The Itinerary

We started planning for our Euro trip in about mid Feb of 2024. “Euro trip” is somewhat of a umbrella term of wide range of experiences that the European continent has to offer. Mediterranean Italy, Greece and Spain have a different vibe compared to Traditional feel of France, Germany, Switzerland and much of Western Europe. For me and my wife’s first “Euro Trip”, Paris we decided should be our first and most important stop. This was also influenced by the fact that most direct flights from India offer competitive prices to Paris. Paris, great! what next? Hmm … Italy? Nice, lots of places to cover so for main destination as per Schengen Visa would be Italy. We could throw in Switzerland in the iternerary too. But upon checking VFS appointment dates for Italy, we saw that earliest available was 27th April. We intented to be on our tour for our wedding anniversary (May 21st) so 3 weeks before our date of departure was somewhat of a risky call since Schengen visa is often delayed in summer. Italy being a popular summer destination. So, we checked VFS appointments for Germany. 17th April. That seemed doable as we intented to depart on 17th May. Oficcially they say to apply no less than 2 weeks before date of departure, so 4 weeks seemed enough. We were always paranoid nevertheless. We formed an itinerary around the big cities around Paris: Paris, Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam. We also included Stuttgart to visit a very close of my wife. Our first step of the preperation was the following itinerary: Paris-Stuttgart-Munich-Berlin-Amsterdam Having finalized city/date of entry and exit, we targetted getting the VFS Appointment for Germany on 17th April. Reserving the appoitment needed only Passport number and nothing else (Cost around Rs.2300 per person including SMS, courier fee etc.). We also wanted to buy the flight tickets before they got more expensive. During the one week we spent deciding on itinerary prices almost increased by 5k per ticket.

COST TRACKER: INR 5000

The Flights

We wanted direct flights to avoid the trouble of layovers in weird places and the anxiety of misplaced luggage. Also given that our place of arrival (Paris) and departure (Amsterdam) were on popular routes a direct flight would not have been a problem. We booked AF-217, direct flight from Bombay (BOM T2) to Paris (CDG 2E) departing on 01:30 at night (morning) of 17th May. It cost approx Rs. 75,000, on official AF website. Offer like zero-cancellation charges was not applicable. We did not add checkin luggage which was another 5k per ticket. We added 1 baggage later a few days before departure, bringing our total cost to approx Rs.80,000 for 2 people. This was deducted in Euros since we payed to Air France and hence we got charged 4.13% Markup+GST on our credit card, so make sure you sort out forex before paying in foreighn currency! Similarly the return flight was Air India AI-156 from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS) to Delhi IGI (DEL T3) with 6-7 hr layover the flight to Mumbai (BOM). Which cost approx 60,000 total for 2 people. Booked on Cleartrip. No offers. Payment made in INR so no markup charges.

COST TRACKER: INR 1,45,000

The Visa

One requires the Schengen Visa (C type) to visit Schengen Zone countries. As mentioned before, even before booking flights we booked our appointment at VFS for Germany. For India this should be your first step as soon as you know the country you will be applying the Visa from (either longest duration os stay, or if there is a tie then country of entry). Our city fortunately had a VFS center processing Schengen Visas for Germany. This cost about Rs 2300 per person including miscellaneous fees. Non refundable.

Accomodation

While we waited for our appointment date to drag closer. 2 months from the day we booked the appoitment seemed like a long time. But we got busy ironing out our itinerary, like adding day trips to Neuschwanstein Castle and Innsbruck etc. Also accomodations were also getting more expensive so we got to that as well. Booking.com was our go to website for all our bookings. With long nights of comparing and researching neighbourhoods, we had acco booked for each night of our visit (no night travels were planned as all places in our itinerary were close by to each other). We are not very familiar with AirBnB plus it wasnt allowing free cancellation, which was very important for us incase of emergency or our visa application fell through. Paris was the most expensive, followed by Amsterdam. Munich too somewhat. Hostel experience is not bad in Europe plus we would be out and about almost entire daytime only coming back at night to rest, so we booked hostel beds in Munich and Amsterdam. Rest were hotel rooms are reasonable rates. All of them were were very close to the metro transit of their city. Approx cost of 17 nights of hotels and hostel for two people: INR 1,70,000.

  • Hotel Terminus Montparnasse (4 nights) = EUR 531 (rebooked just 3 days before arrival as original booking was EUR 780+ !)
  • Ibis Budget Hotel, Stuttgart (2 nights) = EUR 144
  • 10-bed mixed dorm, Euro Youth Hostel, Munich (4 nights) = EUR 400 (after 10% cash discount for accepting double bed in the dorm)
  • The Social Hub Hotel, Alexanderplatz, Berlin (3 nights) = EUR 386
  • 4-bed mixed dorm, Meininger Hostel, Amstel, Amsterdam (3 nights) = EUR 443

So total acco cost came to around INR 1,73,000 (approx 10k per night) for two people.

