All roads lead to Rome...

Within Rome, all roads also lead to a central point.. in spite of this, it is possible to get lost in Rome today. Google Maps comes in very handy!

The previous post on this Europe trip (day1) is here..

On day 2 we got up, had breakfast at Hotel Canada (they have a very good breakfast for 10$/person) and walked to the train station. We were taking a local metro to the Vatican. The local metros in Rome are really good. On time, every efficient and people on the trains are friendly. The ticket buying system is also very easy to use. 

We were to meet our tour guide at the bottom of the steps directly opposite the Vatican entrance per instructions. This is like telling a Penguin, you walk up that island of ice and your partner will meet you there.. It looks like all of Rome is at those steps, trying to find their tour guide. There are a zillion tour guides holding flags with the tour company names and some other little beanie baby or toy tied to their little flags. The trick is to go early so you can be united with your guide. Then it is easy.. or not.. depending on, if you belong to our family.

The tour guide looked at San and the girls and shook her head. My guess was she was thinking "if you girls dress like this to Vatican, what do you wear at home? do you wear anything at all?" and my answer would have been "I have been married to this woman for 19 years and I have seen her ankles only three times in public and her knees once when she came to our Christian friends wedding in Napa. she is usually covered head to toe and gives middle eastern burka wearing woman feeling under clothed!"..

Anyways, I don't know what got into San and the kids. They decided that given Europe was going to be hot and all we had was one carry on and a backpack each for this trip (to save time at airports), they packed and dressed "light". Short skirts and shorts everywhere for the most part. Out of all of those, they decided to pick the shortest for Vatican day. Turns out the Vatican has a dress code. No exposing shoulders or knees when going into the place. 

This was interesting because most of the tourists were stuck. This problem was solved by a bunch of African and Middle eastern immigrants who were selling scarves with pictures of vatican for anywhere from 10 to 3 Euros.. "knee cover. shoulder cover".. they kept shouting and were walking among the penguins trying to find their guides doing brisk business. We bargained with two or three of these fellows, found the LCM on the price (kids, note how math comes in handy) and got three of these. The boys just pulled down their shorts to cover the knees and started walking funny with a rap star gait! I now know why these rap star folks walk funny.. when you are constantly trying to avoid your shorts from falling off your hip, you walk like that!

Where were we? yes, Vatican..

We had booked trips on Viator. The tour guides were good. They had all the tickets pre booked and it was all "jump the line". Also they made sure most of our group was from USA/Canada and they grouped families with kids together. We had a 14 people group and the walking started. 

The Vatican museum is amazing. The Christian leadership went out of their way to create this place and they made sure it will be preserved well. 

We had seen a lot of stuff in Uffizi that was repeated here, which was good. We had already been conditioned on what to expect. There is a lot of history in this place... and also some statues that put the previous one in Uffizi to shame.. like this one..Take that Uffizi!

The photographs in Portrait format in slide show..

another slide show..

 

We went to the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately there were no Photographs allowed. Some of the folks in our group were taking pictures by holding their iPhones at waist level. I thought that was not right. If me being a non Christian could accept the rules there and put my camera inside, these folks with their Crosses on their neck chains could have done better.. San told me to mind my business and we kept walking out. We also found that there were lot of folks who did expose their knees and shoulders and no one said anything. But the scarves were not exactly returnable..  I liked the ceiling but thought it was too depressing. Loved the ceiling in the Palace de Vecchio better. 

I did find a new favorite painter after this trip. Raphael! The one painting on a wall above a window where he painted a prison room with amazing shadows stayed with me for a long time. Pity this guy died young. His work was the best in that place..

The basilica is a completely different story. The place is well lit compared to most of the other churches we visited and I loved it. I like places of worship that are not dark and dinghy.. a place that can lift up your spirit. Saint Peters Basilica is amazing. I could kneel down there and say a prayer and feel a sense of calm that you get in some of the grand temples in India. Totally awe inspiring place.

