Europe on a shoe-string - Introduction

This is the first of a series of photo essays describing my first jaunt through Europe - which was a 16 day self-propelled tour along with two good friends. I do not intend it to be strictly a 'do-this, don't do that guide' but maybe you could pick up a few pointers along the way in planning your own trip. As Louis Casabianca put it - if you haven't yet seen Europe... what in the world are you waiting for!!!
It had been a dream for sometime to do this, and it remained just that until I decided it should be ticked of the list of 'Joe's to-do List before he gets married' - so it was pretty much now or never. First call - find a set of compatible companions, preferably not clones since that would get boring... at the same time a guy (or girl) who would not cause angst halfway through the journey. Next, keep the number of fellow travelers small, else you will end up perennially waiting for the last one - and you hardly want to be doing that if you are on a tight schedule. Luckily I was blessed to have just the right individuals in Samir 'Sam' Ginde - my roommate from Virginia Tech and Anil Kumar who has been my comrade in many a good (and ill-fated) trip across the U.S.A.

Anil & Samir (at JFK - Sept.24 2005)

Yes, I did try initially - and No I did not manage to find any girls to come along, at least not the right ones... maybe because it was not going to be all luxury all the way or for whatever reason - but no bother, it would all be good.
Second - the planning stage. I had betted on keeping the trip to within $2000 and this called for planning - airfare, hostels (not hotels silly!), museums ... the whole night yards. The trip was planned for October but we began exploratory work in February and scrounged for cheap deals in flight tickets, train passage and of course - the itinerary. After numerous back-and-forth discussions (or arguments - call it what you seem fit) we concluded on the following - Zurich - Lucerne - Lauterbrunnen - Lausanne - Venice - Florence - Rome - Nice - Paris. Yeah, we did discuss Amsterdam, London and Munich but when you have limitations in time and budget this was all we could fit in... and who says this would be our last trip anyways?
If you ask me now - this is what you got to do: and I think the order is correct too....

1. Get the itinerary in place
2. Grab a good guide for each place. We used Rough Guides, which I thought made good reading. As a sidenote - do not use the all-in-one Europe guides... since they lack depth, and are heavy to carry around
3. Get your flight tickets - travel in September and April may be the best, off-season with brilliant weather
4. Book hotels, hostels - using ratings from different websites to help you out. Couple include www.tripadvisor.com and www.hostelworld.com
5. Purchase the intermediate destination railway and/or bus tickets. If possible try to squeeze long journeys as overnight train-rides, saves money and time
6. Get appropriate visas and travel insurance
7. Read the guides and chalk out a rough itinerary - really helps to get up each morning and have a decent idea (not necessarily written in concrete) to know what you have to do
8. Based on your likes you may even want to book certain attractions in advance. May cost a wee bit extra but one look at the lines will make you wish you had
9. GO... nothing more - nothing less

So now that all was taken care of - that's exactly what we did. Each day of our adventure will be included in a new post. That way you do not get bored... and my blog will get more hits. Hmmm... I do not mean the latter, but still would like to share our experiences with you. Happy reading...