Germany is one of the European countries closest to Russia, which you can visit by buying a tour for a few days, or by yourself - by booking tickets, a hotel or apartment and getting a tourist visa.
Necessary
Passport, bus, plane or train tickets, hotel reservation or invitation from a private person
Instructions
Step 1
Three components are important for independent holidays in Germany: transport, housing and visa. German Schengen visas are issued by German consulates and embassies, as well as visa centers. In addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are German visa centers in Saratov, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa, Perm, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok and Rostov-on-Don. To obtain a visa, you must submit the following documents: copies of hotel reservations and tickets, a copy and original of your passport, medical policy valid in the Schengen area. If you have plans to stay not at a hotel, but with friends, you must also bring the original and a copy of the invitation. Together with the documents, you must submit a receipt for payment of the fee.
Step 2
Transport issues are fairly easy to solve. There are regular flights to Berlin and Munich from major cities of Russia. The cost of tickets departing from the Central and North-West regions is 10-20 thousand rubles, depending on the airline and the fare. Residents of Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, Smolensk and other regions and cities that are in relative proximity to Europe can reach German cities by train or bus (as a rule, the trip takes 12-15 hours). In terms of cost, a bus trip is much cheaper than air tickets or rail transportation (it is about 2.5 thousand rubles one way). In addition, you can travel to Germany by car. To do this, you must have an international driver's license and Green Card car insurance for the period that is planned to be held in the country.
Step 3
Every city in Germany has hotels for every budget. You can book hotels through the world's booking systems: Booking.com, Agoda, TopHotels, choosing from the whole variety of options presented that are most suitable in terms of cost and characteristics (proximity to attractions, the presence of a private bathroom, etc.). Also, you can always make a reservation on the website of the hotel or hostel by selecting it according to the description on the Internet. Lovers of individual apartments or villas can choose accommodation on the global aggregator Airbnb, where owners from all over the world list their apartments and houses for rent. When booking with Airbnb, the landlord can send an official invitation, which you can attach to your visa application. If you want to travel on a budget, you can spend the night in campsites with an equipped shower, toilet, campfire site or kitchen, if you have your own tent.
