Riding on the rails - Sept 2014 - Day 0

My trip was planned with a few clear goals in mind.

• Travel to the western-most station on the Indian railway. This is Okha. The definition of "western-most" varies a bit and I want to clarify upfront that I used the definition as in "the western-most termination point on the Indian Railway network'. There is a station called Varvala which is actually at a more western longitude than Okha but it's just a small transit station, not a terminus like Okha.
• Travel on the Kasara Ghat section. This is a small ghat section between Kasara and Igatpuri on the Western Railway line. It is supposed to be very scenic, especially just after the monsoon.
• Travel on a metre gauge line. Some or most of the older folk in India who like traveling by trains may recall that India used to have three gauges of trains (gauge as defined by the width of the rails/tracks), namely, Broad, Metre & Narrow. For the past 20 years or so, Indian railways have been working on 'Project Unigauge' which aims to convert all railway lines across the country to Broad Gauge. Since the Metre Gauge and Narrow Gauge trains are a dying breed, I wanted to keep the memory intact by traveling by one of the Metre Gauge trains. There is a train in Maharashtra between Khandwa and Akola which is a Metre Gauge train. and that's the one I wanted to travel in.
• On the line between Khandwa and Akola, there is a place called Dhulghat Spiral which is a section of the railway track that loops back under itself. It's more of a matter of interest for a train buff like me than anything else, so I wanted to travel on that section.
• Travel on any Rajdhani Express in First Class AC, the premier class of train travel in India.

As it turned out, I didn't accomplish a few of the goals because I had to change my plan at the last minute. However, the change in my plan also resulted in an interesting experience that was unexpected and pleasantly surprising.

I started on my trip on the evening of Sept 19, 2014 which also happens to be my mother's birthday. I went to my mother's house to wish her before heading to the railway station. Sahana met me there and offered to drop me at the railway station on her scooter which I accepted. Without the slightest bit of warning, however, it started raining on our way to the station. We were completely unprepared for it and both of us ended up getting partly wet. By the time I got off near the station, the rain had subsided to a drizzle and since I had my jacket on, I decided to walk the rest of the distance. Sahana took out her raincoat which was packed into her glove compartment and headed back home. I didn't have time to go to the front of the train and get a glimpse (or a camera shot) of the twin locomotives that were scheduled to power my train (Karnataka Exp).I located my coach and berth and settled down for the train to start. Being a fairly important train, it started on time at 7:20pm. I had a lower berth and the other three berths in my section were unoccupied, so that was a nice start!

Germany / Austria - Oct 3, 2016 - Day 1

This is a recounting of the first day of a trip that Sahana and I went on in October 2016. We had planned this for a while as a way to celebrate 25 years of marriage together. We would have loved to have our kids travel with us but they were both busy (one in college and another at work). We did this trip on our return from India.

Our flight out of Bangalore was at 3am and we struggled to stay up as we waited for our flight. Fortunately, the flight was on time and we settled in for the long (9hrs 30min) flight to Frankfurt. Both of us slept for the most part of the flight which was very smooth and uneventful. We landed at Frankfurt about 30 min ahead of time. Our layover at Frankfurt was fairly short (75 min) so the extra 30 min came in very handy. It gave us more time to complete immigration and grab a coffee before proceeding to our next flight to Munich, our first stop.

The flight to Munich was very short, in sharp contrast to our first flight. We landed in Munich around 11am after a 45 min flight. Our baggage arrived quite quickly, so we were ready to head out and do some sightseeing by noon. Our plan was to:

• Store one large suitcase in a long-term luggage storage facility in Munich Central railway station
• Store one large suitcase in a short-term luggage storage facility in Munich Central railway station
• Do some sight-seeing in Munich for about 5 hours till 6pm carrying our backpacks.
• Return to Munich Central to pick up our suitcase from the short-term facility

We (or Sahana, actually) had done our packing so that all our needs for the Austria leg of our trip were in the suitcase that was in the short-term storage. The stuff in the other suitcase in the long-term storage facility were things we needed to take back to the US but stuff that we wouldn't need for the Austria leg. The short-term storage cost us 3 Euros for 24 hours and the long-term storage cost us something like 5 Euros per day. But, the convenience they afforded us while we traveled and did our sight-seeing made it worth the cost.

