We had spent a nice evening walking around old town and had crashed at 9PM as jet lag hit us hard. We had walked a good 10 miles in the morning through the lag in Plitvice the previous day.
Our plan was to go cross the bridge and see the new town or city center. Then come back and walk past the parks and churches in Old town before heading out.
We had breakfast right outside our hotel in the attached restaurant and walked to the newer town. It was just like any other downtown with busy office goers, shoppers in the supermarkets and bakeries, students, tons of them.. after walking a few blocks up and down we came back to the old town and asked the visitor center folks for suggestions.
They said there were two new museums within walking distance. So we went to the Museum of Illusions.
We were the only guests and the ticket was pricey but we had time to kill. We thoroughly enjoyed the place.. a few of the exhibits we did not get at the time.. hindsight being 20/20 now we know how to get the "crawling on the wall" type photos. Another time.. Later we learned that the same museum is there in San Francisco! Zadar is a small place. We had spent an extra 1/2 day than required but it was good to get adjusted to local time zone and relax a bit.
there were tons of other photos.. but posting them here. this is a great place to spend a good 2 hours with family and kids. definitely recommend this as a great time pass!
After this we decided "no more museums"..and walked through a neighborhood of old town that we had missed the previous day. There was a nice market there where San did some shopping. Those skirts and frocks have never seen daylight after they were bought. Apparently they looked nice at that moment but are not worth wearing in public! The lady at the shop did a good sales job I guess.
We walked though the square and came back to our hotel.
There was a new Bagel place that had just opened across our hotel. They were out of bagels the previous night. So lunch was fresh bagels and they were really good! Apparently the owner relocated from New York and started a bagel chain in this part of the world.
Video highlights..
Then we got an Uber to the airport and were off to our next stop..
June 24 saw us celebrate our 25th anniversary. Given the kids just want to come home to their beds and sleep, they wanted us to be gone to celebrate it somewhere far away.
San, the planner, did an amazing job of planning a one week trip with practically one day in each city in eastern Europe for the most part. Only thing I had to do was to give a list of places or Viator tours of interest in those locations.
Our first City was Zadar. We took three flights to get there. SFO to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Dusseldorf, and finally Dusseldorf to Zadar on different airlines. We were tired by the time we got to Zadar airport. Got a Taxi and were dropped off at the old Town. This is literally a walled area that looks like the inside of a castle where no cars are allowed.
It took us some time to find our hotel. It was a beautiful hotel right next to one of the gates to the walled area. We just got dropped at the wrong gate!
The whole place was beautiful. Cobblestones that were smooth from years of feet walking on them.. it had been hit by the war but was rebuilt. We had leftover packed food and we just ate that in the hotel room after walking around our hotel. It was already late and most of the stores were closed. So we went to sleep early.
The next morning we had to walk a mile to the group gathering point for our all day adventure.
The roads were empty but beautiful. . .
Our beautiful hotel.. (the room was decorated Honeymoon style).. The Palazzo venezia!
When San starts posing like this on day 1, I couldn't be happier!
Video highlights..
Have 1000's of pics and videos from this trip, but never got around to blogging about it. As soon as I came back work caught up. Then my dad's condition took a turn for the worse as he swallowed kanji into his lungs. At one point doctors asked my mom to notify next of kin as they didn't think he would survive the night. We were all there in India and he made a miraculous comeback and is home now. That meant the blogs never made it.
My goal is to clear those out of my camera and laptop by writing at least one little blog before bedtime everyday. . .
The previous post in this series on our travel in Buenos Aires is here..
For some reason, I decided to use iPhone photos for the most part, that too without any processing and my FIL promptly told me that my photos are usually a visual treat and my standards are going down.
Given few people still read this blog, decided to use nicely cropped, edited photos for this post. It is still mostly iPhone photos. Hope it gets the bar back up again..even if slightly..
After the cemetery visit, we drove to La Boca, which is not an upscale neighborhood but is one of the oldest places in Buenos Aires that was populated, mainly by waves of immigrants. There is an old world charm in this place that is very unique! Parts of it, the walls, the doors and windows reminded me of walking around old neighborhoods in Mylapore. In fact one of the steets brougt back memories of TSV Kovil street. My brain does a number on me when in new places and connects random things. So walked around in a daze absorbing the sights, sounds and smells.
one of my favorite shots on this trip!
Caminito was interesting.. with the center piece being an ice cream shop. There was a long line so we skipped the ice cream. We were also on the clock for the private tour.
this photo courtesy of our tour guide who was trying to direct folks to be out of the shot.. he did a great job!
Then we moved on to San Telmo area and the market. The entire place was full of antique shops. Old books, LP's, cameras that went extinct, Simpson's bobble head dolls, crazy stuff that used to be in the last bottom row in Navarathri golus when I was a small boy.. it was amazing!
we went into a lane that had these umbrellas.. it had more of a French vibe to it than the Spanish vibe we expected.. the place started getting crowded, given there were offices there.. we managed to take a few photos
Once the crowd saw what I was doing with the next shot, everyone was trying to copy it.. was telling the family that I take it as a compliment and am not the least bit offended.
After the family decided to eat some empanadas at one of San Telmo's hottest places, we made a move to see the Obelisk and what is dubbed the Times Square of Buenos Aires.
There was no parking, so our guide stopped the car on the road side and said "10 minutes is all I can wait if you want to run across and take pictures".. and we did manage to do that and get back, jump in the car and go back to our hotel area.
this whole obelisk thing was weird. It was in the middle of the busiest part of the city and the barricades and barriers around it made it less appealing. There were too many walking signals around and the pedestrian and car traffic was a disaster waiting to happen. Also there is no way to get a decent shot of us and the Obelisk given the short distance in front of it. The locals seemed to be very happy with the monument.. we were all wondering how it fit with the rest of the area.. it stuck out like a sore obelisk!
the kids never share their pics with me.. and I am definitely not allowed in their social media circle.. but I do have these type of memories.. watching them grow into confident young women!
we stopped at a few more places to take photos of monuments (our time was up and I made a request.. so it was nice of our guide to do this!)
we even stopped by the area where all the big hotels are.. the lobby decorations in Buenos Aires are interesting..
We thanked our guide who was a really nice person and ate leftovers from what we had packed for lunch at the hotel. Had to finish the food anyways as we were to check out. We had two hours to spend before our ride to the airport. San and the little one stayed in the hotel restaurant after checking out. Jr. and myself decided to go back to the waterfront to get a taste of the famous Luciano's ice cream. It was a 40 minute walk one way but we made it, had ice cream and got back in time to catch our ride to the airport... only after coming back to the US did we realize that this ice cream is from California but has become very popular in Buenos Aires!!
the dulce de leche here is apparently a hit.. so we had to get a taste of it. It was yummmmmmmmmyyy!
we walked past the boats (which were museums .. didn't realize it the previous evening!)
We made it in time for our flight.. but it was late. So we ended up in the crowded airport for an extra two painful hours before finally boarding for Porto Iguazu..
A video for the last part of the city tour. We covered a lot of places in 4 and a half hours!
Would definitely recommend this private guided tour of Buenos Aires through Viator. Our guide was Martin and he was a really sincere guide! Not sure if you can ask for him through Viator tours. . .
We said bye to Buenos Aires as there was not going to be any more walking around the city.. we had no idea..
The whole trip was all about Iguazu falls. Have way too many photos and videos to process from the next day of the trip. The next post on this series will have to wait..
