Hello Everyone,
In this blog post, I will talk about our recently concluded two week adventure around France and Switzerland. I will explain our planning and budgeting in detail so that readers can benefit from our experience.
So on 23rd of June, me and Sayantani packed our bags and took a Thalys train to Paris from Amsterdam. This was the beginning of our two week trip around France and Switzerland. The map below shows the approximate route we took.
My cousins Astha and Palak joined us in Paris. And for the following two weeks we conquered one city after another. We had very meticulously planned the whole trip. We were on a limited budget so planning was important. Our final itinerary was as follows:
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ITINERARY
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23rd June -
- Take a Thalys train from Paris to Amsterdam in evening
- Spend the night in Est Hotel, Paris
- Turned out to be a shitty hotel, not recommended
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| enroute Paris! |
24th June -
- Pick up Astha and Palak from CDG Airport
- 10 euro per person for a direct train from Gare de Nord to CDG, one way ticket
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| Meetup @ CDG!! |
- Check-in at Aloha Hostel, Paris
- Decent hostel, good location, 10-15 min walk from Eiffel Tower and 5 minutes from metro station, shared toilet and bathroom, 1 minute walk from a Laundromat
- See Eiffel Tower
- Must go after the night falls, for 5 minutes at the beginning of every hour, the tower glitters with LED lights, its an amazing view! I think the lighting stops after 2 AM.
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| Karan's angels ;) |
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| Le Posé :P |
Shining Eiffel Tower with live commentary :P
25th June -
- Sandeman free walking tour
- http://www.neweuropetours.eu/, recommended
- Walking around Champs-Elysees
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| while walking towards Champs-Elysees, posing like french kings :P |
- Meet my friend Claire
- Sacred Heart Basilica of Montmartre
- Highly recommended, go in the evening around 7 pm (in summer offcourse), amazing view over Paris, street artists and musicians, bring your own beer and drink on the stairs while listening to live music and with an amazing view over Paris, its a bliss. Just be aware of hawkers, they are very aggressive here.
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| Cheers to the fact that we still manage to meet! |
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| Palak and Astha enjoying the view of Paris @ Montmartre |
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| All of us at the Sacré-Cœur |
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| Me and Shan :) |
26th June -
- Visit INSEAD Campus
- Trains for Fontainbleau leave from Gare de Lyon station regularly and the train ride is about 41 minutes. The train will be heading to Montargis. 18 euros per person, one way. From Fontainbleau station, take a bus to INSEAD campus. We went here because Astha wanted to visit the campus and enquire about their MBA programs. 12% of all the students in INSEAD are Indians, more than any other nationality, even more than French!
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| @ INSEAD Fontainbleau campus |
- Sandeman pub crawl
- http://www.newparistours.com/daily-tours/new-paris-pub-crawl.html, not so good in PARIS, other cities like Berlin and Barcelona were much better
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| Partying in Latin Quarter of Paris ... |
27th June -
I and Sayantani stayed back at our hostel on this day as we wanted to do laundry and then eat at Sarvana Bhavan. Astha and Palak traveled on their own on this day and visited Louvre etc.
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| Offcourse!! |
- Notre Dame Cathedral
- Laundry
- Sarvana Bhavan
- http://www.saravanabhavan.com/restaurants.php, highly recommended, real Indian food, better than any other Indian restaurant in Europe.
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| Fuck yeah! |
- Train to Marseille from GARE DE LYON in the evening
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| Excited to take the TGV to Marseille from Paris |
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| Getting ready for the south of France :) |
- Check in at Vertigo Vieux Port Hostel, Marseille
- Highly recommended, best hostel in my experience, nice location, nice interiors, Air Conditioned, attached toilet and shower, very comfortable stay
- Sayantani's brother joins us, we have a car!
- Tirthankar bhaiya took a flight from Amsterdam to Marseille and joined us for south of France leg of our trip. He rented a car from airport, so it became convenient for us to visit small cities along the French riviera.
- Walk around old port and drink Mojitos
28th June -
- Drive to Cassis on 28th morning
- Nice guide of this area: http://www.marvellous-provence.com/other-places/sights-and-attractions/calanques/cassis
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| Beautiful Cassis... |
- Take a boat trip of 3 Calanques from quai Saint Pierre in Cassis
- Highly recommended, one of the highlights of our trip, 16 euro per person for 45 minute boat ride
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| Epic boat ride! 45 minutes of awesomeness ... |
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| Typical view of a Calanque |
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| The excited Bhawsinkas :P |
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| And the sophesticated Chatterjees :P |
- Swimming on the beach
- First realization that most beaches in french riviera are not sandy. It becomes very uncomfortable to walk and swim bare foot on rocky beaches. Rocks become very hot and there are high chances that you will cut your feet. We saw many people with special shoes made of swimming in these areas. If you want a comfortable swim, these shoes are highly recommended.
