this travelog i'm sure it will turn some heads
I will certailnly PM when i start my planning process hope you dont mind that

chetan_l · 10th December 2018, 14:23

Definitely! Would be more than happy to help, so do reach out when you intend to make your plans. I will be back in India [Bangalore] next week.

This tour has been pretty long and so I may not be able to do a travelogue, but I will definitely add a Photologue!

25th March 2018, 13:58	#31
chetan_l BHPian Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 135 Thanked: 426 Times	Re: Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday 13th May 2017 Today would be our last day in Paris. We had booked a guided tour of the Palais Garnier in the morning. The Palais Garnier is an opera house built in 1870s by the till-then unknown architect Charles Garnier. This opera house is perhaps the most famous Opera house in the whole world, and deservedly so! The guided tour is highly recommended as the English speaking guide will give you a low-down on the history and interesting side-stories of the times when this palatial opera theater was built. The place cannot be described in words. Let the pictures do some talking! After the tour of Palais Garnier, we walked across to the famous Galeries Lafayette Haussman store. The store itself is spread out across several buildings with each one dedicated to various needs. However, we felt that the prices were a little expensive. We had a value-for-money lunch at the store and went to the terrace for a free roof-top view of Paris! We caught up with the Hindochas over the phone and everyone was in the mood for some shopping to pick up clothes, bags and memoirs for people back home. Being a Sunday afternoon, our choices were limited. We decided to head to Quartier Pigalle which has a collection of several value-for-money shops. Eventually, we all could buy a wide assortment of gifts to carry back home - and add to the already heavy luggage that we were carrying! We returned to our apartment to find that our host had left us a pleasant surprise! We had one of the most delicious pastries of our trip from the house of Carl Marletti. A big shout-out to the PhD microbiologist from Paris! Tomorrow would be our final week of the trip with two bases in Switzerland! We were pretty excited to be visiting beautiful Switzerland but I was equally sad for leaving behind Paris. For now, that is!
	(6) Thanks

29th April 2018, 15:53	#33
chetan_l BHPian Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 135 Thanked: 426 Times	Re: Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday 15th May 2017 Thanks much @AltoLXI. It has been a while since I last blogged. Your encouragement helps! Switzerland is a fairly expansive country with extremely well developed infrastructure designed to host tourists and make their visit as stress-free as possible. (Of course, we pay a hefty price for it though). I think literally every corner of Switzerland is fully exploited by its tourism board, tourism operators, innumerable travel bloggers & Vloggers, and the ubiquitous Bollywood industry. When planning for Switzerland, I had a huge bouquet of offerings to choose from...should I go west towards Zermatt, Gornergrat & Geneva? Or, head to the Mediterranean feel of Lugano in the south? East towards Davos and Chur? The inevitable Jungfrau? I finally settled on two bases: 1. The beautiful village of Lauterbunnen, set in the valley of the Bernese Alps. This place would give us an opportunity to experience rural life amidst pristine nature, while providing a base to explore the mountains nearby 2. The hot-spot of Lucerne which we would use as a base to cover mountain excursions to Mount Titlis and Mount Pilatus. Plus, Lucerne being an hour away from the Zurich Airport, would be convenient for us to catch the flight back to India Incidentally, the Hindochas had also planned to stay in Lauterbrunnen for 3 Nights before they would head west to Zermatt. And they had booked a cabin at the absolutely beautiful Camping Jungfrau Holiday Park! While I could not get a similar accommodation, I did get a much loved alternate - a stay in one of their static campervans! Back to the travelog. Purely by coincidence, both the Hondochas and ourselves had booked the same route - and the same train schedule! We caught the early morning TGV Lyria with tastefully done first-class carriage designed by Christian Lacroix, leaving Gare de Lyon at 7:07 and arriving at Basel 10:26 - a distance of over 550 kms covered in just over 3 hours! This train reaches speeds of up to 320 kmph - we were almost flying on land View of the landscape on the French side: The first views of the Swiss Alps: Next, we changed over to a Swiss regional train to Interlaken Ost, where we again had to change to the beautiful slow train to Lauterbrunned. In Switzerland, it is quite common to switch multiple trains to go from point A to B. This is because the major cities are served by the Swiss national trains while the towns on either side would be served by the local train at that region. Since trains run accurate to the minute, it is very easy to plan such changeovers; also, the train stations are well designed for you to switch platforms. The only challenge again would be the amount of luggage one carries! :( While the whole of Switzerland is ethereal, the train journey from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen chugs slowly along numerous meadows and streams with the picturesque Alps dotting the backgroun! This journey in itself is worth a visit. We were super excited to be in the land of our dreams - despite the hype and exposure, Switzerland's beauty manages to take your breath away for sure. We reached Lauterbrunnen on time at 13:25 hours. Since Lauterbrunnen has only a single bus line - which anyway doesn't connect to our hotel - our hotel had arranged to pick us up from the train station. So, here we were - a group of 4 adults with 10-12 bags between us waiting for the transport to arrive...but no such luck! It transpired that the hotel manager had forgot to inform their cab guy to pick us up! And since it was lunch time, the hotel office was closed for what seemed like a long lunch followed by siesta! :( We wasted - no, waited - almost an hour before the hotel receptionist took our car, apologized profusely, and sent across the cab to pick us up. I can't use the word 'wasted' since we were simply enthralled by the beauty of the place! At the hotel, the manager was extremely apologetic and offered us a crate of beverages to make up for it! Anyway, it was only a minor hitch and we put the instance behind us quickly. Oh, another thing - there are no cabs in the town, and so the only alternative would be to walk down the ~1.6 kms. Which is exactly waht we did over the next couple of days - but we couldn't do it on the day of our arrival with our luggage in tow. The Camping Jungrfrau Holiday Park in itself is a destination. It is a camping ground where RVs/Campervans come and pitch their tents. They also have wooden chalets, bungalows, cabins and the static vans like the one we had booked. We fell so much in love with the place, which was right at the foor of the Staubbach falls. We decided to just cook some home-made food, and spent the evening within the park and took a late evening stroll into the town. That's when we quickly realized that this town goes to sleep after sunset literally. It was a long day, but the freshness of the valley kept us in great spirits. We planned to go Grindelwald the next day and then retired for the night.
	(4) Thanks

