portraits

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Our first day in Lisbon

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Yes.. this is part of a missed series of blog posts on the 25th wedding anniversary trip.. that trip itself is nearing its anniversary.. so I better write about it before it becomes murky.

We flew from Prague to Lisbon first thing in the morning. The previous post in this series is here..

We took a Taxi from the airport that dropped us off in the Baixa area (cars were not allowed inside this main road that leads to the gate. Had to roll our carry on suitcases on the cobblestones for a good 20 minutes and reached our hotel. It was cute and cozy. Bepoet was the name. We put our things in the room and promptly came down to see as many things as we could for the rest of the evening and night. Given how crazy we are when it comes to covering points on city tours, have to break this into multiple posts..

We got a map and finally decided to walk to the first stop, the cathedral. I did impress a bunch of church goers with my backbending ability while holding an iPhone steady to take this almost 270 degree pano shot.

After we walked around the cathedral up a slope, there was a bus that could take us around all the spots. We decided to help a local girl with her tuk tuk business and had her take us around the city. First we went up to the vista point on the local hill, and from there we made it to Belem. Sangeetha has already been to Lisbon before and she also turned into a tourguide. I was getting a stereophonic guided tour at some point. On the way we saw the replica of the golden gate bridge, a replica of the Jesus from Rio.

A gallery of landscapes photos from this leg of the tour

and a portrait gallery

Once at Belem we visited the Vasco de Gama monument, the Belem tower and a church. We only caught the museum from a distance as there was no time to visit the museum. The lady was on the clock and the museum was closing. After this we were going to stop to eat something special. Both the guide and San hyped this up to no end.. that on the next post..

but before that.. a video highlights reel of our start to seeing Lisbon!

at first glance, Lisbon is a city like no other city we have visited before!

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Budapest by Bajaj Auto - aka Tuk-Tuk tour

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The previous post in this series is here..

The day in Budapest was going to be spent in two parts. The morning was a 4 hour Viator Tour of the city’s highlights in a Tuk Tuk (It was actually a Bajaj Auto that we use in India!). Our guide was a very nice person who was a local and spoke good English. He had the whole thing planned nicely. He asked us what we wanted to see in the four hours and we told him to hit most of the highlights and if time permitted, show some quaint stuff. He was to drop us off at a lunch place.

We also told him that our train to Vienna was at 6:30 PM and we had already checked out of the Astoria and left the luggage in the cloak room. He promised us information while dropping us off at the end of the tour!

Right after we left the hotel we got to see how the whole city had been flooded and rebuilt. While he was explaining this our guide got to understand us a little better. He knew that if he wanted to make us happy, San would need me to take great pics of her throughout the tour!

We passed the Central Market building to see the Szent Gellert spas. This place was just amazing! It is included in the local healthcare plan! We did not have time to do any medicinal bath here. Someday if we spend more time in Budapest, will definitely have to try this.

The ceilings and tilework here is magnificent! The spa staff and our guide were impressed with my back bending capability while holding an iPhone steady in hand !

This was followed by a trip to the Citadel area. They are building a new monument here and making this area a new tourist attaction. We went past the construction area to get some views of the Danube and the buildings on either side from the top. We were in an expensive area of Budapest on the hillside and we got to have some ice-cream and drinks at a fancy bar/coffee shop which is a hangout of the rich and famous there.

Then we went to the Garden of Philosophers which was nice and quiet and there were more views! This was my favorite view of the day!

Then we went behind Matthias church and quickly took some photos with the tuk tuk.

This was followed by a long ride to go around to the entrance to the church area. This whole area is beautiful. We got a history lesson and took some photos.

Then we went back down to the banks of the Danube and caught views of the Parliament building, went across a few famous bridges, the Opera house and Heroe’s Square. It was unfortunate that there was some work going on there and a lot of scaffolding. I have visited Budapest in 1996 as a grad student while enroute to Eger in Hungary to present at a conference! This was San’s first time. Hindsight being 20/20 should not have hyped this square to her before the trip!