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| A typical beach on French Riviera during summers |
- Drive back to Marseille
- Amazing views along the way, recommended
- Long walk along the coast
- This walk is shown in the embedded map below. Highly recommended. You will come across some hidden gems of Marseilles. We found an amazing place called Le Bistrot Plage Restaurant Marseille. Its a restaurant where you can spend all day, eating, drinking and swimming in the Mediterranean. When we reached here, it was quite late in night, so we decided to come back here the next day.
29th June -
- Check out from Vertigo Vieux Port Hostel, Marseille
- Drive to Le Bistrot Plage Restaurant Marseille
- took a swim and had few drinks
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| Le Bistrot Plage, an amazing chillout spot! |
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| Always ready for a new pose :D |
- Drive to Saint-Tropez
- Amazing drive, just take the highway and avoid the coastal road
- Very pretty town, we had a small stop over for lunch and another swim
- An amazing place to swim in Saint-Tropez is shown in the embedded map below
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| Just another picture in Saint-Tropez |
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| Astha, modelling in Saint-Tropez :) |
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| Dipping our feet in the holy waters of French Riviera :) |
- Drive to Nice
- Check in at Hostel Meyerbeer Beach, Nice
- Nice hostel, amazing location, rooms are quite nice, attached toilet and shower, AC, breakfast sucks, could have been better, free towel and mat for swimming in the sea. Highly recommended.
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| Picturesque Nice! |
30th June -
- Free walking tour through the old town
- http://rivierabarcrawl.com/free-walking-tour-of-nice-france/, could have been better, the guide was from south america who was in Nice for summers. So she was just repeating whatever she had memorized. She even didn't know any french!
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| The Ferry coming from Corsica |
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| Somewhere along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice |
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| Astha @ Nice's farmers market |
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| On top of Castle Hill (amazing view of Nice from here) |
- Laundry
- Hostel Meyerbeer Beach is one minute walking from a Laundromat
- Paella dinner
- Salsa Bar + Cuba Libre
- We went to La Havane (http://lahavanenice.com/) after dinner. It turned out to be an amazing evening with Cuba Libre, mind blowing live Latin music and professional salsa dancing. Highly recommended place to spend an evening.
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| Shan got some private Merengue lessons :) |
The epic singer at La Havane ... he made the night special!
1st July -
- From Nice, drive to Ville-franche
- Large beautiful beach for swimming, still rocky
- Check out of Hostel Meyerbeer Beach
- Take a direct train from Nice to Geneva in Switzerland
- Only 1 direct train per day, takes 7.5 hours.
- Train from Geneva to Interlakken
- We bought swiss transfer ticket. The details can be found here: http://www.myswissalps.com/swisstransferticket
- If you are buying this ticket from Netherlands, http://www.treinreiswinkel.nl/ is highly recommended. We visited their office in Amsterdam to make the purchase but you can also buy online. We also bought swiss half fare card from them.
- Geneva to Interlaken via Bern takes 2.5 hours.
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| Just another view during the train ride from Geneva to Bern |
- Check in at Balmers Herberge, Interlaken
- This hostel is 20 minute walk from Interlaken Ost train station. There is a bus going directly to the hostel from the train station but it stops around 7 pm.
- Its a huge hostel and a very popular one. When we were there, almost 50% occupants were Koreans.
- Interlaken in general seems like a big tourist hub for Koreans and Indians. Koreans are generally young backpackers coming to Interlaken for adventure tourism. Indians generally come for a family holiday among the mountains.
- Expect to pay a city tax of 2.5 euro per person per day on top of hotel price.
- Interlaken Guest Pass
- If you are staying in a hostel/hotel in Interlaken, you will get a Guest pass with which you can travel in the Interlaken region by bus for free. It was quite handy for us.
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| Balmers Herbrage, our hostel in Interlaken |
3rd July -
- Go to Neuhaus on Lake Thun
- Bus 21 goes to Neuhaus directly from Interlaken west train station. This is the best place for swimming in Interlaken area. There is a private part where you can pay and enter, but just next to it, there is a free area. Highly recommended. Swimming in Lake Thun was one of the highlights of our trip.
- Interlaken has some of the cleanest waters in the world. The water here tasted different and felt different. Out of world swimming experience!
- Train from Interlaken to Murren via Lauterbrunnen
- We were stuck in Switzerland in a heat wave with temperatures going upto 35 degree. Murren was a relief for us as the temperatures were much better here. Its a very pretty village.
- From Murren take a cable car to Schilthorn (~3000 m high)
- The cable car ride is breathtaking. You have to change cable cars at a stop called Birg. At the cable car station here, there is a panorama terrace overlooking 3 highest peaks of Switzerland (Eiger, Jungfrau and Mönch). The view is amazing and it is a great point to make some pictures.
