An Italian Round-up

What do you think of when you think of Italy? Rome, the historic city containing Vatican? Or Michelangelo's Florence? Or the seductive, enchanting Capri? The wonderful leaning tower of Pisa, anyone? The romantic Venice? With all these in mind, we recently went on a trip to Italy. Some more things that Italy is associated with - Fashion and Football as in Milan or Mafia as in Sicily, but all the football stars, crime lords and fashion maestros were busy with Euro2008, so we left them out of out itinerary.

This tour was once again with Star Tours, London. It was a big risk for me to take, given our previous bad experience (Read the blog on Holland). Fortunately, the tour manager this time was not that bad, though nowhere near the class we experienced on our Stonehenge tour with Golden Tours. The tour groups was quite interesting - a varied mix of young and young-at-heart people. My son Hiranya retained his record of being the youngest on any trip he goes, though another infant, Shuti was just one day older to him. Both of them were the stars of the trip, enchanting everyone with their smiles. A group of people originally from different parts of India and Nepal, now settled in different parts of the world - India, UK, USA, Canada, very interesting. We had a good interaction going on in the bus - one person was a trained Carnatic singer, other had a voice like Talat Mahmood; people had interesting jokes, PJs, Urdu poetry and stories to share and there was a lot of enthusiasm generated in the group, I contributing to some of it as well.

Tuesday, 10 Jun 2008 - Travel
All our trips have to start with an interesting experience, mostly scary. This one was no different. Since the flight was at mid-day, we decided to travel from Ipswich in the morning rather than staying the previous night in a London hotel. Big mistake! We reached Ipswich station at 6:30 and were informed that there is a problem in the train lines to London and trains are running only intermittently. We finally reached Heathrow after 4 hours, a journey which should have taken us 2.5 hours maximum. Good that we had this margin with us, we reached just in time for the flight. Met our tour manager, Mr. Hoshang who handed us our tickets. After landing in Rome and collecting our baggage, he led us to the coach, where we met the rest of our group. There was no sightseeing planned for the day, just travel to Naples by coach and then stay overnight there. However, we were in for an interesting experience in the evening, as the room of our tour manager was broken in and all his money stolen. Nice shocking start to the trip! So I was wrong after all about Italian crime not being on the itinerary ;-). We must give credit to the tour manager that he did not let this affect the tour.

Wednesday, 11 Jun 2008 - Capri
We took a cruise to the island of Capri from the Naples port. The views from the Capri port where we landed were beautiful, as were the views of the port itself as we went up the hill to Anacapri. Capri is a small island with cliffs and provides a lot of beautiful views across. Now when we reached Anacapri, there was an open chairlift (like a ski-lift) to go to the top of the mountain. We got scared that it is too risky to go with Hiranya on that. The locals assured us that it is just a 10-min ride, goes quite slowly and is quite safe, so we decided to brave it. Hiranya was very well-behaved; I held him against my chest tightly and he was quite still through the ride. This marks a sort of record for him - very few people have used so many different modes of transportation in the first year of their lives - car, train (British Rail, Indian Rail and Eurostar), aeroplane, boats (cruises, speedboats, later Gondola in Venice), bus, autorickshaw, pedal rickshaw, tonga, even horseback and now a chairlift. A pat on his back!

I must say going up on the chairlift was a very good decision, because the views from the top are really breathtaking. We could even see Mt. Vesuvius in the background, though not clearly as it was hidden by clouds. After having a lunch at Capri (nice pasta), we moved back to our coach. The latter part of the day was spent travelling to Rome. We dined in an Indian restaurant near Colosseum, superb food. Then to our hotel for a good night sleep, ready for the next day.

Thursday, 12 Jun 2008 - Rome
The historic Rome! The seat of western civilisation! The place where democracy originated! We began our tour of Rome with a visit to the Colosseum. If you have seen the movie Gladiator, you know what I am talking about. The place is now in ruins; in its heyday it was the central attraction in Rome. Colosseum was basically an stadium where the sport played was fights between slaves/ gladiators and beasts onto death. The ground was actually a stage with an elaborate preparation network beneath to allow men or beasts to suddenly come onto the stage from a trapdoor in the ground. Really majestic! We had a very interesting Italian guide for Colosseum, she just kept repeating "Great" and "Big" and "Grand" and words like this in a very excited tone without really telling anything about the place. From Colosseum, we also got a view of the ruins of the ancient temple of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. The only thing remaining now is the pillars of the temple. Rome is full of such ruins and historical buildings, you get a feeling that you are tarnsported back centuries back into history.

