To Shahrukhland and Kajolberg

This is a post on the Europe Trip day 5 afternoon. The previous post in the series that covered Lucerne is here..

After lunch in Lucerne, we were off to Engelberg. It was like a small town (maybe Village) on the base of Mount Titlis. A few people who could not climb high altitudes were dropped off by our guide to spend the afternoon there. The bus started climbing after that brief stop and we were treated to some amazing scenic views and we reached a parking lot of epic proportions. 

This was the gondola ride up the mountain. The Gondola takes you up to 10000 feet. Then there is a five story building with multiple restaurants where you get out of this ride. It is a rotating Gondola and that means amazing views of the mountains and everything below as we go up.

There were 8 people to a carriage and we were joined by another Desi family from Chicago and made pleasant conversation. They had grown up kids, with the youngest just finishing college and when we got out the guide promptly said "okay. We have fixed time here. There are many activities here. you can go through an ice canyon, go to an ice flyer to 13000 feet and then go for a walk on the edge of the ice. we will wait here. The last gondola down for you to make it to the bus on time is at 4:15 PM". 

Given how the traveling Narayanan family had done with such hectic schedules over the last 4 days, we accepted the challenge and walked to the ice flyer. On the way to the ice flyer, we saw a cutout that made Mt. Titlis a household name in India. 

I knew what had to be done. Gave the camera to our tourguide who was Swiss German and she goes "yes of course. you have to take a picture in front of Shah Rukh and Kajol!".. she said it so matter of factly as though they were local Swiss names. The world is full of wonders I thought and asked San to pose.. She was happy but for some reason, could not bring out the inner Kajol on time! Eventually for some strange reason she was doing that pose in front of the Hogwarts Express in UK and I was doing a facepalm! Where were we?! Yes.. Kajolberg..

We walked to the ice flyer. There were snow flurries falling pretty heavily... and then we had an adventure of a lifetime.. which is a post in itself. So we will skip the ice flyer for now and move on. 

We barely made it back to the five storied building again and were greeted by the sight of Pav Bhajis, rice, pickles, papad etc.  

While the family went for it, I grabbed a hot cocoa and while we were eating there was a realization that we were about to miss the ride down. So we scrambled and made our way back to the parking lot. Our guide was nice. She said "you can get some Chai and Samosas and other Indian snacks at a restaurant outside the ticket counter. We are still waiting on some folks.". So off we went and got Chai Samosa.

Life comes full circle I thought. Many years ago, we had Maggi noodles at ~10000 feet in the Himalayas at Manali and that was a Swiss company product. Now we were having Chai Samosa in Switzerland!

The panoramic view of the mountains from the parking lot was amazing..

Then the bus filled up and we were back on our way to Zurich and were treated to more scenic views.

The bus dropped us at 7PM. We went to a mexican place after going to our new Air B&B and dropping off the luggage. We had booked one walking distance from the bus terminus for the night. We went in at 7:20 and the waiter was nice enough to let us eat as long as we were out by 8 as it was a reservation only place. The food was amazing, the wall decor had some kind of masked wrestler photograph everywhere.. and were back in the Air B&B. On the way back we went to an Indian grocery store run by a Sri Lankan Tamil, saw a Sari Store, a bunch of Indian restaurants and realized we were in Little India in Zurich!

There was laundry to be done.. using a German washing machine in the basement that looked ancient and some precious sleep to be had before another all day adventure the next day. 

Here is a tip. Air B&B laundries are not reliable. After making multiple attempts to dry the clothes after washing, the thing promptly gave some fatal error. There was no one to help in that place at 11PM and I had to translate using google translate to find that it was a fatal error. 

While the family was sleeping, I hauled a bunch of semi wet clothes (practially half of our luggage) and put a cloth on every possible exposed surface in that Apartment. There were bras on the kitchen cabinet hooks, jattis on the TV.. think you get the picture.. I created surreal art and went to bed praying. Set an alarm for an hour earlier than we had planned. San woke up and I gave her the bad news.. 80% of the clothes had dried completely! 20% still needed some help. So we used the iron box and ironed out the moisture for an hour and were all set! 

Back to pictures and videos..

A video of most of the afternoons trip..

We were not coming back to this place the next night.. it was going to be another all day trip that ended in a different city! 

Breathtaking country - Switzerland

On day 5 of the Europe trip, we were in Switzerland. It was the beginning of three hectic and interesting days. We flew in from Venice to Zurich on day 4. 

The previous post in the series is here...

We had an interesting time at the Venice airport. One of the downsides to having status on United and Star alliance is that they allow only yourself and one guest to go into the Lounge. I told the family that it did not feel right for me to take one of them in and have the other two sit outside and I would rather have all of us sit outside together. The rest of the family unianiously called me an idiot and said if they were in my shoes, they would go with whoever was most eager to come. Wish they would have a system where they could take more of the miles or money and let two extra people in. Given my food allergies and the fact that I dont even drink Coffee or Soda, that whole lounge thing is wasted on me. The little one did come in with me for a few trips and got some dessert cakes "to go" for her mom and sister.  Then we mostly spent time in the regular gate area and wandering around the shops till we realized that the France Argentina game was on. There were huge shouts and cheers and the entire airport sounded like a football stadium. 