COST TRACKER: INR 3,25,000

The Event Tickets

Summer in Europe is the mina tourist season and tickets to venues and events have to be boughts months or weeks in advance. We booked tickets to the Louvre Museum, Catacombs in Paris and Tour of Neuschwanstein Castle. Later when our Visa arrived, we also booked all train tickets (all on DB Navigator) as well as a cruise on the river Seine. May is not exactly summer so we found ourselves at many places able to get tickets by standing in queue for just 10-15 mins (Eiffel Tower, Nordkette (Top of Innsbruck), etc.).

  • Seine River Cruise (Bateaux Parisiens) = EUR 32
  • Amsterdam Canal Cruise (Blue Boat) = EUR 50
  • Louvre Museum = EUR 45
  • Nordkette = EUR 91
  • Neuschwanstein = EUR 40
  • Catacombs = EUR 58
  • Eiffel Tower = EUR 22

COST TRACKER: INR 3,56,000

The documentation

This is somewhat of a headache for any Euro trip from India. The paperwork! Primary paperwork is

  • The flight tickets to and from schengen zone
  • Proof of accomodation
  • Bank statements (3m)
  • Payroll statements (3m)
  • ITRV (2 FY)
  • Cover letter
  • Detailed Itinerary (with planned or confirmed modes of transport)
  • Health Insurance
  • Proof of Leave taken from employer
  • Employment proof

Few extra docs we did slip in were

  • Marriage certificate
  • Tickets to events

Appointment

Comes 17th April and things were pretty relaxed. We reached 10 mins early to the VFS Center. We got in the 8:30am queue when it was time. Inside they screened through all docs and were given a token and directed to relevant kiosk where when our term came we submitted them where our biometric was taken and we also paid for the visa (EUR 80 per person). Not many comments here .. its better to take a appointment early in the day .. ours was 8:30am and there were still quite a lot of people there.

COST TRACKER: INR 3,71,000

Cash in Euro

The prmary motivation to get a forex card was 4.13% Markup+GST cost for using our credit card to pay in euros. I got ICICI Sappiro Travel Card cost about 3k (or 3.5k with tax). It came with a backup card incase the primary one got compromised. Also INR 1000 Uber voucher and international lounge massaage voulcher. I switched all my accomodation payments on booking.com as soon as i got my forex card delivered (in 1 week after applying). For cash I used BookMyForex as recommended by a friend. It assigned a company called Zenith something in my city which delivered it within 5 days (included a weekend). I ordered Euro 450. They gave 4 notes of 100 and one of 50. Smaller change would have been nicer but no problem.

COST TRACKER: INR 4,35,000

The Mobile plans

Me and wife both have Airtel service prepaid SIM cards, so we got 10 day and 30 day international plan which included 1 and 5 GB data and cost approx Rs.900 and Rs.3000. Local sims in Europe cost around 30-50 Euros but could come with attractive data offers. Data is expensive in Europe.

COST TRACKER: INR 4,39,000

The Train Tickets

We used DB (Deutsch Bahn) Navigator for all our trains. A TGV for Paris to Stuttgart, then IC/ICE for Stuttgart-Munich, RER for Munich-Fussen-Munich (This trip we did under Bayern ticket which is just 39 Euro per day for a group of 5 people), IC/ICE for Munich to Berlin and Berlin to Amsterdam. Costs were fairly reasonable, much less than flights and very convinient for us. Very comfortable too. Approx Cost INR 60,000 (not sure!)

COST TRACKER: INR 5,00,000

Conclusion on cost estimate

The above cost trackers estimates the approx cost for almost all aspects of the tour except food and souveniers, which largely depends on personal preferrences. Our food costs were approx EUR 40-45 per day for both of use combined. At times a nice sitdown meal was alone EUR 40-50 but for most of the meals were under EUR 20. Since I paid everything out of my Forex card (except the flights) its easy to estimate the tour cost on Food and Miscallaneous. For me that comes to around INR 90,000, which includes the events cost so lets add 60k to end the tracker. FYI, I had put EUR 3200 on my card before departing. 5 days into the trip i put additional EUR 1600 just to be safe since I would be paying almost EUR 2k just for acco and i needed doh for grub etc. After arriving back in india I had approx EUR 1100 on my card. This was primarily due to this weird policy of “Card Pre-Authorization” done by hotels. The Paris hotel did this equivalent to cost of first day at the hotel. This amount is refunded after your stay by the hotel cancelling the preauthorization. Now not sure how this works in other banks, but in ICICI you get this amount back in your account after 30 days! So, I got my preauthorization charges back in my account AFTER I returned to India. BTW this preauthorization charge was deducted almost 7-10 days before day of arrival, keep that in mind. No other Hotel did this though.

COST TRACKER: INR 5,60,000