The next stop was Vittorio Emmanuel Monument. Vittorio was the first king of United Italy, before him it was all different kingdoms of Rome, Florence, Naples etc. So this is also called the monument to the unification of Italy. Nice building, quite modern by Rome standards. This monument is located in Piazza Venezia, which also contains Mussolini's mansion. His famous balcony, from where he used to give speeches, overlooks the Piazza (square in English).

From here, we walked to Trevi fountain, arguably the most famous fountain in the world. It really is beautiful. Some places in the world do live up to high expectations. There is a tradition of throwing coins in the fountain and making a wish, so we did that dutifully. Then we had the most wonderful pizza and gelati in the world from the pizzeria on the right hand corner of the fountain. Just too good!

Afternoon was dedicated to Vatican. It was a big disappointment for me that Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum was not included in the itinerary. I mean, going all the way to Rome and not seeing Sistine Chapel seems a waste of time. Our visit to the Vatican was limited to the St. Peter's square and St. Peter's Basilica. Now these really are majestic. St. Peter's Square with its pillared sides, its fountainsa and an obelisk at the centre is view in itself. St. Peter's Basilica is amazing. From outside, you admire its overall form and architecture. Once iside, you are amazed with the sheer size of the place and the fact that is still seems crammed, full of paintings and treasures like Pieta, the sculpture of Virgin Mary holding a dying Jesus in her lap, made by Michelangelo. St. Pete's Basilica is huge, the biggest church is the world and is really ornate. Hiranya was getting sick of being constrained in our laps when in bus or in the stroller while outside, so we took this opportunity to let him crawl around the huge floor of the Basilica. He loved it, and almost became an attraction in himself. We really enjoyed St. Peter's and were the last people in our group to exit the place.

Our last stop for the day was a photo-stop at Circus Maximus. Named after Maximus, the most famous galidiator of the Roman Empire (on whose life the movie Gladiator is roughly based), Circus Maximus is a race track where chariot races used to be held. The chariot race in the epic movie Ben Hur was held at Circus Maximus (though not shot at the actual location).

Another dinner of Indian food, a trip to the hotel for a quick recharge, and we were back in coach to do a round of Rome by night. The place is all different at night. The buildings are all illuminated and have a very different look and feel at night. Nice, though I personally prefer to see the detailed architectural beauty during the day.

The day ended on a positive note. In the morning, the eldest of our co-passengers was not feeling well and had to be hospitalized, where they found out that he had a heart blockage and needed to be operated immediately. Thankfully, he was hospitalized in time. In the evening, we came to know that the procedure was successful and he was recovering. Three cheers to two of our co-passengers who accompanied him throughout the day and interfaced with the doctors and the hospital folks to ensure he got appropriate care.

Friday, 13 Jun 2008 - Pisa and Florence
We checked out of our hotel in Rome in the morning and proceeded to the leaning tower of Pisa. It is interesting how an architectural mistake can become so famous! The tower actually leans at about an angle of 30 degrees. Doesn't seem like it is falling or anything, but an interesting tilt. The basilica near to the tower was also impressive. We liked the place, a bit overhyped, but good nevertheless.

From Pisa, we proceeded onto Florence. Both I and Madhu had gone on this trip primarily for Rome and Venice, but it was Florence that we actually liked the best. We fell immediately in love with the place and will definitely go back one day. One look at Basilica Santa Maria del Fiore (Church of Saint Mary of Flower) and the immediate exclamation from both of us was, "This must be one of the best buildings we have seen ever". Amazing architecture, colour, overall structure, carvings, couldn't take our eyes off. There was no way we could capture that beauty in our camera. In front of it were Gates of Heaven, named so not because of any spiritual connection but simply because Michelangelo called them so. Florence is his city after all. These gates are really beautiful. Bronze with gold plating, with the ten stories of old testament carved on the gates, these really are worthy of being the gates of heaven.

