We dedicate today to window shopping and getting a feel of the shopping experience at the popular shopping belt of Paris, ie Champs-Elysee. We took the Yellow Line 1 to Champs Elysee Clemenceu station.
Champ Elysees Ave is a row of high-end shopping where names like Montblanc, Sephora, Luis Vuitton come together. To me however, the real shopping area is at the Hausmann shopping district, where the megastore Galeries Lafayette is. Galeries Lafayette is a big shopping empire in Paris and takes up at least 3 big buildings in this area. But there are also other department stores like Printemps and C&A. Printemps carries all the big names in handbags like Luis Vuitton, Chanel, Coach, LongChamp, Fendi, etc, while C&A is a lower end department store where you can find value for money buys. To get to this area, take train to Havre Caumartin station (if on Line 9) or to Auber Station on Line 1.
Food-wise today, we found another Halal cafe selling utterly delicious Turkish food just one street away from our Hotel. The price is reasonable, for eg a Doner Kebab meal for Euro 10 is huge enough for 2 persons. We have many lovely pictures taken today but are not able to uploaded them. Will try to do it asap.
Day 2
We sent off to Disneyland around 8.30am. Going there by train is easy enough from, Disneyland is located just 3 minutes away from Marne-la-Vallee-Chessy (Parcs Disneyland). This is on the RER (Red) line. From Gare De Lyon station the journey is about 40 minutes.
Disneyland Paris is a beautiful theme park. We have bought a days’ pass for 2 parks, ie Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. To be honest, if you plan to explore and try our all the games at the 2 parks, you will need more than 1 day. This is because other than the waiting time, there are so many rides to try out and add in the resting and refreshment breaks, the hours just flew by. To save time, we went for FastPass entries. This is like an express entry passes for the rides. Basically, you just go to the ride area and scan your main ticket to get a FastPass entry ticket at a pre-determined timing. Not all rides has a FastPass service though.
Getting food at Disneyland is not too difficult. There are vegetarian options at the restaurants.
We left the parks at about 8pm and it was a thoroughly tiring but enjoyable day.
2 Dec 2012
Day 1
13 hours of flight has brought us to Paris safely, after there was frequent turbulances during the flight. Service was pretty good on Air France, we had 2 meals, the first was a beef briyani with chicken salad, crossaint, cake and fruits. The lighter meal consists of chicken ham slices, french roll, yogurt & fruit cocktail. In between the meals, you can help yourself to the snack counter where drinks and bicuits are readily available.
Customs clearance at the airport was quite a breeze. We had to take a shuttle train to Terminal 2E to clear customs check and claim our baggages. After that we looked for the Air France Shuttle Bus or 'Les Cars Air France' which took us to our hotel.
Choosing a hotel near the Metro (MRT service) station is important for us. Ours (Hotel Palym) is just about 50 metres from the Gare de Lyon station. It is also a rail station connecting to Southern Europe like Switzeland and other southern cities in France. The train station has many shops and cafes selling bread and pastries and hot & cold drinks. In fact, we found a Halal cafe selling kebab at the end of our hotel street!
As were were too early for checking in, we decided to explore around a bit. We bought a 1 day train pass for Euro $19.50 for 2 adults and 2 children.
Our first stop was to visit the Arc de Triomphe which was located at near the Charles de Gaulle station (Etoille Line). It is a huge memorial Tower and a popular tourist stop.
Next was our Eiffel Tower visit which is near the Bir-Hakeim station (via the Metro Line). From there, we walked about 10-15 mins.
30 Nov 2012
Travel Documents
Because its a long distance trip and to non-Asian countries, we had to make sure that all our travel documents are in order. We contacted the relevant Embassies just to be sure we do not need to apply for additional visas.
We also applied for new passports for the kids, even though they still have more than 1 year of validity. The reason is that the passport was issued when my daughter was 4 years, and she is now 8 years. Just to play it safe...
These days, applying for a new passport or renewal of passport is such a breeze. There are several ways to apply, ie via a manual submission at Singpost, manual submission via post or online submission (APPLES) via the ICA website. To apply online, we submitted the photographs via a file attachment in a format pre-determined by ICA. Within 5 workings days, I received an email notification of the application as well as a notice via snail mail. To collect, I made an appointment online. This turned out to be a wise move as we only waited 20 mins from arrival time to collection time at ICA itself. (noted : be sure to bring all the necessary verification documents though, or they might ask you to make a return visit)
Lastly, we also decided to report our trip at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). This is optional, but because we have the children with us, we want to have an added security, in the event of any mishap or emergency. How much you report to MFA is also optional. You can be as detailed as possible or otherwise. We submitted with details.
