My 2 cents worth

Looking at the complexity of the situation - imagine this - Shiva would be flying out from India, Chandra from UAE and me from US, I suggest we tie up with some professional holiday planners (Shiva suggested SOTC) to do all the background work for us. With a toddler and wives (No no, Shiva is still single. I was refering to Chandra's and mine), we cannot risk any uncertainties or mistakes with our own bookings (although I'm sure if we book things on our own, they would be cheaper and better). But, what the heck, its a holiday. Let's just relax and let someone else plan the trip.

9th September, 2008 - 6:30 AM just got back from office. Well, Rahul & I had a another productive discussion on the Itinerary and now there is a "kahani mein twist". Rahul found a link for SOTC made for US customers who would like to take a trip to Europe. Now basically, we had 2 choices if either of us choose SOTC. The SOTC Indian leg of trip starts from Italy and ends in London, the US leg of trip starts from London and ends in Paris. If Rahul wanted to choose my plan, he would have to meet me in Italy and he would have to take care of his Air-Visa-Insurance back in the US. If I was to choose Rahul's SOTC Itinerary, I would have to meet him in London and same arrangements for Air-Visa-Insurance back in India. I think, I'll go with Rahul's Itinerary, the only flipside is the tour ends in Paris and I have to take a train to London so I can take my return flight. No Big deal.

Now how are we going to manage the Monaco race? First we dont have the tour dates, hopefully the tour dates accomodate the racing date, then we have to make sure we are in Paris so that we can take an overnight train to Nice and see the race the next day and back in Paris after the race is over. This arrangement, as you can guess, is completely left to lady luck

Rahul is right, if there is family involved, no point in taking pot-shots and leave it to the professionals। If there is no family with us, we are going to have one crazy trip to Europe trust me...Oh yes, we still have Chandra to think about and how he can manage to meet us from Dubai. I'll try to get some juice on that later in the day. Chow for now.

९ सेप २००८ मेरी बीवी ने तोह ट्रिप पे आने से इनकार कर दिया। तोह अभी सिर्फ़ अपुन अकेला थकेला आएगा इधर से।

9th September, 2008 - 4:40 PM got up from my slumber and I see that I have the exact quotes from SOTC for mera wala Itinerary (with 5k discount on the total cost). Rahul, I suggest you get a similar quote from your SOTC guy and then we can compare and choose the best one. I still think, making the Itinerary on our own maybe exciting but these Tours guy option will prove to be cheaper, we will see, we have a long way to go. Take a look at this...

By the way Rahul, Mt.Titlis & Lucerne is an optional tour in this package, matlab when we are in Swiss, we will be free to roam on our own or we can choose his guided orinetation tour for 100 euros

Itinerary

8th September, 2008 - 4:28 PM, after an extensive research (trust me, feels like a military marine checking all the maps and routes) the following Itinerary is our best bet

Before I start with the Custom Itinerary, I would like to highlight the Ready-made Itinerary by SOTC. Now this trip covers 6 Europen countries in 11 days. Besides, these guys know where to put us up if we like Indian cuisine, closest shopping destinations, major attractions etc...Here is the details.

Moving on to our own Road/Rail trip, the biggest challenge is the Starting Point which, should be affordable by air from across locations and should not be something that we will pass through twice as a part of our Itinerary. So here's the pick from India...either Zurich or London. As i write this, Zurich is going for 32K and London for 28K. The flipside is, if you are travelling from US, it makes no difference, the cost is approx. $ 1000 round-trip

Once we have landed in Zurich or London, the next set of trips is going to be essentially via trains (high-speed and first class mind you) which is the best bet and the most exciting way to explore Europe. Now there are 2 types of trains that run in and out of Europe. One is the Eurostar that shuttles between 3 countries only, London-Paris-Brussels and then there is TGV rail Network that travels to 6 countries, 60 destinations within Europe (minus London). Now both Eurostar and TGV are like partners and if you plan a trip to say from London to Cannes (France), you will first travel Eurostar till Paris and then switch to TGV for the train to Cannes

Now these rail trips can be made buying individual tickets off the window or buy rail passes, these passes make sense for different reasons. Most importantly, these passes should be bought online coz it will cost us in US dollars versus the expensive Euros when we buy it in Europe. One of the most populare rail passes is the Eurail and the best pass for us could be the Select Saver* Pass. The cheapest is $ 429 (per person) for a 5 day train travel in 2 Months in 3 bordering countries. Honestly, I think even this is expensive considering there is still Hotel charges, local transport for sight-seeing, F&B for each of the 3 countries we need to figure out

So the next question, where do we start and are do we end, that depends on what air tickets you choose as a round-trip and as you know when you go for a promotional offer from the airlines, it is always round-trip. In this case, either London or Zurich. Also, considering the above pass which allows us to travel only 3 countries within Europe, the route can be Zurich (Switzerland)-Italy-France-Zurich.

If it is London, then the route can be London-Paris (remember, the Eurail pass doesn't apply here, this is extra cost) after Paris, the choices are wide open. It could be any 3 countries starting from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg. There are other countries like Spain, Netherlands, Ireland that are way too off the main countries. Check out the MAP...

Here is the travel time between each of these countries...to their main cities

It is time

7th September, 2008 - It is 3:47 AM and had my share of sleep on a Sunday morning. Well, well "It is time" for me and my homies from Ex-Stream to take our QBR to the next level, a dream trip to Europa

For the ones who dont know abt our QBR, visit this. This idea was bounced of quite a few times in our regular QBR events but it really caught steam when I and Rahul caught up on the night of 09/06 and decided we should make this happen, rain or shine. At this point, we are the only 2 HKs who have pledged to this but the plan is to get some more HK hooked, like always, it is easier said than done but not impossible

I created this Blog, so we can plan this whole trip with inputs from Rahul and other HKs and kickstart this dream trip. Lot of things we need to figure out like getting HKs to come to a single location in Europe from around the world. As I write this, Rahul is in Dallas, US; Chandra is in Dubai and others back here in India. Second of all, how can we visit maximum locations in Europe in a single trip. Third, how much are we going to burn on this trip (you can guess thats one thing we are really really gonna have to be a smart about)

I'm going to have Rahul as a co-author (just him for now) on this Blog so he can add to my Posts or have his own while I reach out to the other HKs today. That's it for this Post, "It is time" to say "Bonjour l'Europe"