We walked up to Ponte Vecchio, a bridge with three floors of shops, mostly rich-looking jewellery shops, so it was in my best interests to move away quickly from there. :-)

Then on to Piazza della Signoria (Signoria Square), which is an open-air museum containing the Neptune fountain, a beautiful marble structure. The square also contained a number of other beautiful sculptures, including a replica of Michelangelo's David, the original being too important to be kept in open-air. David is supposed to be the ultimate representation of manhood. One corner of the square is Palazzo Vecchio, one of the landmarks of Florence. On the entrance of this palace is a self-sketch of Michelangelo carved in stone which he is supposed to have done hilding his hands behind his back. Amazing stuff! Once again, we lamented being on a tour which had a fixed itinerary. Would have loved to visit the museums of Florence and see many more of these masterpieces.

Saturday, 14 Jun 2008 - Venice
Next morning, we drove to Venice. It was raining throughout the journey and even on the boat ride into Venice, so we were all prepared for a really "watery" Venice. Thankfully, the weather improved as the day progressed and we were able to enjoy Venice quite well, though it would have been much better had it been all sunny. We began our Venice sojourn with a Gondola ride along the waterways of Venice. Venice is a set of small islands interconnected by bridges and the primary mode of transportation is boats. The Gondola Ride took us around the thin waterways that separate these islands and into the Grand Canal. All very good, but not as breathtaking as I had expected it to be. Blame it on weather, I say!

After the Gondola ride was a visit to the Murano Glass Factory where we saw how they make these glass artifacts from liquid glass. We wanted to buy Venetian glass and Venetian masks, but anything we liked was so expensive and we didn't want to buy just for the sake of souvenirs, so ended up with nothing.

St. Mark's square, the main square of Venice with St. Marks Basilica on one side is where we spent most of our time in Venice. Hiranya loved chasing the pigeons, we loved the basilica's architecture and the overall feel of the place.

As we were going back to the jetty, we saw the famous Bridge of Sighs. This bridge connects the courtroom situated in the King's palace to the prison, and the windows of this bridge were the last time a prisoner saw light in his life, hence the sighs and the name of the bridge.

Back to mainland for an early dinner, much appreciated by Hiranya as he got some time before his bed time in the hotel room to stretch his muscles, crawl, cruise and generally be his active self.
Sunday, 15 Jun 2008 - Verona and back to UK
The plan of the day was to travel up to Milan airport to catch the flight back to London. Once again, it was a shame not to visit Milan city itself, the fashion and football capital of Italy, but we were told that it is Sunday and the whole town will be closed.

We stopped at Verona instead. Jog your Shakespeare memory, and you will remember that the story of Romeo and Juliet is based in Verona. We visited Juliet's balcony in Verona. Now in case you are wondering whether Romeo and Juliet was just a story or history, well, no one knows for sure, but being as famous as it is, the town of Verona is certainly making a few tourist euros out of it, by putting up a statue of Juliet and making a museum in the mansion that contains the balcony. Interesting experience, with Madhu going on to the Balcony and me shouting like Romeo from below "Oh my Juliet!".

That brings us to the end of our trip. Overall, a good glimpse of Italy, with Florence and Rome both definitely needing further visits. Ciao!

Windsor, Stonehenge and Bath

There are a lot of interesting things about UK, one of them is that holidays here don't have names. They just call them Bank holidays. There is early May bank holiday, then late May bank holiday, then August Bank holiday and so on. Further, all these holidays are on Mondays to enable a long weekends. Convenient!

There is something about long weekends, though! You have to do something different on long weekends. It is just another day off, but somehow it seems like a crime to spend long weekends lazing around at home. So here we are, off on a day tour with Golden Tours, London to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. Our journey starts with meeting David, our fabulous tour manager at the offices of Golden Tours in Victoria, London. We then board the coach and depart for Windsor Castle, our first stop.

Windsor Castle is one of the three official residences of the Queen, presumably the best as the Queen spends her summers here. It is the largest inhabited castle in the world, and that is the beauty of it. There are a lot of great castles in the world, but most of them are in ruins, unused for centuries. This is a residence, all of the rooms we saw are actually in use. In fact, they warn us upfront that on any given day, the Queen may decide to use a particular room for something (like the State dining room for having a banquet) and then that room will be closed for visitors. So for today, we have told the Queen to restrict herself to her personal quarters :-).