Once we were done with the Museum tour, the Sistine Chapel and Basilica, the morning part of the tour ended with us in the open courtyard. That in itself is grand. (see the Pano pics below). The Pano feature on iPhone was best to capture these places.. 

this is a Vertical Pano shot by doing backbends.. 

We had a tricky situation. it was already 12:30. We were supposed to be at the Coliseum to find our guide there at 1:45 for a 2PM tour. Now that we knew that finding your tour guide takes time, we rushed out to the metro. It was a 20 minute walk. We took the train, changed trains, then went to the stop for the Coliseum. Our first thought was let's get there, check in with guide and hope to find something to eat. The kids were starting to strike saying "lets eat here and then go there". 

Eventually we ended up right in front of the Coliseum and there was a restaurant where we found food. They had sandwiches, fries, juice, etc.. so it worked out. The outside temperatures were close to 100F. There were no trees in the area. Mostly ruins for touring around. It is a good idea to have a hat or an umbrella if you are doing these tours in summer. We walked through multiple levels of the Coliseum with our tourguide Ursus. He was a family man with three kids of his own and given our group was just the 8 of us and a Canadian family with two kids and a grandma, he made sure the kids were the focus of the tour. They were all attentive and he was giving them a history lesson. The adults mostly trudged along taking pictures. 

The Coliesum in an interesting place. Human depravity knows no bounds. At least that was my one line takeaway after walking around this place and the surrounding ruins for almost 4 hours. Good news here? Free water fountains everywhere in Rome with great cool drinking water! 

After the tour, he gave us an option to continue on the other side. We said "we are all extremely tired. We will pass". Handed him the head phones and went back to take the metro to the hotel. 

A video to cover our Day 2 of the Europe trip..

We did laundry at a Laundromat near the hotel, the ladies decided their hubbies should get something for being nice the whole day and sponsored a Thai massage at a place one block from the hotel. I promptly got an allergic reaction from the oil the lady used for the massage. We ate a nice dinner again within a block from the hotel at a restaurant that played world cup games on the big screen. Think it was the Belgium Japan match where Belgium came from behind and won. It was a Monday evening.  After the dinner we called it a night.

We were going to go our different routes on the trip. We said our byes and it was time to pack up everything. The hotel part of the trip was over.

It was B&B time.. 

When in Rome.. get a mask

Don't do as the Romans do... you will likely die of lung cancer before you can see your grandkids. That was my first impression of Rome after getting out of the airport. We got to Hotel Canada which was a 10 minute walk from the main Train station in Rome. This was our only Hotel booking on the trip. The rest was Air B&B. We stayed at a hotel to be with San's sisters family who joined us for this leg of the trip.

The first picture in the blogpost always gets picked up by Facebook, Google+ etc.. so all these posts will start with my favorite family portrait of the day!

After a good nights rest, we got up for the breakfast which started at 7AM. Per San and Co-brother, the train was at 8AM. So we ate breakfast, had the kids put on sunscreen, took some photos of me doing backbends in the lobby and walked at a leisurely pace to the station and handed our tickets to the guy at the gate... all of which is shown in exhibits below.. (get used to exhibits for this series of blog posts)

He looked at us and said "Your train leaves at 7:54AM. It is now 7:56AM. It has already left! You will have to buy tickets again at that counter. There is another one that leaves for Florence in 30 minutes"

History has taught me many things. One of them is to not say anything about what has passed and just get to solution space. History has also taught me not to forget some stuff so it can come in handy for a blog post 10 years later..

History? There was a time when the kids were young and we were to go to Seattle to visit my BIL. We had booked the four tickets and let BIL know.. he looked at the email and told us he will be there to receive us at the airport on time. When we went to San Jose airport in the morning to check in, the lady at the counter looked at us and said "you are on a flight this morning, but it leaves from Seattle to come here! you booked Seattle to San Jose and back instead of the other way around.. We can cancel the ticket but it will cost you. There are four seats left on this mornings flight. Would you like to buy them?!" to which we replied "just get us the tickets to go there!" 

