Paris

It has always been one of our dream to see the Eiffel tower, and I can say we actually saw in twice in out trip! After staying 4 days in London, we flew into Paris on BA, as the eurostar was too expensive. We love Paris alot, it such a romantic and fascinating place, so much things to do. We visited the Eiffle, Lourve, caught the tour de france final on the Champ Elysees, almost visited the Versailles but we bought the wrong train pass.

There are 2 ways to get up the tower, the stairs or the lift...and we took the the stairs! A total of 668 steps!

London Pictures!

Our very first stop of the trip was to visit our friends Maggie & Steve in London. They were really kind to have us for 4 days. Its a typical english house with a garden overlooking the thames river.

Food for thought

The major expenses on the road are Accommodations, Transportation, Sights and Food. Among the four, the only thing that you can control the most is your food expenses. If we had eaten out most of the time in restaurants, i doubt we would be able to make it this long in Europe. Although, we were travelling on a budget we do occasionally treat ourselves to a good meal at a restaurant once in a blue moon. These occasions were rare, thus we really enjoy it when we get to eat out. One of our most memorable meal we had was in Arles, where we had an authentic Provence 3 course set dinner at 15 euro per person, the food was fantastic and it was a really great experience dining in a restaurant that is patronised by locals instead of tourists.

Most of the days we ate on the budget, but we make sure we had enough nutrition though as we were moving alot almost everyday. We cooked whenever we get the opportunity. We made daily trip to the supermarket to get our meals; eg bread, ham, cheese, fruits. One thing that we were really glad to have brought along on our trip were pre-mix sauce for Chinese cooking. With the sauce we were able to cook Chinese meal that were as good as back home. Chinese food are really expensive in Europe, therefore bread will be your main meals constitute.

Our usual Meals:

Breakfast - If our accommodations comes with free breakfast, that will be great. Else we will have either cereals/milk or bread/chocolate spread in our room.

Lunch - We always pre-packed our lunch and have it in the park like the local. Most of the days we will have ham baguette, with either a banana or nectarine and ocasionally a pack of Doritos chips.

Dinner - If we can cook we usually have either pasta, or maybe a simple chinese stir fry dish with rice. Else, it will always be either turkish kebab or MacDonald promotional burger.

Looking back, I would say we didn't really enjoy the food's part of the trip, but what mattered most was that we were able to remain strong and healthy through out the trip. And this is probably the first time in my life that I had so much Mac!

Accomodation on the road

In Europe, you have a choice of many different type of accomodation. It really depends on your budget and what you really like or more of what you can bear.

Hotels
This is definately the most expensive and luxurious options. Which based on our budget it is obviously out of our range. But we did manage to stay in a 2 star hotel in Paris, needless to say you can't expect much although we had our own bathroom but toilet was shared. Furniture was a little worn-off but it was a very decent room and we were very happy with the hospitality of the owner. Well, i forgot to add on that that was the only time we stayed in a hotel during our trip.

Bed & Breakfast/ Pension
This was our favourite option! In some place, it can also be called pension or zimmer. We prefer it, as it offers more privacy, affordable and homely. The shower and toilet are shared among all the guests. It turn out that we stayed in these pretty often but this option usually do not allow or have the facilities for cooking which was very important to us, being able to cook help to stretch our euro longer.

Hostel
This is the best accommodation for single traveller because you can bunk in a dormitory. Most of them come in 4, 6 or 8 bedded. There are also private room, but will cost more. There are lots of opportunity for singles travellers to mingle around. Most provide Internet connection, cooking and laundry facilities. Thus this is a good option if you are keen on meeting and hanging out with fellow travellers.

But if you can't tolerate crowds, snores and rowdy youths on their summer vacation, then this is definitely not for you; We had to stayed in a 8 bedded dorm in Nice, as most pension were full and it was an experience sharing dorm with a group of drunkards. Bags, shoes and dirty clothing were lying every where. They got back in the early morning drunk, creating such a din and interrupting our sleep. We checkout of the hostel first thing in the morning.

If you have 2 or more persons sharing accomodation, staying in a hostel is not always the cheapest. Instead we found out that BnB/pension are much more affordable.

Tips

• Try to book your accommodations in advance if you are travelling during the summer
• If you really can't get one in advance, book the hostel for the night. There are usually some other accomodations around. Try walking around the neighbourhood to look for one.
• Even if you were told that it is fully-booked, try calling again on the day you arrive in the morning as sometime there might be some last minute room cancellation.
• We always read up on fellow travellers' hotels reviews on tripadvisors, it is always very accurate.

Transportation

Traveling around the countries was really easy and convenient. Throughout our trip we travelled around by 2 form of transport:

Eurail

It is highly recommended! Although, you could still purchase single tickets at the stations but having the passes really help save alot of money and brings you tremendous convenience.

Do note that there are perks that comes together with your passes so take note of them before you travel so that you can plan your trip accordingly. In Switzerland for example, you can use it for a cruise on the lake or for a free or discounted cable ride. Be very clear about the perks and use it to your advantage.

There are mainly 4 types of passes; Global Pass, Select Pass, Regional Pass and 1 country Pass. It can be a headache trying to find the best type to suit your travel plan. But 1 thing we learn during our trip was to purchase or include countries where transportation are expensive. For example; Train fares in Italy is relatively inexpensive compare to Switzerland.(www.eurail.com)

Singapore travelers head to STA office (www.statravel.com.sg) to purchase your tickets, remember to have them before you leave for europe as you can't buy them anymore when you are there. These are special privilege for travelers not from the EU. But should you decide that you really need them and you are already in Europe, get someone at home to purchase them and have it deliver to you.

Bus

This is another way that you can travel around and there are quite a few bus companies that does this. All you have to do is google it and you will get a handful to choose from. Some people are very familiar with contiki, it is mainly cater to the young hence its only for those 18-35 years old travelers. But we didn't choose that because we found it to be too yuppie for us even though we fall into the age category. Expect lots of partying and boozing.

After searching through the net, we decide on the company busabout, there is no age limit and it provides lots of flexibility which is what we wanted. You could hop on and off the bus and explore the place as long as you want. It basically consist of 3 different routes that covers different part of europe and you can purchase 1, 2 or all 3 loop whichever best suits you. Once you have done that you can travel in your loop as many times as you would like before the season ends. (www.busabout.com)