Our tour guide, David is great. He is very knowledgeable, friendly and witty. The tour is a mix of nationalities - Americans, French, Spanish, we are the only Indians. David connects with everyone with ease, he even speaks in all these languages. He tells us about the history and the present of the castle, always with a witty twist to every event or fact. Windsor Castle has a gun room which is full of guns the British seized from Tipu Sultan, as well as Tipu's gold tiger. David actually tells the guard standing there, "See, this gentleman (pointing towards me) has come all the way from India just to take back Tipu's tiger, so would you mind looking the other way while we take it away?" David really made the tour fun.

We are able to catch the changing of guard ceremony at Windsor, which again is made interesting with David interpreting it. Here's the layman (or David's) version of the exchange that happens between the current guards and new guards during changeover, in layman's language.
The incoming guards come in with trumpets and band.
The existing guards get on alert in case the coming army is an enemy army.
Existing Guards - Hey Guys, you look British, are you really British?
Incoming Guards - Of course we are. We have come to relieve you. Talk of gratitude!
Existing Guards - Please present your credentials
Incoming Guards - Here they are
Existing Guards - You guys ready to give an arms inspection
Incoming Guards - Yes Sir!
Existing Guards - All looks good. Take over guys, we need to run.
The chapel at Windsor was also interesting. Unfortunately, no photos inside the castle or the chapel. After finishing our Windsor Castle tour, we went around the Windsor town and then on to Stonehenge.

Stonehenge is the main reason I am on this tour. One of the first books I remember reading in childhood is "101 unsolved mysteries of the world" and Stonehenge is certainly one of them. A collection of huge stones in the middle of an arid land arranged in a sophisticated manner 5000 years ago with so many mysteries attached to it. The place has an aura around it. The immediate thing that strikes you is - why would someone do this? The most acceptable theory is that it is some sort of a altar of Sun-God worship, because the first ray of the solstice morning sun falls directly on the centre. Still, why? There are better and easier and grander ways of worshipping sun all over the world. 5000 years ago, when metal tools were not known in this part of the world and civilization was at its formative stages, someone launched a project which lasted 1500 years which involved bringing stones from Oxford and some from as far as Wales, no means of transportation apart from rolling these stones over logs across these vast distances; which involved designing so that 29 pillars arranged equally spaced formed a perfect circle and the beams atop those pillars exactly fitted; which involved placing those stones at exact location when the concept of a crane was 4800 years in future; which involved the drive to continue for 1500 years such a project - the whole thing is sheer impossible and does not make sense, still it was done and there those stones stand as a reminder to us that we cannot explain everything.

The weather is holding very well, and the vast plains allow a good wind to come through, heightening the magic of the sublime, spiritual sort of experience. It is lunch time now, so we head over to a nearby English pub for lunch, before heading on to the town of Bath.

Bath, as the name suggests, is a town famous for its public bath. This place has the only hot spring in UK and the ancient Roman conquerors set up the Roman public baths here which used the waters of the spring and were meant to cure a lot of ills. We did not find anything great in the place, I mean its just another hot spring, there are dime a dozen in tropical countries. After the Roman baths, we do a round of the town of Bath, which has one interesting feature - all houses look exactly the same apart from the abbey. The whole town was designed by one architect and he sure did not believe in variations. All three storied houses, quite drab looking, and people were happy to live in those, they were posh. Can't understand these things!

Back onto the highway for the coach to drive us back to London while we catch a nap. A great trip overall. Thank you David, once again.

दूर तक निगाहों में हैं गुल खिले हुए (Holland and a touch of Brussels)

Hello! You guys must be wondering, what’s up with Madhu and Himanshu? They have been silent for almost 2 years, and then they are suddenly posting one travelogue after another. Well, both of us love to travel and have not been able to do so for quite some time due to pregnancy, Hiranya’s infancy and gloomy British winters. So now that the sun is out and Hiranya is of a travel-able age, we are back on the travel circuit.