That experience taught me some valuable life lessons.. which came in very handy in the Roma train station. I told San to just go get the tickets and lets get to Florence! It was an interesting beginning to the trip. We are easily swayed by superstition.. first the delay at Zurich the previous day..then this delay.. was it a sign of things to come?! 

We got the tickets and were in Florence after a few hours. All was well again. Then we walked from the Florence station to the Uffizi gallery. Saw some interesting things on the way..we walked all around the Santa Maria Novella church

There was no paid jump the line tour as it was a Sunday and it was free for everyone. We checked out the line. Only 1200 people and a 2 1/2 hour wait.

So we decided to go to the Palace de Vecchio instead. This was another smaller Palace turned into a Museum but the attraction was the Vechchio tower which we had to climb at the end. It was an interesting climb and we got an amazing view of the City of Florence from the Tower. The paintings on the walls and ceilings just took our breath away..

When we came back down, finished lunch at the Ristorante Cavallino (really good food and nice ambience inside), the line to Uffizi was not that long.

It was a 30-40 minute wait. So we stood in line, got into the Gallery and walked for a good 3 hours through the gallery. Lot of great art work to take in that it was overwhelming.

These guys are marketing this all wrong. One of the galleries should be renamed as "Dickapalooza" and the other one "Boobfest". Those are actually apt descriptions..

We never realized Jesus was painted in this many angles by this many artists. Growing up in India and being raised on Hindu temple art, realized that Indian tempels have an advantage with many different gods, creatures etc. where there is a lot of room for diversity and creativity for statues and paintings. These guys all started painting when Christianity became mainstream and the Church allowed them to paint again (painting and statues were banned for a long time before the Pope realized that they were valuable for PR) and they had to paint Mary and Jesus with either Jesus as a baby, holding a sheep or being crucified. Given the limited options, they did an amazing job and I say that in all sincerity. 

There is a sense of grandeur that hits you in all these places.. lots of money and time spent.. Using my patented backbending Pano technology (I hold the iPhone and do backbends in every room to take Pano shots) give you a series of Pano shots in slide show.. which is probably why the family stayed clear of my sweat smell.. while all the tourists were really giving me "I am impressed" looks for my technique.

I would like to share two things I really liked in the gallery.. the first was one of my favorite paintings "the birth of Venus" and the second was a series of paintings by "the divine painter" .. they are amazing (see collage of all paintings)

There was only one problem with the Uffizi gallery. There were no places where you could just sit on a bench and give your tired knees a rest. So we were almost out of the gallery where there was a solitary painting in a round frame but with a sofa across it. The entire family crammed itself into the sofa and we were making jokes about how that should be named the best painting, just for the sofa. It was a painting of a father and mother teaching a child (not Jesus we were told).

A monk in a gray robe walked to the group and shouted at my co-brother "dont laugh at the cross". We were clearly not laughing at the cross. Where is the cross in that painting? We would not disrespect the cross. We go light candles in churches when we cannot find a temple to light a dia. So that dude was clearly having some issues with anyone laughing in the gallery. We walked around a few more rooms on the way to the exit in the ground floor and...

Finally walked out and wandered towards the train station. 

All the art that caught our eye (portrait format) is in this slide show..

Landscape format photos are in this slide show..

Stopped on the way at an outdoor restaurant and had an early dinner after watching some world cup soccer outside another restaurant on the way to the place..these were cheap restaurants which had folks outside trying to get customers inside with deals.. they advertised a full meal per person for under 10 Euros.. so we eenie meenie miney mo'ed and entered a place..the food was decent but the smoking was unbearable. Folks smoke right outside the place. so if you sit inside it is actually worse. 

Our train back to Rome was at 8 PM. This time we made it! 