In Munich, it was very cloudy and chilly (but not uncomfortably so). We spent quite a lot of time getting to know the locations of the storage lockers and getting foreign exchange, a bit to eat, talking to the Munich information bureau about directions , etc. So, by the time we  actually set out for sight-seeting, it was close to 1:30pm. We started by walking to Marienplatz from the station. We passed Karlsplatz (or Stachus, as they prefer to call it) on the way with the fountain in the middle and a great view of the structures in the area, like the Justizpalast and the Karistor. On the other side of the Karistor is the promenade or shopping avenue that leads to Marienplatz. We walked leisurely through this street till we reached the Marienplatz, with the stunning New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) on  one side. We walked through the gateway into a courtyard kind of thing where we admired the building and the architecture from the inside. There was one section with slanted / sloped balconies that intrigued us especially.

Coming back out into the Marienplatz, we took in the amazing detail and intricate architecture of the Rathaus including the Glockenspiel, the gargoyles and depictions of the various notable figures from Bavarian history. Next, we continued on to see the Residenz (from outside) and the Odeonplatz with the English Gardens on one side and Feldherrnhalle on the other. We entered the English Gardens and walked around for a bit, taking pictures.

The ironic thing was that it was the last day of Oktoberfest...in Munich and we were both not interested in trying the beer. Almost everybody around us probably had large quantities of beer sloshing around inside them but no, not us. After exiting the English Gardens, we continued to walk around the streets of the old Munich town area including the Old Town Hall, various cathedrals, the Viktualenmarkt area and the Bavarian National Theater. We stopped at a Starbucks in the Viktualenmarkt area for a coffee and a much needed recharge of our phone batteries. Next, we made our way back to the Marienplatz and as luck would have it, it was exactly 5pm, so the famous Glockenspiel show was just starting. We watched in fascination as we listened to the music and the glockenspiel mechanism did its thing. There was a huge crowd that had gathered for the show and it was well worth the price ($0) we paid for it!

We walked back to the Munich Central railway station but we also realized that our train was actually scheduled for 7:19pm, not 6:45pm like we had originally thought, so it gave us some more time to do a bit more sightseeing. We decided to check out another part of the Munich (The art district), but due to an error in the way we read the map, we ended up walking in the wrong direction for about 25 min in wet/rainy conditions before we realized our mistake and ruefully made our way back to the station. We were hungry with all the walking we had done (20000+ steps), so we had a quick bite to eat in a restaurant and then proceeded to wait for our train. Before that, we picked up one one of our suitcases from the short-term storage facility.


Somehow, without us realizing it, our train had arrived on platform 16 and it was already 7:16 by the time we started walking towards our coach. I had reserved first-class seats since it was only a little bit more expensive than the normal (2nd class) fare. We realized that it was already 7:18pm and that our coach was going to be one of the last (or first, depending on how you looked at it), so we decided to hop on to a 2nd class coach and then make our way to the 1st class coach inside, else we risked missing our train, knowing the Germans' obsession with punctuality. As it turned out, the train started about 1-2 min late, but it was still good that we decided to enter the 2nd class coach because the train started before we were seated in our coach. We made our way to our seats and settled in just as the train was leaving the station.

It was a quick 1hr 41min trip to Salzburg, our next stop. The journey was very smooth, our coach was mostly empty (and thus very quiet). It was difficult to judge how fast the train was going since it was dark outside by then, but I suspect it reaches speeds of about 200km/h. We slept for the most part since we were exhausted from the day's activities. At Salzburg main station (Hauptbahnhof), we alighted and made our way down to the main lobby. Our hotel (Hotel Scherer) was very near but the fact that it was late in the evening (around 9pm) and raining made us decide to take a cab to our hotel. It cost us about 8 euros which we thought was a tad excessive but we were just relieved to have a bed to lie down on. Before that, however, our check-in was delayed by about 20 min because a large group of schoolgirls (teenagers) had just arrived in a bus from Italy (presumably). There were about 40-45 girls jostling around with luggage and talking excitedly among themselves while their chaperones tried to sort out the check-in and ensure that all of them were properly assigned to rooms. We realized later that the elevator was very small, so only two girls could fit with their luggage at a time, so it took a long time for the lobby to clear enough for us to be able to go up to the counter to check in. We picked up our keys and went up to our room only to find that they'd given us a room with two separate twin beds, so we went down to ask for one with a single double bed. It cost us 10 more euros per night but the room was bigger and more nicely outfitted, so it was worth it. Wifi was also not free, so we had to shell out another 10 euros for 24 hours of usage (metered usage, not elapsed time).

We crashed out early due to the exhaustion of travel, the walking around and the jet lag.

