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The Europe Itinerary Part 5

I should be reaching Paris on the morning of Day 5. This mean I need to catch the earliest train from Geneva to Paris. The reason I’ve chosen train instead of flight is because my hostel in Geneva is just 10 minutes walk from the Main Train Station. This will save me some time and money travelling to the airport, especially in the morning hours. To book your train ticket, check out the Europe Speed Trains here. The earliest train departs at 0717 from Geneva, arriving at Paris Gare De Lyon (GDL) by 1051. The entire journey took around 3.5 hours.

For the next 48 hours, I will be focusing my visit in Paris. The first thing that popped up my mind was commuting within the city. My plan was to see as much as possible of the city, and also to visit the usual tourist attractions like Eiffel Tower, Lourve Museum, Arc De Triomphe, and Notre Dame. I need a fairly cheap “unlimited” metro travel pass. The reason to go for a travel pass is money-saving and to avoid the hassle of queuing to buy ticket (that’s such a waste of time!).

For backpacker like myself, you would either go for a Mobilis Card or Paris Visite Pass. Mobilis Card is a one-day unlimited travel (based on zones) pass using Metro, RER (Regional Express Networks) and bus. Paris Visite however, offers extra saving/discount on specific attractions in Paris. Both passes is an initiative from RATP, a transit operator responsible for public transportation in Paris. If you plan to visit Paris for more than 4 days, I would recommend you to get a Paris Pass instead. The Paris Pass offer you even more saving in terms of attractions, bus tour, free entry to museums, etc.

Well let’s start planning my own tour! First thing first when I reach Paris, check into my hostel, keep my luggage, wash up and have some rest. Next, I need some foods to keep me up and running! Heading to the Lourve Museum will be next, spending perhaps 3-4 hours, then proceed to the Eiffel Tower for sunset. I’m not planning to go up the tower, hence I will be taking pictures and wondering around until evening. Time for dinner by then, perhaps a quick meal, then I will be heading to Arc De Triomphe and Champs Elysees. By then, it should be just in time for a cabaret show at Lido until midnight. Lastly, returning to my hostel for a good rest.

Next morning, I’ve planned to visit the Paris Bibliotheque Library, then heading to Notre Dame before coming back to check out from my hostel. Then I need to find a way to store my luggage, either at the hostel or train station. Probably a quick lunch then will be heading to Versailles Palace (zone 4) for 2-3 hours (i know it’s not enough). Back to central Paris after that, I will be heading straight to the tallest building in Paris – Montparnese Tower, hopefully to catch sunset in Paris. Last destination perhaps would be Sacré-Cœur (pronounced as “Sack-kray-co-r”), and then heading to Gare Du Nord to catch the last train to London.

Some hidden tips of this planned itinerary:

  1. Buy a Travel Pass when you reach Paris
  2. Visit all attractions in one area, then only visit the next – Avoid wasting time traveling in and out the same area.
  3. Choose an accommodation that is close to airport, train or metro station – I’ve booked Le Regent Montmartre (Very close to Sacré-Cœur, Anvers Metro and fairly close to GDN).
  4. Store/Keep your luggage near your last stop – you can pick them up before you depart (you don’t want to carry your luggage around?).
  5. Make good use of your Travel Pass – I will be getting discount for Lido, Montparnese Tower, Arc De Triomphe and Bateaux Parisiens (River Cruise – if I have enough time).
  6. Book, pay and print out your cross-country train ticket at least 1 month earlier – ensure cheaper price and availability.

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The Europe Itinerary Part 4

Day 3 scheduled back at Interlaken around evening, I might have some time to travel around the town and takes some photos before sunset. Moving on to Day 4, what I initialliy planned was a trip down to Geneva and take an evening train to Paris; arriving at Paris by night, check-in a hotel and have a good rest. However, I found out that staying a night at Paris actually cost me 60% more expensive than staying a night at Geneva (a hint for budget travellers)! Hence, I decided to stay a full day at Geneva for Day 4, then travel to Paris on Day 5 in the early morning (probably taking the earliest train).

Taking into consideration I have approximately 10 hours of “day-time” in Switzerland, let’s plan what I can do along the journey from Interlaken to Geneva. The train route I will be taking is most probably from Interlaken to Montreux (GoldenPass Line), then routed to Geneva via Lausanne (Inter-City or Inter-Regio). Below is my planned itinerary for Day 4.

The Golden Pass Line has it’s schedule published here, I reckon you to check out the schedule before planning your itinerary. From the above itinerary, we see that it take 3 hours to travel from Interlaken to the northern tip of Lake Geneva. Then we planned to stop by for lunch and a short walking tour around Montreux town. Our next destination would be Chexbres, a wine-growing village located in the district of Lavaux, Swiss. We estimated an hour walking tour around the village, photo-taking and wine tasting perhaps.