We drove on Andrassy road for some time taking in the way this road goes for miles with trees and beautiful lamps on either side with famous government buildings lining it.

Our guide dropped us off at the Tratoria Toscana as we wanted some Vegetarian Italian food to play it safe. We said our byes and he told us that the Central market building we had visited earlier was just a 10-15 minute walk from the restaurant.

We ate a heavy and nice lunch and walked to the Central market to shop for souvenirs. This place is a maze..so many shops to check out and so many good eats as well.. We were already full from the lunch and had to just pass all of them by…

Our plan was to go have an afternoon Chai at. local Indian place. We walked a good 30 minutes to this place only to find out that they had a 100+ people party coming from India and were not accepting any guests. Wish we had known. . . However, the owner said they have a smaller place which was another 30 minute walk that would possibly serve us tea. So we walked through the city to find Delhi 6. We were both tired after all that walking and following maps through small streets. The chai made up for it.

Then we made the long walk back to our hotel. They let us use the restroom in the lobby area and we just sat there for another 30 minutes to catch our breath and rest before calling an Uber to take us to the train station. We had practically walked to the train station and back earlier!

The trains in Europe are awesome! Very punctual, clean and well behaved passengers! There is a lounge in the Budapest train station if you have a first class ticket. So we went and spent an hour plus there. The staff were very courteous and kept bringing us croissants and juice and hot cocoa! They beat US airports hands down!

A video highlight of our day in Budapest…

and just like that we were off to Vienna..

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Nature trip in Arizona Part 2 : Upper Antelope Canyon

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The previous post on this series is here..

After reaching Page, Arizona and having a good nights rest, we were ready to see the main attraction.

We reached the tour company office and checked in. There were going to be half a dozen full open vehicles that were going to leave at the same time. 

They started promptly. My promise to make this trip a safe one for San's already bad back was broken within the first 10 minutes of this open vehicle ride to the canyon entrance. It was so bumpy that folks with normal backs would get back problems! She just tightened her belt. There wasn't much we could do.

We see a small crack in the mountain side and it is hard to believe that this crack winds around for a good 1/2 a mile through some breathtaking formations! 

The tour guide was wonderful. We told her that we were to be on time finishing as there was another tour we had to be on and she understood. She told us it would be touch and go. Usually people book the Lower and upper canyon tours on two separate days as there is no chance for. a lunch break between.

Given this post is going up after 4th of July when it happened during Memorial day, a lot of things slip my mind. A few things I remember are that the rocks looked orange to yellow to red depending on the reflecting sun from the top. I didn't want to adjust the white balance. So what you see is mostly what it looked like.. including the red glow on our faces inside the canyon!

The walk is leisurely but watch for your head. All of us bumped our head in some point or another during the walk and it was painful. 

First the video highlights..

Here are some people pictures.. 

The entrance to the canyon..

As soon as we entered.. 

The rest of the canyon photos need a large gallery.. there were 2000 photos from the iPhone and SLR that needed some curating..

The photos below were courtesy of our tourguide... 

 

Saw a little cave and thought it would be a good idea to take a photo in a meditative pose.. bad idea. those things next to me .. tumbleweed full of thorns.. sat on some that were burried in the sand and got my fingers bloodied trying to move them away. End up being a real meditative photo where I tried to forget the sharp pain for the photo! Shit we do for a good picture.. sometimes these moments teach us great lessons!

 

another gallery with pictures in portrait format..

There may be a few photos from lower antelope that are mixed in (very few).. My sincere apologies.. if you go visit Antelope canyon, you should visit both the upper and lower antelope canyonsa and budget enough time.

You can skip the lunch, start with upper canyon, rush to tour company place and drive immediately to the lower canyon tour starting point. Give yourself 20 minutes. You can also call the lower canyon tour folks while driving to just wait a minute or two.. That helps! Then you can do the two tours back to back and have a late lunch at 2 PM or later!

Please note that the two tours are operated by two different companies and they don't care about the other schedule. If you want to do this peacefully, budget two different days for these two tours!

Will write a separate post for the lower canyon.. 

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