To mark the occasion of the fifth anniversary of our honeymoon (in case you are prompted to search this blog for a travelogue for our honeymoon, let me tell you, it isn't here. Tons of privacy issues, you see!), we decided to visit the beautiful Tulip gardens of Holland. I mean, what better way to mark your honeymoon date than to sing “देखा एक ख्वाब तो ये सिलसिले हुए, दूर तक निगाहों में हैं गुल खिले हुए” (a romantic song from Bollywood movie Silsilay shot in Holland)? Not having time to research and plan out my own trip, I booked a 3-day tour of Holland through Star Tours of London, who have a very good reputation among the other Indians I have met in UK.

The start of our trip was plush. We had to catch our tour coach early Saturday morning from East London and that is quite some distance from Ipswich, so we decided to stay in London for Friday night. A last minute search on Google and we booked a room in the West Ham United Football Club Hotel. For the price they charge, it is a really plush hotel, with very comfortable rooms and very friendly staff. Any of you want a hotel room in East London area, this place is highly recommended.

This whole tour was a strange mish-mash of great experiences mixed with very irritating ones. The tour started with us boarding a bus from East London to Dover. This coach was our home for next 3 days (thankfully nights were at a hotel) and let me tell this to whoever had not done coach tours before – they are a pain! You get fed up of sitting in the same position for days; and if you are travelling with a baby who is just learning to move around and finds himself constrained to his parents’ laps, you are in for trouble. Hiranya was quite supportive though, he slept most of the coach part of the journey.

So we reached Dover and our coach boarded the ferry to take us to Calais. The ferry crossing was short and calm enough, by the time we had breakfast, the trip was over. Back onto the coach to go from Calais to the first stop on our itinerary – Madurodam, Holland. Madurodam is a tourist attraction 60 km from Amsterdam. It has miniature versions of all major structures/ buildings in Holland. Many of the models were working models, with a model Amsterdam Central station having miniature trains running and the model airport having miniature planes moving around towards runway. Nice place. We would have liked to spend more time than the one hour allowed by our tour manager.

Let me introduce you at this stage to our tour manager, Ms. Sangeeta. I generally don’t like criticizing people, but Sangeeta must be one of the most boring and unprofessional tour managers around. Her effort at telling us about the attractions we were visiting were restricted to reading out the names and one line descriptions from brochures; there was no initiative to get the group to mingle (we had to do it ourselves eventually), her humour was as interesting as a door-knob and her way of keeping people together was reminiscent of a kindergarten school-mistress. The whole attitude was – "I have to tick this list of places on the itinerary, whether you end up enjoying any place or not is none of my business". It was a rude shock to us when at the very first service stop on the way to Madurodam from Calais, she actually left us behind and asked the bus driver to proceed. Admitted that it took us an extra 5 minutes because we had to change Hiranya’s nappies and all. Still, we were not expecting to be left in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to our co-passengers who reminded the driver that we have been left behind that we were able to get back on the bus. Throughout the tour, she kept leaving people behind and we kept getting the driver to wait a bit more for the whole group to be in the bus. Amazingly idiotic, I tell you!

Anyway, we left Madurodam towards our hotel. A bit about our driver, Mr. Symon. An interesting chap, typical British humour, but does not believe in Sat-Navs and does not believe in asking for directions either. Result – we took 3.5 hours to reach our hotel which should have taken us just over an hour; it would have been even more had one of our co-passengers not got fed up, logged on to Google maps on his mobile, sat with Symon and showed him the way to the hotel. And what a hotel it was – literally middle of nowhere. One and a half hour drive away from Amsterdam, not near to anything or anywhere, I guess the hotel guys must have paid Star tours money to have us stay there :-). We finally reached the hotel at 10:30 in the night, all of us were starving, so we proceeded straight to dinner. The fabulous Indian dinner that we had been promised turned out to be a very average fare, but we were too tired to complain. We just finished our dinner and proceeded to our rooms to sleep. On reaching the room, we realised that the bed is just two single beds kept together rather than one double bed. On asking the receptionist and our dear tour manager, we were told that that is it, all the rooms in the hotel are the same. There of us (I, Madhu and Hirayna) sleeping with such an arrangement was really a challenge.