We watched the game almost to completion before it was time to board. It was a small "rinky dinky" flight to Zurich and the gate agent forced us to check in our bags. We were greeted in the flight with some soccer ball swiss chocolates ..

and a wonderful view of the Alps though the clouds. We watched the sun set over Zurich as we landed (see timelapse in the video.. one of the most memorable landings we have seen recently) and waited for almost 90 minutes to get our baggage! There were 11 flights listed on one baggage carousel. We almost gave up and were in tears because that was pretty much all our bags. Finally the bags came and we got an Uber to our Air B&B close to the airport. 

The kids and San ate some sandwiches purchased on the flight. I made MTR instant Upma after reaching the place. The next morning we took our luggage (yes, we were literally in a different place every night) and went to the Zurich bus station. We had an all day tour 8AM to 7PM which covered Zurich (on the bus), Lucerne in the morning to noon, a lunch break at Lucerne and onwards towards Mt. Titlis..

 Zurich / bus train station area was interesting in itself. People seemed to move at a leisurely pace and were generally happy. Have never seen that many smiling faces on a work day morning in any city. It is not just the cows in Swiss that are happy.. even the people seem to be all chirpy and cheerful! 

We went on to Lucerne to see the giant Lion carved on a mountainside. It was almost lunch. We saw an Indian restaurant in Lucerne and were yearning for some Chai and Samosa. Then the bus loaded and stopped after 5 minutes in front of a shopping area for watches, on the other side of the river (apparently they were tour partners, this watch place) and the guide said "you have 50 minutes to eat lunch and come back. the bus will leave promptly". I was pissed. If she had told us this we would have just stayed at the Lion parking place, ate a nice lunch and walked to the bus. It was a 15 minute walk to the Indian place from where they parked by crossing the bridge. In any case, we walked around (I missed a turn and lost another 5 minutes) and we ended up at Kanchi.. 

while in the middle of this walk/run we still managed pictures and videos.. 

Lucerne is breathtaking. Vibrant colors (it had just rained on our entire way to Lucerne) and fresh air! 

Here are two panos from one of the two bridges we crossed..

We had 20 minutes to eat and 10 minutes to run back. The kids were not happy with the plan. We begged the guy to bring us a minimum set of dishes and he obliged. We gulped it down in 8 minutes (the fastest this family has ever had a meal) and raced out. 

Then the mother of all mixups happened. The little one had declared her intent to go to the restroom before the run back to the bus, but given the time had decided to come out following me and Jr.  San stayed back to pay the bill and decided to wait for the non existant little one outside the restoom. We are in the street.. she is waiting and the clock ticks. Finally after some tense looks without any words being spoken we all ran towards the bus only to find that another family was trying to buy Pizza at a store last minute and were trying to finish the pizza before boarding the bus. There was no food allowed on the bus. So we watched them eat pizza for a good 5 minutes while catching our breath.

During the run, I started sweating Bikram Yoga style and was completely drenched. The wife and kids said "they will kick you out of the bus" so we asked the guide and driver to open the luggage compartment and I changed in front of the entire bus with some curious onlookers giving me the "who sweats in Switzerland?" look. 

Slideshows of pictures from Zurich and Lucerne.

and a video that hightlights the first half of day 5..

We were then off to the next stop..

It has not been easy catching up on memories to write these posts. Have already spent a week in Asia. Came back and had a great day only for my luck to change. Got sick last night with an allergy attack that has left me gasping for breath. Yet to identify the root cause.. hopefully I will recover in a day or two and get back on track. 

As unique as they come

Day 4 of the Europe trip was Venice. We reached on the evening of day 3 from Pisa (previous post on the series is here...) and saw Venice by night. Our first challenge was to go from the Train station to the Air B&B. It was a 10 minute walk but the challenge was crossing the bridge over the grand canal with a broken suitcase. It was done.. with great difficulty!

The Air B&B we had was on the "attic" floor. We had pretty much the entire floor to ourselves and a great view from the window. We dropped our bags and went back quickly to catch a gondola ride. We were very lucky as we got the last ride out. It was a 40 minute ride and the sun was just starting to set.

Right when we finished the ride and docked, it started raining. The views we got on the trip were amazing. Vibrant colors from the setting sun..

I got two photographs to cherish thanks to this Gondola ride... the first one with me and San 

and the second one when we were just about to go below a bridge. The kids were in focus and the bricks look like they are moving towards us..

a fun portrait session during breakfast time using the large mirror as a frame.. we were the only ones at breakfast and they had quite a spread!

We got dinner at different places (Jr. at a burger king, San and the little one went for an Italian place where the service was terrible and the food was okay and I decided to skip) and headed back to sleep. 