Italy 2014 - Venice - Day 7

Today morning, we were scheduled to go to Venice by train. Our tickets showed that the departure time was 9:30am, so we woke up early, showered and had breakfast. We reached the station around 9:10am. The train had already arrived (from Rome) and was waiting, so we hurried to our coach and settled into our seats. No exciting adventures with porters this time (like we did in Rome)! On this train, we had been assigned pairs of seats that faced each other with a table between us, so it was really nice because the four of us could face each other and converse easily. The train lurched out of the platform on time and quickly gathered speed towards Venice. The first stop was Bologna which was about 100km which it covers in about 40 min. This is the longest stretch because stops are more frequent after that which don’t allow him to get up to top speed. On the stretch from Florence to Bologna, the train touched a speed of 248 km/h for a few minutes, which was exhilarating. Unfortunately, I noticed the speed being displayed on the TV screen several minutes later and by the time, I could take out my camera and take a picture of the TV screen, the speed was not being displayed any more and a few minutes later, he slowed down to about 200 km/h. After that, he never got to that speed again for the rest of the journey.

After stops at Ferrara, Padova and Venezia Mestre, we finally arrived at the main station, Venezia Santa Lucia. From Venezia Mestre (which is on the mainland) to Venezia S L (which is on the island of Venice), the train actually goes over a long bridge (about 3.5 km), giving us a scenic view of the lagoon, the boats and the houses.

We had purchased 36-hour passes from Venezia Unica that gave us unlimited access to the water taxi, the rest room facilities and a fixed number of museums / cathedrals. As soon as we got off the train, I asked for the way to the place where I could pick up the passes and was told that it was just outside the station. There was a small line and I was able to get my passes and all the information necessary to reach our hotel (or so I thought!) quite quickly. We were supposed to get off at the Rialto “station” and find our way to the hotel from there. Rialto was the first stop and was just about a 10 minute ride from the railway station, so we were quite happy about that. We had heard and read a lot about Venice, but it’s a different experience to actually see it up close. It was a short but fascinating and captivating ride to the Rialto stop and we took a lot of photos. As soon as we got off the boat at Rialto, I headed to a nearby store to pick up a map. But, the map wasn’t very clear about where our hotel was exactly. I pulled out the hotel booking confirmation and looked at the address. I thought of calling the hotel for clearer directions but there wasn’t a single pay phone that accepted coins. All the phones needed some kind of pre-paid card or something. Anyway, we took a closer look at the map and saw a square that was very close to where our hotel was supposed to be. We charted out a rough path to the square and headed out lugging our suitcases behind us. We were surprised by how narrow the lanes / streets were and it became even more difficult with the crowds that were constantly streaming past us in both directions. After about 5-10 minutes of walking, we realized that we were lost. Sneha had read somewhere that one of the “must do” activities in Venice was to “get lost”. Well, we’d achieved that objective very quickly!

Anyway, we took another look at the map and just couldn’t figure out where we were or how we were supposed to reach our hotel. The streets in Venice are not always as clearly labeled as in Rome and Florence and we could not easily correlate the road signs that we were seeing with the streets that were shown in the map. We kept walking from one narrow lane to another hoping to find one lane that was actually marked on our map, so we would know how to reach the hotel. Finally, after about 15 more minutes of walking around and looking at the map, we reached our hotel in Calle Goldoni (Hotel Bonvechiatti). From the outside, it seemed like a decent hotel, so we quickly went up to the reception and checked in. No problems there but we were disappointed that there was no free WiFi. It was either 5 Euros for 3 hours or 10 Euros for 10 hours, so we signed up for the 3 hour option and decided to be careful to sign off as soon as we were done using the Internet. We were free for the rest of the day to rest or do some sightseeing. We decided to head out to lunch and do some sightseeing. We asked for directions to St. Mark’s square. That’s when it hit us that, in Venice, you don’t get directions. People will only point out where a certain place is on a map. It’s up to you to figure out directions because the lanes are so small and the network of lanes is so complex that it is almost impossible for anyone to trace out an efficient route and also nearly impossible for a person to actually follow that route.

Still, our hotel was very near to St. Mark’s square and with a little help from the person at the front desk, we were able to find our way there quite easily. The whole area was extremely crowded. We knew that it was a very famous / popular square but the sight that met us actually reminded us more of India than anything else. We headed across the square to find a restaurant for lunch and found a place called ‘Bar Americano’. We bought ourselves some pizza slices and went back to find a place to sit around the square and eat. One gelato later, we were feeling good enough to visit Doge’s Palace or Palazze Ducale. Our Venezia Unica passes allowed us free entry into Doge’s Palace, so that was good. We walked in and saw a courtyard in front of us along with a map explaining some of the things that we could see in front of us. Next, we decided to go up the ‘Golden Staircase’ to the upper floors and check out the museum. What followed was one of the best museum experiences of my life. The rooms in the museum are lavishly decorated and there’s always a sheet with a detailed description of the room (the purpose of the room, for example) at the entrance. Some of the rooms are incredibly huge with paintings more than 50’ long like the ‘Il Paradiso’ which is the longest canvas painting in the world. Then, we have the prison area which is detached from Doge’s palace but connected by the Bridge of Sighs. We walked on the Bridge of Sighs to view the prisons. It took us almost 2 hours to finish this fascinating tour but it was well worth it.

