Europe leisure travel tips for Indians

A panoramic view of Bern from Rose Garden. Picture by author.

Based on a March 2019 vacation in Switzerland, France, and Italy, here are some tips for the budget-conscious Indian holiday traveller (as opposed to business travellers on a company account).

Europe is an incredibly scenic place and so do visit if you can afford it. But at an exchange rate of 80 Indian rupees to a euro, it helps to be aware of ways to optimise your budget.

At the end of the post, I have a rough breakup of what the trip will cost.

1. Avoid the peak tourist seasons, usually coinciding with school holidays. Airfares and hotels will be expensive, and tourist landmarks will be crowded. Choose the cusp seasons of early spring and late autumn to get a flavour of both summer and winter.

2. Shop around for the best value for airlines. If the difference in cost between two airlines is not too high, always prefer the better airline even if it costs a little more (check out sites like TripAdvisor for reviews). For example, we found the leg space and service on Emirates to be far superior to that on Air France.

3. Get a Travel Card, international mobile phone roaming pack, and power bank. We purchased a pre-loaded multi-currency ICICI Bank Travel Card and an international roaming pack from Airtel for our mobile phones. Both worked across Switzerland, France, and Italy. The mobile phone pack had a generous data allowance and that is essential since you will use Google Maps (a lot) to navigate. For this reason, you'll also need a power bank so that your phone doesn't die in the middle of nowhere. The only time the Airtel card had a problem, the support desk in India was accessible and helpful.

Tip: In case your phone doesn’t latch on to the local network automatically, switch to manual and select the first network from the available list.

4. Book visits to landmarks early and definitely before you leave India so that you can plan your itineraries in each city. Slots get sold out surprisingly fast. For example, we booked our guided tours of Louvre and Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Vatican and Colosseum in Rome almost a month in advance. Considering that hotels are very expensive in Europe, you don’t want to dawdle on extended stays. Our itineraries were packed from morning till evening. It helped that sunset was at 8pm or later!

Tip: If you are serious about art, three museums in Paris will cover all the time periods. The Louvre Museum hosts sculptures from ancient times to 1850 and paintings from the 13th century to 1848. The Musée d'Orsay hosts french impressionist paintings from 1848 to 1914, and the Georges Pompidou Centre hosts modern art.

5. Prefer the official guided tour to private operators. The guides are generally more knowledgeable and the prices are lower. (‘Lower’ is a relative term: at 26 euros per head at the Louvre and 38 euros per head at the Vatican, these tours are by no means cheap by Indian standards).

6. Book a walking tour. Most cities have excellent area-specific so-called free walking tours run by enthusiastic and knowledgeable locals. While there is no charge, the convention is to tip the guide at the end of the tour. We took these walking tours in old Rome and in Montmartre in Paris, paid the typical 12 euros per head tip, and thought it was excellent value for money. In contrast, we booked an official walking tour in Bern at 25 CHF a head and found it overpriced.

7. Dress in layers. Unless you are travelling in very cold weather (below zero Celsius), jeans and shirt/tops, a fleece jacket, a water resistant outer jacket, cap, gloves, scarf, and sneakers is fine. We found Decathlon’s cold weather wear to be reasonably priced and their colours and designs blend in with what the locals wear.

Tip: the locals dress in sober colours and their clothes are well cut.

8. Travel with one piece of baggage. This is particularly important if you intend to travel to multiple cities by a low cost carrier like Easyjet (often the best way to travel within Europe). But be very careful about baggage sizes. International carriers usually allow you one carry-on bag and one accessory bag. But Easyjet strictly allows only one carry-on bag. So unless you want to pay (a lot) for extra luggage, choose a carry-on bag size that is acceptable on all your airlines.

9. Prefer hotels in central locations to the suburbs. Using the local bus/metro/tram in a new city without knowing the local language is stressful, expensive, and time-consuming. For this reason, we stayed near the Louvre in Paris and near the Pantheon in Rome. This meant that barring a couple of occasions when we had to take a taxi (Uber and its English-speaking drivers are a great convenience), everything was within a walking radius of 3 kilometres. This saved us a lot of hassle and allowed us to be in control of our itinerary. We stayed in two-star hotels that cost 150 euros a night and found them perfectly adequate, even charming. (Yep, hotels in European capitals are expensive!).

10. Be prepared to walk. A lot. We regularly walked more than 10 kilometres a day. Most landmarks, even in the capital cities of Bern, Paris, and Rome are a walk away. And you experience a lot more of a new place on foot than by bus, tram, or taxi.

11. Don’t fall for the ‘eat like a local’ myth. Travel books tell you to eat in places where the locals eat to avoid getting ripped off in tourist traps. That didn’t work for us for many reasons. One, there are no ‘undiscovered’ eating places near major landmarks in the big cities. Two, everything is expensive for Indians. So a 15-euro meal that a local would consider reasonably priced quickly adds up to a large amount over 10-15 days in Indian rupees. And three, while you should definitely sample the local cuisine to broaden your horizons, there’s no point subjecting your palate to strange food just because it is local. We’ve had croute, quiche, wine, and fondue in Switzerland, pizza and pasta in Italy, and baguette and pastries in France, and the experience was sometimes great and sometimes too strange.

What worked for us was to sample the local cuisine but stick to American fast food chains when on the go. A burger and cappuccino at McDonald's costs under 10 euros, is quick, hygienic, and tasty. It also sufficiently fuels you for hours of walking without feeling overstuffed.

12. Supermarkets are a great source of food. Since restaurants in Europe are expensive, many locals and savvy tourists buy an assortment of food – croissants, pastries, fruits, ice cream, drinks – at chain stores like Migros (in Switzerland) and make a picnic meal of it. Not only is this cheaper than eating in restaurants, it is also quite the done thing. On the banks of the river Seine in Paris, along the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and in parks across Europe, you will find people enjoying the weather and a picnic meal.

13. Water is potable in many public places but not all, so be careful. Travel guides say that water in public taps, fountains, and washrooms across Western Europe is safe to drink but it's not that simple. In Switzerland, water in all the public fountains in Bern was potable but many water fountains in Geneva had little signs saying it was not safe to drink from them. In Interlaken, we found just one tap on the main street and it was a little tacky. Paris doesn't have a lot of public water taps but Rome has plenty.

14. Pack a bathroom mug.

15. Budget Rs 3.5 lakhs for the trip. This is roughly what a Europe holiday of 10 nights to 3 cities for a couple will cost (Mar-Apr 2019 prices, Euro = Rs 80). Here's the breakup:

Pre-flight expenses = Rs 20,000 (visa fees, insurance, service charges, phone pack, etc.)
India-Europe return airfare = Rs 1,00,000
Internal Europe airfares = Rs 25,000
Hotels = Rs 1,20,0000 (Euro 150/night, 10 nights)
Food = Rs 40,000 (Euro 50/day, 10 days)
Airport taxis = Rs 19,200 (Euro 40 from airport to hotel, 6 trips, 3 cities)
Landmarks (entrance tickets, guides) = Rs 28,800 (average Euro 20/head/landmark, 9 landmarks, 3 cities)
Souvenirs, gifts = Rs 8,000 (Euro 100)
TOTAL = Rs 3,60,000

PS. Brands mentioned in the post are not endorsements.