Day 4 was fully dedicated to Venice. We walked around on either side of the grand canal in the morning and took a boat to Murano island. 

How they make these pencil type structures is amazing..

This is an interesting place where they have all the glass factories and the museum. There was a glass blowing demo (no photos/videos allowed!) and elaborate descriptions of how they make the different glass pieces. We spent half a day there and took a boat back to the Grand Canal station. 

Here are two slide shows of photos from Venice and Murano..

After checking out a few places and realizing that the farther we went from the train station, the better the places for lunch (price, quality and service) and we had a really nice lunch at this place.. 

Saw a lot of interesting notices like this on displays..

The people of Venice see the tourists as a necessary evil. They are not nice to tourists. We saw some blatant xenophobia and racism. The only folks they hated more than dark skinned folks were Chinese. We were joking that if DJT wants to go win somewhere outside of US, he need to look no further than Venice! 

Funny thing was another note we had read earlier in the day at Murano..

did the Syrians have a similar notice about cheap Venitian glass being dumped into their market in 1500's ?! Who knows?

Venice is beautiful. The people understanably are stressed out by the influx of tourists and the strain has taken its toll.. Still, Venice is beautiful. When you go there, do spend money. Do be nice to the locals. Maybe things will change. 

We had already checked out and put our luggage at the train station. We were walking around with just our backpacks. 

One interesting thing is the service provided to take your luggage across the bridges. All they have to do is to put a ramp on the end of the stair case on either side so folks can drag their luggage up and down. Instead there is a thriving market for these porters with their dollys and they make a living moving luggage to either side. Most of them are from Bangladesh! Guess that is not helping with the strain.. (you can see it at the end of the video)

We had exactly 24 hours in Venice and we made the most of it. We did not want to go through more museums and cathedrals. So skipped those little tours. The glass museum was unique and we enjoyed it!

After some shopping for cute things in the shops, tasting things, some ice cream and buying a new suitcase, we made it to the bus station and were off to the Venice airport.

It was time to fly back to Zurich! 

Lean baby Lean..

The previous post on the Europe trip series is here...

Day 3 of the Europe trip was visiting Pisa. Now Pisa is neither here nor there on the big city list. So we did not want to stay overnight in Pisa. 

The plan was to take the first available train to Pisa from Rome (which is via Florence with a 10 minute window to change trains) and leave the luggage in the cloak room at Pisa station. Now you know why each of us was allowed only one check in bag and a backpack. 

We dragged the check in bags from train to train and from train to baggage room. My suitcase handle broke. I had to improvise and used Jr's bandana as the handle and dragged the suitcase along. We were on a tight schedule. Once we paid and gave the luggage in (6 euros per bag), we had to go to the leaning tower by 11:45 and that meant 45 mintues to walk there.

It took us almost 35 minutes to walk and we did stop for 5 minutes to get some ice cream for the kids. They were tired. We did stop for a few seconds every now and then to take pics on the way..

If you are going up the tower, you have to book it well in advance. They have a limit on how many people can go up and down the tower and you have time slots. We reached at 11:45 and found out that no backpacks allowed (even a camera backpack). So we walked across the field to a locker and put the handbags/ camera bag there. When we walked back to the line, it was our turn. 

It is a narrow walkway with pretty much one person at a time except for few niches where you could let someone pass through. We climbed up and got beautiful views of Pisa and the Cathedral. 

After coming back down we went to the cathedral. The tickets were included with the tower. So we didn't have to stand in that line. We strongly recommend buying tickets well in advance for this or you cannot cover the cathedral and get back to train station if you try to do Pisa as a half day stop. Remember the Florence to Pisa train is a local train that is not fast and most trains to other important places are from Florence. 

This cathedral was beautiful. Amazing ceiling, altar, paintings on the walls. We spent 30 minutes walking to the sanctum and back.

From the top of the tower, realized that we had taken a longer route to come to the tower. So on the way back I suggested a shortcut. The family came along reluctantly. Then I made one mistake. That almost proved costly as it took us to a city center courtyard. Once we figured it out we were off by one block. Luckily I asked for directions and we were back on track. I got yelled at for the next 15 minutes by all three for losing the 5 minutes. We ate lunch at a quiet restaurant. The service was excellent as was the food. For a guy who eats cheese sticks at Denny's, cheese balls were a novelty. Had that for the first time in Pisa. 

Here are two slideshows with pictures..

and a Pano slide show. The Panoramic views at Pisa were amazing!

We made it back to the train station and waited for our luggage to be handed out. The cloak room is all the way in the back of the platform. So yet again we barely made it to our train to Florence and then to Venice.. I was already limping by then with the hardened skin in my foot hurting me every time the foot touched the ground.

The video highlights of the trip.. including a time lapse of my entire walk down from the top of the tower.. 

So it was a relief to sit on the train and catch our breath!

To be continued..

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..