The Swiss Honeymoon: Planning

Its been about 2.5 months since we went to Switzerland and I'm still to get over the hangover. The place was picture perfect and couldnt have been better. That was also when I was last with Shikha. It gets exciting to think that in another 5 days I'll be with her again. This mini-travelogue was long due and I figured I finish it off at one go before the non-photographic memories take wing and flitter off.


Deciding on Switzerland

All our planning was done at last moment. We had earlier subscribed to an expensive timeshare resort scheme from Club Mahindra hoping to get to holiday in their Swiss properties and have a place to holiday for the next 25 years. We had decided on going to Switzerland because:

1. Shikha had to carry on to Boston from there and the flights seemed to be just perfect.
2. Greece would've been a little hot and VERY party-like at that point in the year - something we were'nt looking forward to, after so many marriage parties and running around.
3. We wanted something beautiful and relaxed and yet something that would be varied enough to appeal to our backpacking nature.
4. UK, though good from a connecting flight point of view - provided too iffy weather and a stupid infrastructure if you didnt have your car around the countryside.
5. Switzerland promised to be the most tourist friendly and give enough cultural variety - Swiss, German, Italian and French for a 12-day trip without running around too much.
6. We did NOT want to backpack around more than one country in Europe - esp on the honeymoon and with Shikha's super heavy luggage.
7. I was quite familiar with Switzerland so it would'nt as stressful considering that there was no time to research any other place

The timeshare of course didnt work - we realised that it is next to Impossible to get reservations on a Timeshare resort even two months before a holiday and in high season (even though we had bought a high-season timeshare). And we're not the kinds that plan a holiday so much in advance. So I cancelled our Timeshare just in time to get back the huge advance I had paid and were left with no honeymoon planned all of a sudden. Thanks for that g-talk discussion we had, Vij:)...you played a part in helping me cancel!!

We wanted to go someplace where we wouldnt able to just get up and go to in day to day life so Europe sounded ideal given our current situation (SE Asia would have been monsoony and India is something we keep doing anyway, all the time). So Europe it was and Switzerland it was. We also were totally against a package tour concept - doing it all yourself has an element of fun thats unparalelled.

Air Tickets

The visa was out of the way, we had tickets to Switz after much comparison (hot tip: select one travel agent and go with them, rather than going to too many places or websites). Make my Trip was'nt the cheapest option - the friendly neighbourhood travel agent was. We chose Mayfair travels (Nariman Point) to book our tickets and they gave us fair rates - better than some others and equal to many others. We travelled Swiss Airlines which though costlier, provided great service and of course, dropped us and luggage safely off at Zurich, Boston and Bombay respectively.

Stay

I went online and reserved a small studio apartment in the hills in central Switzerland where we could park all the luggage and then go all around the country (a little bit of backpacking was the idea behind it) and be totally relaxed in case we wanted to stay in on a day.

The high season in Switzerland (and all of Europe) is exactly when we were planning to go - July/August - so the costs were about 30%-50% more than in average season. It was a little tough to decide on something without seeing it and the Thorn Tree Forum on Lonely Planet came REALLY handy. Fellow travellers there helped me decide in real time and we had the apartment all figured out over emails. Sweet!

Our apartment was overlooking a glacier and though being Indian I was fairly cynical, it more than matched our expectations when we reached there.

Local travel

This is the most important part of planning - and can prove to be the costliest if you dont plan well. We had figured that we wanted to make use of the opportunity and see as much of the country as we could and yet be relaxed when we wanted to be. Euro rail offers a host of travel options. Swiss rail is fortunately the best of the Euro rails and VERY costly if you book individual tickets.

Unlimited travel passes are hence, the best option in case you're going to be travelling a lot and at your whim. Swiss rail offers many kinds of travel passes - the family pass, the super saver pass (for 2 or more adults travelling), the the Swiss card (first and last day unlimited travel and 50% on intervening days).

Considering that we'd be travelling across the length and breadth of the coutnry, we got a Swiss Rail Super saver pass for unlimited travel for 8 consecutive days (the next number of days is 15 - wish they had one for 10!). This entitled us to:

1. Unlimited travel on the Swiss rail network,
2. All trams and buses in all cities and most Post Buse routes (the Post office - die post operates buses in Switz) between cities
3. Most boats on most of the lakes in Switz (and there are MANY lakes in Switz)
4. Free entry to most of the museums and galleries in Switzerlands

All of this for approx Rs10k per head and was the best and the most VFM purchase we did for our Swiss trip.

Most of the trains run unreserved - lots of space and you need reservations on only a few special trains like the Glacier express or the Wilhelm Tell express or the Jungfraujoch bahn - and the extra amount is payable on the spot.

The Swiss rail pass can be purchased from any travel agent in India - we got ours from Thomas Cook who incidentally also gave excellent forex services for Shikha's Dollar needs for the US.