- On top of Schilthorn, lies the Piz Gloria revolving restaurant. We had some wine there.
- Because of the height, you will be gasping for breath just after climbing few stairs!
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| Palak, flying :) |
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| Astha, modelling even in the sky :P |
- Go back to Neuhaus on Lake Thun for a swim
- Shans friend Rachel joined us here. She is doing PhD is Zurich. She came to visit us for a day in Interlaken.
- Make lunch at Hostel
- We shopped from Lidl and made lunch at our hostel for some cost cutting
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| Having lunch at our hostel with Rachel |
- Go to Bönigen, See (on Lake Brienz) in the evening
- Interlaken is sandwitched between two lakes as you can see in the map below.
- The glacial runoff first comes in the Lake Brienz and then via a connecting river, it is transported to Lake Thun.
- Therefore the water in Lake Brienz is very cold and a bit dirty.
- In my experience, Lake Thun is a much better option for swimming. Visually, both are extremely beautiful.
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| Lake Brienz! |
6th July -
- Check out at Balmers Herberge, Interlaken
- Take a train to Zweisimmen
- using swiss transfer ticket
- From Zweisimmen, take Golden pass train to Montreux
- Seat reservation was required beforehand
- I personally found nothing special in Golden Pass train. It felt like a scam after seeing all the beautiful scenery in and around Interlaken. I would not recommend it. Travel agents sell these tickets ferociously, but it is not worth the price.
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| In the Golden Pass train from Zweisimmen to Montreux |
- Spend the afternoon in Montreux
- Montreux Jazz Festival was going on, it claims to be the largest Jazz festival in Europe. The day we were there, Lady Gaga was performing (in a Jazz festival?? :O) but the tickets were 200-300 swiss francs! So we skipped.
- Anyways, Montreux is a pretty city on the banks of Lake Geneva. We walked around the Lake Promenade, shopped for souvenirs and ate food from numerous stalls.
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| Montreux Jazz Festival! |
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| Lake Geneva ... |
- In the evening, take a train to Geneva Airport
- Note that I was not sure if our swiss transfer ticket is valid to go from Interlaken to Geneva via Montreux. Usually in the transfer ticket, you are required to take the shortest route which for us would have been Interlaken to Geneva via Bern. But from Zweisimmen, the shortest route to Geneva is via Montreux. So the only problem was the train from Interlaken to Zweisimmen (1 hour train ride). We just sat on the train and wished we were not checked, which is what luckily happened! Once we were in Zweisimmen, we could easily use our swiss transfer ticket to go to Geneva.
- Easy Jet flight from Geneva to Amsterdam
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| Flying back to Amsterdam! |
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BUDGET
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Now lets talk about budgeting a bit. The entire cost of the above mentioned two weeks trip came out around 1500 euros per person. The cost was more or less equally divided into 3 parts:
- Accommodation = 425 euros per person for 2 weeks
- Transportation = 500 euros per person for 2 weeks
- Food, drinks and tourism = 500 euros per person for 2 weeks
- Shopping = 50 euro per person for 2 weeks
It should be noted that we stayed in Hostels through out our trip. In all the hostels, we booked four bed dormitories as we were four of us. This way we had a private room everywhere. Booking 4 bed dorm was not possible in Balmers Herberge, Interlaken as they have a minimum of six bed dorm. And breakfast was included in all the Hostels, so we never paid extra for breakfast. We had one meal per day (either lunch or dinner) from a super market and we ate one meal (and a cocktail) lavishly in a nice restaurant. We avoided touristic places for which we had to pay like museums etc (we get bored there anyways :P). We did as minimum shopping as possible. Also note that this cost does not includes para sailing done by my cousins. The cost of para sailing was 210 euro per person including pictures and videos.
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Above, I have pretty much summarized our trip. We had so much fun and because we took ample resting days, we were never very tired. Also, in such a tight itinerary, it is important that you don't end up partying till late on any night other wise it will screw up your entire next day.
So after we came back to Netherlands, Astha and Palak stayed with us till 9th July. My friends were very kind to take days off and show them around in Netherlands. On 7th we visited Tirthankar bhaiya in Almere and my cousins shopped heavily from Primark. Luis took a day off next day and showed them around Amsterdam and Zaanse Schans. Next day, on 9th July, Tim took them to Utrecht and IKEA. In the evening on 9th, I had planned a dinner for my cousins with my colleagues in Amersfoort. All my colleagues who went to India for my wedding and met my cousins there were excited to meet them again!.
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| Astha and Palak with us and with our Friends who visited India for our wedding :) |
Finally Astha and Palak took a flight back to India early morning on 10th July from Schipol.
This is how my amazing past few weeks ended and I went to my regular job life. But the next adventure starts soon. Mine and Sayantani's parents are visiting us in the beginning of August. So the story will continue my friend ... ;)
Cheers
Karan