8th June 2018, 00:04	#34
jaaz BHPian Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Earth Posts: 661 Thanked: 636 Times	Re: Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday This is just to thank @chetan_I, with all his inputs, I could complete my Europe Tour without any hiccups. You don't understand fully, when conversing, but in real situation, yes, all the inputs come alive into your RAM. My trip was exactly opposite in planning. Everything was done adhoc. Infact, my Flight ticket was booked just 1 day before our trip, and the return ticket, just couple of hours before reaching the Airport for departure. Hats off to you @chetan_I, not only you've planned well in advance, but also remember each and every minute details. Catch you up sometime. Last edited by jaaz : 8th June 2018 at 00:05.
	(1) Thanks

11th June 2018, 09:06	#35
selfdrive Senior - BHPian Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Zurich Posts: 2,962 Thanked: 3,534 Times	Re: Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday Interesting and detailed travelogue sir. I am sure it will be helpful for other travellers to plan their holidays. We had spent our holidays in the Black Forest, Bavaria and Switzerland when we were living in Paris in 2009-11. It is a long time ago, but the memories are fresh almost like yesterday; some of the most cherished of my otherwise uneventful existence . I could almost wake up today and never realise that I have been away. Thanks for bringing back memories of my then hometown Paris. I started a TL years ago, which I never finished; in case you would like to reconcile some places. The sights just do not change despite time moving on and that is the real beauty of central Paris. Je t'aime Paris indeed http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...itzerland.html I hope to return for a visit in the next few years, so I hope I will complete it then. I look forward to seeing more of Lauterbrunnen; I hope you were able to make it to the transport museum in Lucerne. Last edited by selfdrive : 11th June 2018 at 09:08.
	(1) Thanks

9th December 2018, 07:47	#38
anilkumar BHPian Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: New York City Posts: 85 Thanked: 39 Times	Re: Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday Well planned trip loved every detail and the photography thanks for letting us know that self planning is not so much of a pain afterall
	(2) Thanks

10th December 2018, 14:23	#41
chetan_l BHPian Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Bangalore Posts: 135 Thanked: 426 Times	Re: Three weeks of bliss in Europe - A self-planned holiday Definitely! Would be more than happy to help, so do reach out when you intend to make your plans. I will be back in India [Bangalore] next week. This tour has been pretty long and so I may not be able to do a travelogue, but I will definitely add a Photologue!
	() Thanks