Forex planning

It is important to carry your own forex beforehand and not change at the last moment. Reason being that the Rupee is not freely convertible (yet) and not many countries provide a rupee-changing option with the local currency. So you have to change into Dollars/Euros and then into local currency (CHF/Swiss Francs in our case - Swiss accept both CHF and Euros but give back change in CHF so best to buy all CHF unless you're a Shakuntala Devi with numbers ). This roundabout conversion process means you lose about 5-10% straightaway. Also, it is NOT adviced to get money changed at the airports - the premium those guys charge is about 4%-10%.

The best thing to do is to visit the local moneychanger and do a little haggling with them for the best rates. An intelligent thing to do is to split up your money in cash and a Travel Card. A Travel card is like a debit card that you load up beforehand in India and can spend without incurring any commission/charges (unlike intl credit cards which charge hefty for every purchase made abroad) at merchant outlets throughout. In case you need to withdraw cash from an ATM abroad, the Travel card is charged one unit of CHF/other currency.

So estimate your cash needs (you need cash for tipping, buying small eats, little souveniers, local taxis and random little stuff) and load the rest beforehand into a travel card if you're travelling to Switzerland. Everywhere we went, merchant outlets accepted the cards (ours was a Visa) - so we purchased stuff without paying any commission that I had spent on all earlier travels through my credit card - which I now think was patently stupid. We made purchases for amounts as low as CHF10 with our travel card, so you'll understand how convinient and safe it is. I'm anyway not a big proponent of carrying a lot of cash around.

The travel card I think cost me only Rs200 and is valid for 2 years. It can be reloaded again and used. Any money left on it can be reconverted back at your convinience (and a favourable current forex rate) when you return

ICICI Bank offered us the best exchange on CHF cards and for cash we got the best rate from Thomas Cook. Shikha got her $$ card, Travellers chqs and $cash from Thomas Cook (best rates).

I did all the estimation and Shikha did all the haggling and she did a fab job of getting us the best rates - I was totally in awe of her negotiating skills by the end of it and was happy to remain as the backend support provider. The forex planning took a whole day to coordinate and get into place.

Communication

An often overlooked part - but its important to have an inexpensive, readily accessible line of communication when you're travelling across a foreign country.
International roaming on my SIM would have meant that I kept getting calls from telemarketers and kept paying through my nose for every call rcvd, sent or SMS sent. Not done!

Next best option: Matrix Cellular! All those ads you saw of "twaddi bhot yaad aandi hai mummeee" (my fave of all the matrix ads) suddenly made sense and we got an activated Swiss SIM card from Matrix in Delhi - all you have to do is fill a form, give them a copy of your credit cards and fax it across to them. We had our SIM delivered to us at home just before we left for the airport.

Great service, very reasonable rentals. No price for incomings and discounted rates for calling Indian phones. Also meant that Shikha and I could keep in touch throughout Switz in case of any emergency. So that was the number my office and our parents had for the 12 days and it was great to be in touch at cheap rates.

Insurance

ok, so we were stupid and didnt get any because there was'nt any time left in the 3 days of planning after we got our visas. Though we had separate health insurance coverages otherwise, travel and baggage insurance is MUST - a medical emergency in a foreign country can be VERY costly. Its not very costly either - for a couple of thousand bucks, you can rest assured that you wont go bankrupt if, god forbid, you need a helicopter evacuation (happens all the time there!)

Prior research

Switz is very tourist friendly and we got all kinds of maps, guide books, rail timetables and tips from the very accessible and helpful tourist offices that every city there has.

Not something you'd get in India so readily - so while I was very apprehensive about it, the lack of planning did'nt hurt us at all in Switzerland. Of course the fact that I'd lived there previously, helped:)

If you're thinking that this is a little too much of planning and if this sounds daunting - take heart. We figured most of this out in the 3 days after getting our marriage registration certificate and visa. The apartment had been figured out from before - and that was very easy too.

Switzerland remains amongst the most travel-friendly countries to go to. The trains run on clockwork, the tourist offices are friendly, the people are helpful and polite, it is very safe to travel all across, it is not a very large country so day trips back and forth are possible, the food is excellent, and the sights are of course, unforgettable.

It is also the costliest place to go to for a holiday, in Europe, after the French Riviera - but once you get that block out of your mind, it becomes very enjoyable. And doing everything on our own meant that we saved on a lot of money that'd have otherwise been wasted on inanities like a gujju cook with a package tour trip. And had more for all those sinful chocolates or the mind-bogglingly sexy (and expensive) swiss knives.

Everything was lined up miraculously and in about 3 days and we were all set to go back to Delhi and leave for Switzerland. Those 3 days were however also amongst the most hectic days ever - Shikha's US arrival coordination, her laptop purchase in the US, our visas, marriage registration, travel planning, forex planning and packing for 2 years in USA and yet trying to keep within the baggage limits totally sucked the life out of us in these days.

Please allocate atleast 3 more days in case you have gotten admission to a foreign university, just been married and are going on your honeymoon en route to settling down in the university!

Coming up next: Switzerland - mostly pictorial coz am now planning the US/Canada trip and dont even have Shikha to help out!

ps: whatever happend to the "i before e, except after c rule in 'foreign' "????