Click to Enlarge

Following Chexbres will be Lausanne, the Olympics town! As you would noticed my itinerary having Lausanne highlighted as optional stop-by (blue rows), this is because I would like to make my itinerary more flexible, allowing me to decide there and then. Then the 2 pink rows will be my alternative, if I decided not to stop by Lausanne and heading straight to Geneva. You would also noticed the orange rows, yet another alternative if I decided not to stop by Chexbres and Lausanne. The reason behind was to allow me enough time to check-in hostel at Geneva before sunset by around 1846. Also, if I reach Geneva late, I will not have enough time to tour around Geneva!

Book Hostels Online Now
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WM6.5 with HTC Sense

The customer service representative at HTC Care Centre was very friendly when I requested for a free ROM upgrade for my HTC TP2. I have backup all my data and programs using SPB Backup Tool, before sending in my device for service. It just took the technician 30 minutes (partly because there are no other customer at the time) to flash my HTC Touch Pro2 to Windows Mobile 6.5 completed with HTC Sense™.

It took me sometimes to familiarize with the new UI, and compare to WM6.1 with TouchFLO 3D, it has a significant improvement to user-friendliness and I truly love it! A key aspect of HTC Sense™ has focused on social communication, hence the seamless integration with Facebook and Twitter.

Contacts integration with Facebook
Twitter Updates with HTC Peep

Another surprise from WM6.5 is the Lock Screen, which is similar to the iPhone slider unlock! The original slider was positioned at the top of the screen, which makes it difficult to stretch my finger to the top of the screen. I have applied a cab update to position the slider to the middle. Note you can slide it to the left or right to reveal the password unlock screen, suitable for both left or right-handed users.

Slider Unlock Screen
Passwork Unlock Screen

Weather screen deserve a shout out here, it has integrated into your home screen and calendar agenda, to allow quick glance of weather condition at your current location! Yes, the apps has smartly uses the built in GPS module to determine your current location, very impressive! Besides, your home screen can be configure to use the animated weather wallpaper, check out the video below.

Before this, for those of you who are using TouchFlo 3D on HTC TP2, the proximity sensor is a cool and useful feature that will turn off the screen to save batter life when you place the phone over your ear. Often, there was time when you want to use the virtual keypad during a phone conversation (to save a phone number or record a note for instance), the proximity sensor will turn the screen back on (when you move your phone away from your ear). However, it switches back to the home screen, which annoyingly requires you to tap a few keys back to the phone screen and virtual keypad! Fortunately HTC Sense™ has fixed this and now I can have a flexible voice call experience.

Enough of the pros, let’s see what are the cons. After using WM6.5 for few weeks, there are 2 big problems I’ve realized:

  1. I have rebooted the device more than I have done that on WM6.1, i.e. it becomes sluggish after some times!
  2. Occasionally, when my voice call is connected, the receiving party cannot hear my voice. Not really sure whether it’s the network issue or the device or the OS.

To overcome #1, try install a RAM or task management program. This will ensure your OS is always at it’s optimum performance. The odd with WM so far was the ‘X’ button at the top right screen is to minimize instead of exit a program; day-to-day operation of apps in WM will pile up a lot of programs running in the background. At least that’s my feeling about the reason of poor performance of WM; Mike Calligaro has an interesting blog post of why WM has no close feature.

Overall, it’s still a good experience with HTC Sense™. I hope I can try to get rid of the unused default programs to free up some RAM for the phone to run smoother.

My Upgraded ROM
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The Europe Itinerary Part 3

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Before I knew I will be riding on a railcar on the longest continuous strub-rack railway in the world, I actually planned to visit “The Top of Europe” 5 years ago. Jungfraujoch (pronounced as Yong-Frau-York), at an amazing 3454 metres, is Europe’s highest-altitude railway station.

Continue from Part 2, I am going to plan my Day 3 itinerary. From a glance, it should be a faily simple itinerary, as I have dedicated a full day to Jungfraujoch excursion. Again back to my favourite search engine, look for “Jungfrau Attractions” and start listing them down on a note or draft.

  • Eigergletscher – Polar Dog Colony
  • Ice Gateway – Ice Palace
  • Sphinx Observation Terrace
  • Jungfrau Plateau – Snow Walk
  • Husky-drawn Sledge Rides (Summer)
  • Ski & Snowboard Park (Summer)

What about time and location (To answer the “How to get there; at what time” questions)? Again, search for Switzerland train schedules using this site. List down all the possible routes and alternative. You might also want to check what is the time of sunrise and sunset to determine what time you need to get up and/or get back.

There are 2 rail routes which will take you up to Jungfraujoch, one is via Grindelwald and another via Lauterbrunnen. Both routes splitted at a station called Zweilütschinen (I think it’s pronounced as “Zwhy-Loo-Chi-Nen”) and join back at Kleine Scheidegg (pronounced as “Cli-Ney-Sni-Deck”), before changing to a cogwheel train up to Jungfraujoch.