We came back to St. Mark’s Square and were surprised to see parts of the center under an inch of water. I didn’t probe too much into it but I suspect that it is caused by high tide. Next, we decided to stand in a long line to enter the St. Mark’s Basilica. The line moves fast and we did not have to wait too long to get in. As usual, the size and beauty of the inside of the basilica was very impressive. Sahana and Sneha were dressed improperly by the church’s standards, so they were given shawls to wear around their shoulders (1 euro each!). After finishing a quick tour of the basilica, we decided to stand in line to go up the St. Mark’s Campanile, the bell tower that’s just in front of St. Mark’s Basilica. Here again, the line was not too long but it moved in spurts as batches of people entered elevators to go up.

This sight was not covered by our Venezia Unica pass, so we had to pay 8 euros per person to go up. But, we felt it was worth it because the views of Venice from the top were very nice, especially in the early evening.

We still had enough energy and time to do a more sightseeing so we decided to visit the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. We had to take a water taxi to reach this place followed by a short walk. Again, the basilica did not disappoint us with its magnificent interiors. On our return trip, we decided to get off at Rialto and see the Ponte Rialto up close.

This area was also extremely crowded because of the popularity of the place as well as the presence of a market just next to it. We spent some time at the Rialto for photos and window-shopping and then made our way back to the hotel. We rested for a while and decided to find some place near St. Mark’s Square for dinner. I noticed a place where an opera was about to start and I was sorely tempted to buy tickets and attend but the kids would be bored, so I decided to put it off to my next visit (if it ever happened!). We started exploring some of the narrower alleys around the area and found a small restaurant which offered more vegetarian fare than normal so we walked in and took our places at the table. Funnily enough, it seems that it was the same table where Peggy Guggenheim had sat at in 1949, planning her paintings and sculptures.

We really didn’t know who Peggy Guggenheim was at that time but we had something to crow about! After finishing dinner, we walked back to the hotel to rest and get ready for our final full day in Italy.

Italy 2014 - Florence - Day 6

Today was a day when we decided to relax a bit from the hectic schedule of the previous 5 days. We did have tickets to the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence where the famous statue of David by Michelangelo is displayed. We woke up late and finished breakfast. When we went outside, we found that the cloudy, drizzly weather was still persisting. We walked past a street market (Mercato Centrale) to our destination but when we got there, we found it to be closed. Usually, most museums are closed in Italy on Mondays, but I had specifically checked online when I booked the tickets and the ticket printout clearly showed the date and time to be correct. The lady at the museum was impatient and rude and kept insisting that the museum was closed. We had no option but to return to the hotel. I decided to complain, so I called the number on the tickets. There was a slight wait and then a lady answered the phone and asked me details of the ticket. That’s when I realized that the tickets I had purchased were actually for a museum of a very similar name in Venice (Gallerie dell'Accademia). I told the lady I would call back and hung up. That was 70 Euros gone down the drain, unfortunately. Anyway, that meant we had the whole morning to ourselves. Sahana and Sneha dozed off on their bed while Ashwin caught up on his email and I started updating my blog and transferring / tagging photos. I also did some research to find the best restaurants in Florence that were not too expensive and found a place called All'Antico Vinaio. From the reviews in TripAdvisor, I got the impression that they also had vegetarian sandwiches on their menu. So, we decided to go there for lunch. It was in a small alley near the Palazzo Vecchio and because of its popularity, there were two “branches” of the store across the road from each other. Both had long lines of eager patrons and we joined one of them. Initially, we were confused by the two places with identical names but when we saw an employee carry meat and provisions from one store to the other, we realized that they must be part of the same operation and continued to wait in the line we were in. There were a lot of pigeons flying about looking for handouts from the customers and the customers were obliging by throwing out tidbits. The pigeons were quite bold and would frequently fly very close to us.

