Europe Trip: Introduction

The foundation of this post and the basic ingredients were fused on my way back from what had been a fantastic trip to a chosen few destinations across Europe. This post is a brief account of the terrific trip.

Off late, certain otherwise ‘loyal’ blog-readers, have criticized the typical length and wordiness of my posts. Taking into account the ‘recent-criticism’ and my general typing-laziness has resulted in a bullet point account of the Europe trip!

Pre-trip planning

• First thoughts of Europe trip appeared around a year ago.
• Started to plan for this trip in July, applied for vacation and I was politely told “dare not take-off before the end of project” – so mid-October it was!
• I persevered through my allergic response to book shops and eventually succeeded in purchasing a guide to Europe. I had to literally start my trip planning from scratch. – had no clue to the overall geography of Europe; I still wonder how I managed to pass Social Studies exams at School!
• Started with the ‘mugga-process’ on net, found links to typical Europe trips covering major cities, going deep into history of modern Europe, art, etc, etc
• However, that didn't excite me at all. The very idea of going from one museum to the other, from one city to the other, drained me. This didn’t sound to me like a vacation by any stretch of imagination
• Got back to basics, thought and thought about what I really wanted from the trip
• After a few hundred random iterations of possible Europe travel routes, eventually understood what I was looking for – scenery, winter, snow, drives and may be some bit of technical funades –e.g. car museums or visits to manufacturing plants (e.g. Airbus)
• It was a fairly complex plan – had to fit various constraints to my trip. Maharaj’s 6-day vacation schedule, ideally a weekend in London to meet up Junta, attend cousins’ wedding at Delhi, Diwali at home, attend Slippy’s wedding at Udipi, etc
• Hour-by-hour planning is beyond me, except when it comes to challenging long drives. Lack of time to plan out every detail meant that trip had to be like “reach-the-damn-place, search-for-a-tourist-office, … and take it from there!”

The overall planned trip

Singapore ---> Chennai (0.1) ---> Delhi (2.0) ---> London (1.5) ---> Paris (1.0) ---> Toulouse (1.0) ---> Stuttgart (0.5) ---> Switzerland (3.0) ---> Norway (2.5) ---> Frankfurt/ Black forest (1.0) ---> Delhi (0.1) ---> Chennai (1.0) ---> Udipi (2.0) ---> Chennai (0.5) ---> Singapore
(Figures in bracket are number of days spent)

... the journey begins...