Back to my plan, currently you might starts wondering about my accommodation. I planned to stays at Interlaken on Day 2. On Day 3 morning, I will starts my journey to Jungfraujoch. I can choose to stay one night at either of the stops between Interlaken and Jungfraujoch, or stay back at Interlaken. My decision is to stay at Interlaken (another night), since I do not want to carry my backpack with me to Jungfraujoch!

I’ve booked my accommodation through this site for the first day, then I booked a Jungfraujoch Excursion package (which comes with 1 night stays at preferred accommodation) through here. What’s next?

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The Europe Itinerary Part 2

Continue from Part 1, we already have the general itinerary in mind, let’s draft a more detail plan. Now we need to focus on (A) timing, as it is very important to our schedule, particularly on our flight and train schedule; (B) attractions, as this will determine how long we will spend in a particular place; (C) budget, as this will determine how much we will be spending.

Start from Day 1 again, Flight D7 2006 arrival time at London is approximately 1650. When we came out from the airport, travel to my friend’s place, unpack, dinner, etc is already late evening. I prefer to rest and prepare for next day. Hence I have no plan for Day 1. On a contrary, if you do not want to stay overnight at London, I suggest you to book the earliest arrival flight to London, then transit to Switzerland (either Geneva or Zurich). Check out my post on Malaysian Travelers to Europe via AirAsia.

Day 2 planned for flight to Zurich, we need to check which airline have flight to Zurich from London, and which London Airports (Heathrow, Stansted, Luton, Gatwick, City)? This will be tedious process if you are new to European Airlines, but I have summarized the below based on my research for your reference.

  1. British Airways, operating from London Heathrow and London City Airport. Not a budget airlines. All price inclusive. Breakfast provided in-flight.
  2. Easyjet, usually operating from London Gatwick, Luton or Stansted Airport. Budget airlines. Extra charge for check-in luggage.
  3. Swiss International, operating from London Heathrow and London City Airport. Not a budget airlines. All price inclusive.
  4. BMI Baby, operating from London Stansted. Budget airlines. Extra charge for check-in luggage.

Based on the above, I have drafted a comparison chart that shows flights departing from London to Zurich on 15th October, 2009:

Once I have a comparison chart, I will base my selection on 2 criterias, time and budget. First I need to get to Zurich as early as possible to avoid wasting too much time. Second, I need a fairly economy flight to minimize expenses. From the above chart, it seems that Easyjet is the obvious choice. However, considering the distance from London to Gatwick/Luton to catch the morning flight, which mean I have to wake up in the middle of the night, catch a cab and travel to the airport, it’s a nightmare!

Approximate Distance of London Airports to London City Center

My second choise is British Airways, although it’s double the price of Easyjet, but I save on my travel time to airport, and I have more choices on flight schedule. Since I stay in East London, the earliest flight to Zurich (ZRH) from London City Airport (LCY) is my best option. Let’s put this down in my itinerary. However, if you plan for a return trip to/from Switzerland, I would recommend Swiss International Airlines for better offer.

Booking BA Flight Online

I know I will reach Zurich by 1055 travel via BA8763, and my final destination for Day 2 is Interlaken. I need to find out how I would travel from Zurich to Interlaken. 3 choices: car rental and drive myself; take a bus/coach; take a train. Driving in Switzerland is left-handed drive on the right lane, different from Malaysia (I’ve tried that 5 years ago, it’s daunting!). Furthermore, I need an international driving license. Taking a bus or train is less hassle.

Flight BA8763 to Zurich

After searching from the Internet, I’ve decided to travel via rail. If you are staying at Switzerland for more than 5 days, I recommend you to get one of the Swiss Travel Pass for cost saving. I only planned to stay in Switzerland for 3 days, hence I will go for the single journey tickets. SBB has one of the best online services to search, book and pay for your rail travel in Switzerland. I can also search for rail schedules as well to plan my itinerary. How I did that? Search for train schedule from Zurich to Interlaken (you will either route via Berne or Lucerne (Luzern). I have been to Berne in my previous trip. Luzern is my choice this time. From Luzern to Interlaken, there is a rail service call GoldenPass Line, which offers a magnificient panoramic view from inside the coach. This rail service will brings you to the most scenic route in Switzerland.

Now I have an idea of my travel time, let’s plan some visits. Check out Zurich and Luzern attractions from the Internet, and I estimated a stay in Zurich for 2 hours, Luzern for 1 hour. Go back to the SBB website and search for schedules between Zurich – Luzern and Luzern – Interlaken. List down a few alternatives for decision later. This is very useful if you missed a train, or you decided to spend more times on a place; at least you know when is the next train schedule. Up till now, I have drafted something like the above in my itinerary, including also the travel route from where I stay (Belvedere) to London City Airport. I used this to plan for that.