After about 15 min of waiting, our turn finally came. We told the guy behind the counter that we were vegetarians and we wanted 4 sandwiches with no meat. He immediately understood, nodded his head vigorously and started preparing our order. He spread some kind of sauce that looked suspiciously meat-y and slopped on a mix of roasted / sauteed veggies and some cheese and other stuff. Initially, Sahana wanted her’s to be made with a wrap not bread but we weren’t able to make the guy understand what we meant by “wrap”. He thought “wrap” meant that we wanted to have the order packed for takeaway, so he packed all our sandwiches, put them in a plastic bag and gave it to us. Anyway, we paid for our order and decided to find a quiet place to sit and eat them. The road we were on was very narrow, so we stood on the sidewalk of the road that went along the river and unpacked our sandwiches. The bread was hard (which we didn’t mind) but somehow, the sandwiches weren’t really as tasty as we were hoping they would be. Ashwin could finish about 3/4ths of his, I could barely finish half of mine, Sneha didn’t even bother to try hers and Sahana also hardly ate a bit of her sandwich. We packed up whatever was remaining and headed back to the hotel. The hectic schedule of the previous few days had started catching up with me and I was feeling really tired by the time we reached the hotel. I just flopped down on the bed, closed my eyes and went to sleep for about 2 hours. In the evening, we decided to try out a vegetarian restaurant and also do some shopping for souvenirs, etc. I found a couple of vegetarian restaurants which seemed fairly walkable, so we set out. The first stop was the main marketplace in Florence (Mercato Centrale). The shops were almost closing down and we were disappointed that we started a bit too late from the hotel. Still, I asked one guy who was putting away things if he could show some purses to Sneha / Sahana. He agreed and the girls then took over the process of examining, comparing, bargaining and finally buying one purse. With that task accomplished, we set out in search of the vegetarian restaurant (Il Vegetariano). It wasn’t as easy to find as we had thought. The streets became a bit deserted and shady. We started thinking that this was probably a bad idea but we kept going anyway. Finally, after a much longer walk than we had planned, we came to the street where Il Vegetariano was supposed to be and we found it to be shut down (for good, we think).

Disappointed, we made our way back to try our luck at the other vegetarian place I’d seen in Google Maps. But, this turned out to be a regular restaurant with a few vegetarian options on the menu which didn’t look too appealing. The smell from the restaurant next door was also overpowering and unappetizing, so we decided to find one of our regular pizzeria / ristorantes for dinner. We headed back towards the Florence cathedral because we knew that there were several restaurants there. We found a restaurant we’d not been to before and had another heavy dinner (pizza for Ashwin and me; pasta for Sneha). Sahana was still feeling full from the lunch in the afternoon, so she just took a little bit from each of our plates.

End of day 6. A relatively light day from a sight-seeing perspective, but we still walked quite a lot.

Italy 2014 - Florence - Day 5

Today, we had an all-day tour of the Tuscan countryside plus a visit to Pisa. The meeting point for the bus was just in front of the Florence railway station, so it was just a few minutes walk from our hotel. Since this hotel (Grand Hotel Baglioni) started serving breakfast half an hour earlier than our hotel in Rome, we felt that we could grab a quick bite before hopping on the bus. But, like all good plans, breakfast took longer and by the time we searched for phones, cameras, batteries, etc., it was quite late. We had to jog to reach the bus and were the last ones to register. A couple of minutes later and we would have missed the entire day trip. It was a chilly and cloudy day which took us a bit by surprise because the previous day was hot and sunny.

The bus was comfortably air-conditioned with huge, clean windows that allowed us to take photos easily. Our first stop was going to be Siena which was about an hour or so from Florence. Siena is also at a slight elevation and when we got off the bus near the Fortezza Medicea (the Fortress of the Medici family), there was a slight drizzle and a definite nippiness in the air, especially when we made our way to our first sightseeing spot through a park. Sahana and Sneha were not dressed for the cold temperatures but it was too late to do anything about it. We continued following our guide, hoping that the weather would improve as the day wore on. Our first sightseeing spot was the Palazzo Pubblico which is a square in front of the town hall.

The square is different in the sense that the centre of the square is at a lower level and there is a gentle slope from all the sides down to where the town hall is located. As the guide was talking about the square and the town hall, I noticed a street vendor selling umbrellas and picked up one so that the camera doesn’t get wet. Yes, I cared (at that time) more for the well-being of the camera than my family!

Anyway, the guide led us from Palazzo Pubblico through narrow alleys to our next stop, the Siena Cathedral aka the Duomo.

On the way, she talked about the contrade, which are basically districts or wards in the city of Siena. There are 17 of them and they compete every year in a famous horse race called the Palio. There is a fierce (but friendly) rivalry among the contrade. We had various questions like ‘Can people from different contrade marry each other?” (YES) and “What contrada would a kid belong to?” (Mother’s if a girl, Father’s if a boy), etc.

