Self Planned Three Weeks Trip to Europe - Planning Stage

Pre Script - in my last travel related blog post I had talked of a road trip from Pune to Bijapur, Badami, Hampi and Bengalore . For some reason, that trip has not happened.

Europe

Travelling is the best thing one can do. it widens your horizon, it brings you in contact with people of different regions and countries with varied culture, food habits and what not. Travelling keeps you young too by keeping your brain ticking and body active.

There is much more to see and visit in India itself. My tagline on my indiamike.com  account (a travel site about India) reads "There is so much to see in India that foreign Locales have to wait". My travel blogs, plenty of them, on this blog site of mine and on indiamike.com are just a spec of what can be done in India by way of travel. A few births as human would not be enough to finish visiting every place that is worth a visit in this great place called India.

But then who knows the future? Who knows whether there would be a re-birth and if there is (being a Hindu, I would love to believe that there would be series of rebirths), where on the earth that would be?

That means, I am left with no option but to utilise whatever time the God almighty has granted me (and my wife) in the present birth in travelling within India (most of the times) and also travelling abroad.

When it comes to travelling abroad, majority people either travel abroad because their daughter or daughter in law is going to deliver a baby and their presence is needed or because their children have made a foreign country their permanent home and parents are left with no option but to go abroad to visit them.

However, there are some people who do go abroad as tourists. Among such people, most go through readymade tours of one travel company or the other. It is good to travel with these companies as most of the hassles of booking, visa, local travel, tours of places, etc are taken care of by them. Another thing is, one can finish large number of cities and countries (unless it is tour of Australia, etc where full time is spent in same country), particularly in Europe, in very few days. This may though result in too many places touched in too short a time.

Going with travel company, therefore, does not suit my temperament (and my wife also is an new convert to that thought of mine).  When we decided to make a trip abroad, we choose Europe as we always wanted to go to Europe. Also, we definitely did not want to go with a travel company. That left us with only one option, go on our own with all the attended Pain (and if you have positive mindset, the fun) of all the planning on our own.

With this clear thought, we started our planning. Travelling to Europe is not travelling to travelling to Sri Lanka or Myanmar. Europe is a continent. The first question that needs to be tackled is, which part of Europe one should go. There is central Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia (spread over Europe and Asia), Southern Europe, West Central Europe and Scandinavian Countries.

Originally, we started off with central Europe. Fly from Mumbai to Budapest (Hungary). After visiting Budapest, travel to Bratislava (Slovak Republic), Vienna, Halstatt and Salzburg (in Austria) and finally to Chesky Krumlov and Prague (Czech Republic). After Prague, it was not simply return to Mumbai but plan was fly from Prague to Amsterdam.

Simple question that comes to mind is, why fly all the way from Prague to Amsterdam when one can return to Mumbai from Prague. Dear readers, famous Tulips of Amsterdam (and surrounding areas) are there for us to see between first week of Apr to second week of May with median time being third week of April. Quantitative Requirement No 1 of this trip from my wife was to visit Amsterdam and see Tulips. That was the reason for the plan of flying to Amsterdam for a three day stay and then fly back to Mumbai.

We started off with checking Air Ticket. Various permutations for the visits were discussed among me and my wife and our two in house travel advisors (our Daughter who can plan a travel in few hours and Son who is in France). Few of the stay options were also explored. It was almost certain that we will do this 21 day’s tour of Central Europe. Just short of starting to book tickets, the mind of ace decision maker of the family (my wife) changed.

She wanted to meet our son at Paris. Also, Amsterdam had to be part of the tour. Prompt came the suggestion that we should visit Ghent in Belgium (by the way the waffles that are known as Brussels Waffles or Belgian Waffles were actually invented at Ghent which happened to be second biggest city in Europe after Paris sometime back in the history. They should be called Ghent Waffles) from our son and daughter both. Two consultants having same view! Then Ghent in Belgium had to be part of the programme.

Further discussions brought in prospects of a drive through Rhine Valley with its castles, rivers and forests. We decided to take the drive. That brought in Cologne in to the programme. Cologne would be the start point of our road trip. In this road trip, Koblenz was our first place of stay as a night stop on day 1 and Frankfurt as second day stopover. Frankfurt being just a stopover, plan was made to travel further to Berlin from there the very next day.

Another trip that emerged during study and discussions was road trip from Berlin to Dresden. Hence Dresden came in with two night’s stay. We decided to then head for Prague from Dresden. Once done with Prague we decided that we will go to Budapest and end our tour there.

The plan for our Europe trip of about 3 weeks plus thus became ready. The route being Paris, Ghent, Amsterdam, Cologne, Koblenz, Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague and Budapest.

Plan is ready but that is just the beginning of lots of research and action. We wish ourselves luck for that task.