After a very basic breakfast the next day, we proceeded to Keukenhoff, the tulip gardens. On the way to the place, we saw tulip farms spread across acres. Amazingly beautiful. Like some giant hand has painted lines across the whole area. Red, yellow, orange, pink - so many colours, each more beautiful than the other. We just fell in love with the place [and with each other again, but that happens all the time ;-)]. The gardens were also beautiful, they had lots of tulip bed arrangements but somehow, we liked the farms better. The span of colours filling up the whole view just takes your breath away. It was a shame that the tourist attraction was the garden rather than the farm. Having said that, the Keukenhoff tulip garden is certainly one of the best places in the world that I have seen. Its huge, its beautiful, its very well arranged, the brilliance and the variety of colours and flowers is nothing short of dazzling. The weather gods were benevolent and it was sunny throughout the day, enabling us to enjoy the ethereal beauty of the place.

Again, we were allocated very less time there than what we would have liked. So rushed through the gardens and lunch to be back in the coach. To do what? To visit a cheese and clogg factory. Why on earth would any sane person want to visit a cheese factory when they can spend that time among tulips? Am I on a school education trip or what? And in case missed this piece of knowledge in school, a clogg is a wooden shoe worn by the farmers in Holland. Then on to Gassan diamond cutting factory in Amsterdam, who pride themselves on producing the best cuts for diamond and lectured us on how a diamond is priced. It really became boring. I should have stayed home and watched the Discovery channel!

After braving all this, we took a boat cruise across the canals of Amsterdam. This was good. So while my mood is good, let me take this opportunity to tell you a bit about what I loved about Holland. First, the tulip farms. Breathtaking! Then the amazing canal system. The whole place is full of canals, all connected to each other through a well-built network. Be it the Amsterdam city itself or the countryside and the farms, everywhere the canal network could be clearly seen to be in action both as an irrigation source and a transport facility. This, given that Holland as a country is below the sea level and has to pump out its waste water into the sea, was really a very interesting point to note. Next, the bicycles. As we were cruising in the canals of Amsterdam, we saw fewer cars than bicycles, which is very surprising in a modern city. There were thousands of cycles in cycle stands and moving about, looks like people here are very conscious of the carbon imprint of cars and their health. Great!

Our tour manager and driver then sold us two optional “extras”. The first was to go to Volendam, a fishing village and to Markerwaarddijk, a road with sea on one side and lake on another. Volendam was a disappointment – by the time we reached there, all the shops were closed, so all those opportunities to meet the locals and see the traditional Dutch way of life gone. We were left on the marina and given 45 minutes and this time, we really did not know what to do with the time. Markerwaarddijk road was good, though nowhere near as outstanding a photo-opportunity as we had been told. Trust the English to sell a doughnut for the price of Kohinoor!

Back to hotel for another average fare meal and then on to the other extra - “Amsterdam by night”. The fact that this would never have been an extra if we had been put up within reasonable distance of Amsterdam was not lost on anyone, but hey, we are on a vacation, right? Amsterdam is one of the most liberal places in the world in two respects. First - soft drugs like cannabis, hashish, marijuana are legal here and are sold in coffee shops. Second - prostitution is legal here, the red light area of Amsterdam is almost a tourist place, with semi-naked prostitutes sitting in their display windows soliciting trade. The uniqueness of the place was worth noticing, and I am not pronouncing right-wrong judgements here, but we found it uninteresting and repetitive after ten minutes. So another place where the allocated one hour was more than what we required.

Next morning was the trip back to London, stopping at Brussels on the way. What we did not realise was that when the tour manager said “photo stop”, she actually meant us to finish taking photos as fast as the camera shutter moves. We took some photos of the Atomium structure (a structure made in shape of an Iron atom), did not have chance to go inside that or to visit the nearby mini-Europe park which has miniatures of all famous structures of Europe. Very disappointing! Then we went to the Grand Plais, the central square of Brussels, which had nice buildings. Next stop was Mannequin Pis - this is supposed to be one of the most famous statues in the world. In reality, it is a small statue of a boy pissing and there is absolutely nothing great about it. After a quick lunch, we were back in the coach and on our way to Calais.

On the way back, we took the train shuttle from Calais to Folkestone. You are sitting inside a box called bus which is inside a box called train compartment which is inside a tunnel below sea. Layers of enclosures! Anyway, it was fast, and we reached our destination well in time.

So overall, a visit to two very promising and wonderful places. Holland was beautiful, Brussels looked interesting, but the overall experience was made very dull by the way the tour was planned out and especially by our tour manager. We have resolved to visit these places again on our own to really enjoy them at our own pace.