Another big disappointment (after the one with the Trevi fountain) awaited us because the Siena Duomo was closed for Sunday mass. We had chosen to do this trip on a Sunday and hadn’t thought about this. 

Instead, they took us to a really old hospital (Santa Maria della Scala) that was just across the piazza from the Duomo. We had heard a lot about the Duomo and had looked forward to going inside. After the tour, we had some time to explore the town by ourselves but it was still too cold and drizzly. We found another street vendor next to the Duomo who was selling apparel. We bought a fleece pullover for Sahana to keep her warm. We had a choice between one that said ‘Universita Siena’ and another really, really cheesy one that said ‘I 💜 Italia’ and thanks to the cold that had apparently frozen our brains, we bought the cheesy one. Sahana felt warmer (and a bit awkward, I presume) after she wore the pullover and we decided to head back to our meeting point at the Palazzo Pubblico. We only had 10 minutes to go for the scheduled meeting time, but we still decided to have a cup of coffee to warm us up. There was a ristorante at the square where we sat down and placed our order. For some strange reason, Sahana decided to order a Moroccan coffee while the rest of us ordered regular cappuccino. Her coffee arrived in a tiny cup, very similar to an espresso. It was dark with no sugar but Sahana managed to finish it.

We got back on the bus and headed to our next stop, viz. lunch at a farm-cum-winery. The lunch was part of the package and we had given the necessary instructions to ensure that we were all served dishes with no meat. The name of the farm-winery is Fattoria Poggio Alloro. It was still only about 11:30am, so they took us on a short tour of the farm. The farm is almost completely self-sufficient and completely organic. First, we went to the winery where we were shown the large silos where the grapes are crushed and fermented. They also showed us the bottling appliance which did everything after the wine was ready, including slapping on the labels! Next, they showed us the various barrels in which they stored some of the wine. We went back outside and heard a brief description of the various other crops that they grew apart from grapes (olives, saffron, primarily). Finally, we visited the place where the cows were housed. For the purpose of their beef needs, they have reared several unnaturally large white cows / bulls. For their milk needs, they have a couple of regular cows.

By this time, lunch was ready, so we were taken to the dining hall where we sat down at our table along with the other bus mates. We already had bruschetta bread on our plates.The person who had led us through the farm gave us a brief introduction to the wines we would be tasting. She also gave us a quick introduction to the way that we should drink the wine (sniff, swirl, drink). We started with a white wine that was made with locally grown grapes. Both Sahana and Sneha had never tried any alcohol in their lives, so it was something new to them. They thought the taste was bitter but Ashwin and I loved the white wine. We had the bruschetta along with the virgin olive oil (also produced on the farm).

The next course was penne pasta in a tomato sauce which was also enjoyable. We had a red Chianti wine to accompany the pasta which was not as flavorful or tasty as the white wine. The third course was salad for the three of us and an omelette for Ashwin. We had another red wine to accompany this dish which was better than the earlier red wine. The final “course” was a vin santo with a biscotti to dunk it in. Vin Santo is a sweet dessert wine and it was a nice way to finish off a satisfying lunch.

It was a short 10 minute drive to our next stop, the sleepy little town of San Gimignano. We were given a map plus an hour and 15 minutes to go around the town and report back at a common meeting point. We set off along the main road and headed to the main square where there is apparently one of the world’s finest gelato places. The line was long but it moved fast and we got our turn pretty quickly. True to its reputation, the gelato they doled out was really rich and tasty, definitely one of the best we tasted in our entire trip.

After that, we walked to an adjoining square where a medieval festival was just getting started. We stood with our ice creams and watched the show for a while before deciding to do a bit of sightseeing around the town. 

We climbed up a slope to a fort (La Rocca, I think) and saw a nice view of the Tuscan countryside from there. After that, we walked slowly back to the meeting point. The bus wasn’t there yet, so we just sat around for a while resting. Next stop, Pisa.