Insurance
Travel insurance is a must for this trip, and is relatively inexpensive. There is 2-3 plans to choose from, and the coverage will depend on what you need. NTUC and AVIVA are some of the common travel insurance providers, or you can also go with Chartis which have better coverages in some areas.
Hotel Reservations
In choosing our hotel, we talked to some friends to have visited the same places to get feedback on good and practical hotels suited for families. We also checked Tripadvisor for reviews on these hotels. We look out for hotels with laundry services and nearby laundry services as we only brought about a weeks's worth of clothing.
Reservations are all made online and pre-paid. All important correspondence and confirmations are printed and filed in order.
29 Nov 2012
Good Day..
Travel Arrangements
Once we worked out on our budget for the trip, we know that we are looking for a flight costing thereabout $5,000 for 4 pax.
There are probably several ways to shop around for good airfares. You could do it via a travel agency, which takes off the stress and time off checking out airlines and comparing airfares. Or you could invest in a little time doing it on your own, and yes; would mean checking out various airlines and comparing airfares.
The key to getting a good airfare deal is to start your 'shopping' early. And by early I mean months early. Usually, though may not be all the time, the airfares would start at its lowest offer when the airline first open up the booking dates. This could be as early as 6 months before the travel dates. If the dates are not available yet, you can just keep checking in weekly.
For our trip, we had considered a few airlines like SQ, Qatar Airways, Air France and British Airways. After comparing airfares and deciding on the travel route, we chose a direct flight to France on Air France.
The airfare : SGD$4,800, including taxes, for 4 pax.
Once we got that settled, we proceed to plan out the most practical travel route based on the countries that we want to visit and decided on the following :
Singapore to France – by plane
France to Interlaken, Switzerland – by train
Interlaken to Basel – by train
Basel to Amsterdam, Holland – by flight
Amsterdam – Brussels, Belgium – by train
Amsterdam to Manchester, UK – by flight
Manchester to London – by train
London to Paris, France – by train
To some, it would seem to be a daunting experience to travel to so many places at one go. Well, I guess that depends on a few considerations, for eg..time, money and objective of the trip.
For us, it is about making the most of this rare vacation opportunity. Also, if you actually look at the Map of Europe, it actually make sense to visit these countries at one go as they are very close to each other and very accessible with the advanced train systems that they have now linking all the neighbouring countries. So it is worth staying as long as you can and visiting as many places as you can manage, if time is on your side.
So next we set about making train reservations and booking the regional flights. This needs a little bit of research and asking around. We read reviews on Tripadvisor on places that we want to visit to get some ideas on the best transportation options based on other reviewers’ comments. This can be extremely helpful to get a feel of others’ experiences on their trips.
We also checked the offers and training schedules on Rail Europe for all our train journeys. A trip to Rail Europe’s Singapore Office was also helpful as the staff was able to help us chart the best route and offers available for the dates that we wanted. This helped us get the best deals and save some money at the same time.
Once we decided on the route, everything was booked and paid online through Rail Europe. After which, we are also able to print out the e-tickets sent via email.
It is best to print out a set of all your travel documents, tickets, reservations, etc done online and organize them in a file or folder. In our last trip, we even made a duplicate copy and keep it in a separate bag, just in case.
Below are some useful links :
28 Nov 2012
Hi!
Firstly, thanks to Bella C for the 'opportunity' to share my Europe trip with you. When the idea was mooted and discussed, we felt that it was a good medium to share experience and mutually learn some useful tips on long-distance travel with our friends and relatives.
Mind you, before I begin..I just want you to know that I am not a frequent traveller. We do travel once or twice a year and they are mostly to neighbouring countries. So perhaps some things which will be shared here may already be something familiar to you..:)
Planning for overseas trip with children is never easy. The younger they are, the heavier the luggages tend to be. I remember when my kids were below 5 years of age.. we used to drive up to Malaysia at least once year and if it's just the four of us travelling in the car, it would feel like I have packed half of the house with me on the trip. I am the kind of mom who believes in backups..of clothes, of nappies, etc. I would be counting the number of clothes changes the kids would need in a day and then throw in another 1 or 2 extra sets of change..just in case. And half the time, I would have more than enough clothes to last the trip twice over. LOL!
Luckily, as the children grows older, my 'obsession' somewhat mellowed and these days.. it's more of a 'just-enough' packing kind of attitude.
So when we start talking about our Europe trip late last year..one of my niggling worry was again how would I handle the clothing. This would be our longest trip so far, our furthest and the kids will be joining us. In my last Europe trip, it was just the 2 of us and it was a good learning experience of getting around in trains, buses and regional flights. We also experienced staying in boutique hotels which has little security and finding our way around in a country where English is not the main language.
So this is my intro. Will be discussing on what to look out for when making travel arrangements in my next entry. Thanks for reading :).
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