It was a really hot day in Rome. My corn cap was still holding but the wife and kids complained that I smelled. It was like I was drenched in sweat.

A video to wrap up Florence.. 

Day 1, saw everything we had planned to see and had made it back in one piece. The next morning we had to take another local train to go on an all day tour.. we were on time.. no.. ahead of time on day 2!

To be continued..

Holi hai!

This year we knew that if we did celebrate, we would go to Foster city for a repeat of last years celebration. This event is very well organized with a nice DJ, great music and a lively crowd. We were not sure if the weather would co-operate. Even though it was raining in Cupertino when we left, it was nice and pleasant in Foster City. 

A sea of people celbrating and dancing together to music.. 

and the colors! 

did I say "sea of people" ?

although I pulled off this shot, the idea to make her lie down on the floor full of color was not mine. It was her friend Anika's. Any good photographer should always copy compositional ideas.. with pride! 

I have one child that co-operates for photos and another one that does not even show up to the celebration because she is going through a "photo-aversion" phase of life! It was heart breaking for me to miss the little one this Holi. Will wait for her to turn around.. 

My 5D Mark ii saw its toughest time today in the park, with fine color powder flying everywhere.. some kid threw powder directly into my lens. Still managed a lot of good pictures for the day (some of which will be shared in the events FB page). Spent a good 30 minutes cleaning the camera after coming home. It was a good thing that the 70-200 never even came out of the bag. Took everything with the 24-105mm.

The iPhone never came out, but wanted to try the portrait mode and got this shot in the parking lot.

Not happy with the way it defined the edge to cut portrait. Had a shot with the 5D that Jr. took just before we exit the park..

Used refine edge (to be fair spent 20 minutes on this image) but the end result is way better than the iPhoneX. Apple has to improve on the Refine edge algorithm to get smooth edges for shirts and sharp edges for hair sticking out..

There is no family portrait this year, but there is always next year...

Wishing everyone a happy Holi! May your life be filled with joy and color!

Harvest moon

The moon is always beautiful and fascinating. Friday morning I opened the front door and the moon looked a little bigger than usual and it was full. 

So made Jr. wait for school and took a few pictures from our doorstep.

After a few mintues realized that using the extender would definitely give me a better shot. So put that on and took a few more pictures. It was a setting moon. 

Moon photos are always better if there is a backdrop that shows it in scale.. this one was just a handheld shot but it is beautiful in its own way..

Later that evening got to see a lot of posts from the previous night on the rising moon. Apparenlty it is called a "harvest moon". Had no idea. Have been living in a very busy and warped world recently. 

Just happy to be able to upload some pictures and be normal again!

Elephant Seal outlook - Point Reyes day trip

Last weekend, our plan was to go see the super bloom of flowers that is moving north over the California hillsides. This thing was so huge it was visible from space, per reports from the missus!

We went on a day trip with the cousins to do multiple things.. Have a trip with family after a long time, go see the elephant seals at Point Reyes and catch the flowers on the hillsides. We did all three..  

The view from the elephant seal lookout trail was amazing. You could see the seals nursing pups and the visibility was great. 

you can see the seals basking in the bottom of the picture.. thousands of them! 

Here is a slideshow of the views from the trail in HDR..

There was a fourth thing that was on the cards.. Take a picture of San in the fields of flowers.. Call it the DDLJ Kajol shot if you will.. I had to work with winds that could knock you over (my cap flew off in the wind and had to be retrieved!) and it was difficult to hold the camera steady. It was bright and sunny, but you want to understand the concept of wind chill, you should visit Point Reyes! 

The photos in a sea of flowers with the sea in the background were not a roaring success, but it got a "satisfactory" grade! 

A slide show of the seals and the seal colony.

And a few videos .. some timelapse of the waves at the lookout and others of the seals and their noises!

Strongly recommend this for a day trip in early May! 

Next time I should go with a nice jacket!