We had been told that the bus would take the scenic route to Pisa instead of the highway. It would take a bit longer but the tour guide told us it would be worth it. But, most of us were feeling extremely drowsy from waking up early and the heavy lunch. The four of us slept most of the way to Pisa although I woke up about 15-20 minutes before to see the countryside. We arrived in Pisa around 5:45pm and were taken from the bus stop to the Leaning Tower complex by a bus-train. We were given about 1 hour to do sightseeing in the area of the Leaning Tower. A few of our fellow travelers had pre-booked tickets to climb to the top of the Leaning Tower. We hadn’t but I decided I would try my luck for the 6:30pm slot. As soon as the tour guide finished giving us the instructions, I sprinted to the ticket booth and stood in line which was strangely short. I found out that there were 11 tickets still remaining for the 6:30pm slot, so I went ahead and bought them although they were quite expensive (16/17 Euros, I think). We still had about 10-15 minutes to while away so we decided to take pictures of the tower and the cathedral / baptistery that was next to it. We tried some typical poses and some not-so-typical poses at the tower but they didn’t really come out very well.

We got in line around 6:20pm and were let in at 6:30pm. We were given a quick briefing inside the tower and then allowed to climb up the roughly 250 steps to the top. I was very surprised to see how eroded / indented the marble steps were. I didn’t know marble was so soft that it would sink in through constant use. Anyway, the view at the top was pretty nice but it felt a bit weird to walk to the “lower” side, viz. the side towards which the tower is leaning. There was one more level to climb to where the bells were, so we climbed up there and got one more view of the town of Pisa.

By then, we were running out of time, so we went back down the steps to the bottom. Next, we got a guided tour of the town of Pisa while we sat in the bus-train.

We headed back to Florence around 7:20pm and it was a smooth ride back to Florence and we arrived at around 8:40pm. A long and tiring but satisfying day had come to an end. We were looking forward to the next day which was going to be relatively less hectic.

Apart from being fleeced by a gelato place (called Very Good) where they gave the kids an 8 Euro cone although we had specifically asked for the 2.50 one, the rest of the evening was uneventful.

Italy 2014 - Florence - Day 4

Today, we were checking out of Rome and heading to Florence. Our train ride to Florence was at 9:50am from Termini and would take approximately 90 minutes for the roughly 220 km distance to Florence. Since it was our first train ride in Italy, we decided to play it safe and be in the station by 9:15am. The fact that the station was just a few minutes walk away from the hotel definitely made it easier for us. At the station, we could see kids and young women offering to help tourists with directions to their trains. We were very wary / cautious about pickpockets and thieves, so we never locked eyes with any of them. However, as we were making our way to our coach, a lady approached me and asked me which coach we were looking for. Without thinking, I responded with our coach number and she took it as an agreement to use her service to help us. She accompanied us to the train and helped lift one of our suitcases into the train. Inside the coach, she was obviously asking for some kind of payment and I gave her one Euro, which I felt was more than adequate for her efforts. She seemed very upset and said that she was expecting 5 Euros. I refused but she was very persistent, repeating ‘5 Euro’ over and over. I was very sure I wasn’t going to pay her even one more penny, so I just turned away, being careful to keep my hands close to my pockets, just in case! After she left in a huff, Sahana kept looking back towards where our suitcases were stowed to see if she would come back and exact revenge on the nasty tourists by taking away their baggage!

The train started on time and we settled in our seats for the short journey to Florence. The train stops only once just outside Rome (Rome Tiburtina) before flying non-stop to Florence. The countryside was really nice with large expanses of green fields and farms on hillsides, valleys and plains. There were lots of mountains that we went through in the form of long tunnels. Once he was about 5 km outside Rome Tiburtina, the train accelerated rapidly to reach its top speed of about 220 km/h and stayed at that speed all the way till about 10 km outside Florence. At that speed, tunnels would routinely be around 3-5 minutes long which means that they were all about 12-15 km in length. Strangely, just outside Florence, the train stopped for almost 10 min waiting for some kind of clearance (signal, platform). We finally arrived at Florence Santa Maria Novella station about 10 minutes late. We knew that our hotel (Grand Hotel Baglioni) was very near to the station but we didn’t think that we could actually see it as soon as we exited! There was a large piazza / square / circle right in front of the station and our hotel was just across on the other side of it. We checked in to our rooms and made plans for the rest of the day. The hotel is actually a very old building that has probably been restored at some point of time. But, the interior decor has been retained, giving it a very nice old-world charm. The rooms were far, far bigger than our rooms in Rome, in fact, even bigger than the average hotel room in the US. Some minor nitpicks were that the walls appeared to be paper-thin and the room temperature could not be set above 21 deg C. The bathrooms were also exquisite with a bathtub-cum-shower In the bathtub, we had a handheld shower, the regular faucet and an overhead shower with various modes of operation. All in all, a nice 3 days to look forward to although we didn’t plan to spend much of it in our rooms.

