We went to Europe in February when everyone wants to avoid it for cold weather & it was best decision by us.
Pros : 1) Less crowd in all tourist places, means no extra charges for Skip the lines for entering to Museums 2) Cheaper Stays 3) Valentine Carnival 4) Less crowd in Public Transport 5)Generally Paris is known for theft & robbing but we didn't faced anything because of too less crowd in tourist places 6) Better food
Cons : Temperature from -5°C to 3°C
Our Europe visit cost us just Indian Rupees 2 Lakhs 10 thousand for 2 persons for 10 days which includes Flights, Visas, Stay, Food, Transportation & entry to various places. Here is how & when we planned everything.
We started planning for this trip 2 months before the schedule departure from India. First thing that we decided was that we are going to use Public Transport over Cabs for our daily commute on which basis we decided our stay places which should be near to metro stations. Then we decided to go for Homestays over Hotels, they were cheap (approx Rs 3K with tax per day for 2 persons during our whole Trip), comfy, perks of having advice on travel from Local people & they have kitchen. Kitchen is major point because we use to carry our water from kitchen otherwise which costs around Euro 2.5 (Rs 200)for each bottle.
Visa process (all by ourselves): Visited Vfsglobal site and filled form. Applied for appointment and maintained balance in bank account. Do carry passport size photos required for Schengen Visa (its different for all Visa) and all other documents as stated on website specially booking documents of Stays and Trains. We took Visa for Italy because our major stay was going to be in Italy. Its recommended to take Visa of country in which you are going to stay long.
We took flight from Delhi to Paris via Rome. Took train from Airport to our Homestay. Rest all details are available on this post.
https://www.tripoto.com/paris/trips/paris-in-winter-within-budget-5e562210d1988
We took train from Paris to Beauvais (France) and stayed at Beauvais for a night and took early morning flight too Rome. Please note do self check in atleast 5 hours before otherwise Beauvais airport charge Euros 50 per person for same.
After reaching Rome we took Bus from Rome airport to nearest Metro station and then took Metro till our stay. Rest all details are available on this post.
https://www.tripoto.com/rome/trips/rome-cannot-be-built-in-a-day-5e579ca055081
From Rome we took Train for Florence which was super cool train. Then from Florence station since it was Sunday we didn’t find any Bus so we walked (2.5 kms) upto our stay and took rest that day. Next day we started roaming in Florence. Rest all details are available on this post.
From Florence we took train for Cinque Tere, while visiting cinque tere be ready for lots of walking, no local transport in city. Please note while we visited Cinque Tere and Pisa our luggage was still at Florence because our train to Venice was from Florence. Rest all details are available on this post.
https://www.tripoto.com/trip/cinque-tere-you-beauty-607869f98e843
From Cinque Tere we went to Pisa and were super tired so took rest. Next day after roaming around Pisa we took train from Pisa to Florence. Rest all details are available on this post.
https://www.tripoto.com/pisa/trips/celebrated-tower-of-pisa-60785e8ca5287
From Florence we took Train to Venice in afternoon. We reached Venice by evening and took Bus from station to our stay. Rest all details are available on this post.
https://www.tripoto.com/trip/a-realist-in-venice-would-become-a-romantic-607ed97c52ce8
At this beautiful note we ended our Europe trip and next day morning were having flight from Venice Airport for India (via Rome).
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Please note : For details on each city travel please visit respective blogs.