After resting for a few minutes in our rooms, we decided to go sightseeing to the places we could walk to. We started off with the Duomo but first, lunch! There was a pizzeria / ristorante just outside the Duomo so we decided to finish our lunch there. While we were waiting, we noticed that there was a long line to get into the “Dome”. One of the tourists waiting in line said that he had been waiting for about 15 min and the line had moved a bit. We estimated it would take more than an hour to get in and another hour (at least) to climb up the ~450 steps to the top, so we decided to finish the other sights we’d planned to see before coming back to the Duomo.

Next, we headed to the Piazza Della Signoria where the Palazzo Vecchio is located. There are also some nice statues (David) / fountains (Neptune). We walked into the Palazzo Vecchio and did a very quick tour of the inside which is a museum of sorts.

We had tickets to the Uffizi Gallery at 3:30pm and we had a bit of time to go for that, so we walked to the Ponte Vecchio which is a famous bridge there. It’s a bit strange because there are houses built on the bridge and the houses are mostly shops that sell all kinds of gold(?) jewellery. There are many other bridges across the Arno river but the Ponte Vecchio is the most well-known of them. We spent a few minutes there and then headed to the Uffizi museum. We rested there for a while and then picked up our tickets at the assigned time. The Uffizi is a bit like the Louvre or the one in London in the sense that there are several rooms connecting to each other in a virtually endless matrix and it’s difficult to plan out an efficient itinerary that covers all of them. There are several paintings and sculptures from different periods in history. We had only allotted about 90 minutes for this, so we quickly went through as many rooms as possible and finished around 4:45pm. Next, we decided to walk to Piazza Michelangelo. The problem with maps is that they give you a 2D view of the directions, so we really were not prepared for what we saw when we started walking towards Piazza Michelangelo. The square was located about a 1000ft above the rest of Florence. My feet were aching by then and I really did not want to climb all the way up there. But, thanks to Sahana and her cajoling/prodding/persistence, I decided to at least try doing the climb slowly. At one point during the climb up, a young guy (around 20) accosted us and asked us if would be willing to sign a sheet of paper to show our support for their anti-drug petition. He said that he used to do drugs at one time and was now clean for some x years. All the while, he was trying to be charming / funny (saying Namaste, guessing where in India we were from, etc.). We knew he was also going to expect a donation although he said that it was completely optional. Anyway, thanks to the kids saying that it would indecent to walk away without any donation, we shelled out 2 Euros for the anti-drug cause. I’m not sure if the guy promptly went away and got his daily fix! We continued our climb after that brief respite and reached the top. That’s when I forgot my aching feet and was glad that I had steeled myself and continued with the climb.The view from the Piazza Michelangelo was absolutely stunning.

It was the early evening hour (around 6pm) and it was a cool, cloudy day. The entire city of Florence lay below us with the Arno and its bridges and the Duomo standing out in the skyline. There was a wide staircase leading down from the square and there was a street musician playing a guitar and singing famous songs. There was a crowd sitting on the steps, listening to him and applauding at the end of each song. The singer had a thick Italian accent which made his rendering of the songs a bit funny but it was still fun to listen and view the surrounding landscape.

After resting for about half an hour, we decided to head back down. On the way, we stopped at a gelateria for some gelato (Name?). After that, we walked back across the river towards our hotel. It was too late to go to the Duomo, so we went back to the hotel to rest.

At the hotel, we renewed our quest for a Mexican restaurant (!!) and found one which was a little more than a kilometre away. While we were walking there, we realised that the map may tell us how to get to a certain place but cannot tell us how seedy the areas are that the roads go through. We found ourselves in some pretty shady neighbourhoods but we persisted. Finally, we found the restaurant that we were seeking and settled down to have a pre-Father’s Day dinner. Ashwin and I had Coronas to go with our burritos. There was a live World Cup soccer game on TV but people were not as noisy / rowdy as they would probably have been if it was a match involving Italy. The menu had a decent number of vegetarian options but the burritos that we chose were stuffed with too much cheese and weren’t much like the ones we’re used to (Tex-Mex ones) in the US. Anyway, it was still a decent meal and we ended the day, as usual, with full stomachs!

Italy 2014 - Rome - Day 3

Today, we had a guided tour of the Vatican scheduled in the afternoon and we had the morning to ourselves. After some debate, we decided to visit the Roman aqueducts in the southern outskirts of Rome and one or two other smaller places before joining our group in the Vatican.

Since there was no rush to join a group tour or anything, we dawdled a bit and set off to the aqueducts around 9am on the Metro line A. We got off at Giulio Agricola and walked the 1 mile to the park in which the aqueducts were located. The park is massive and hardly sees any tourist traffic. The park itself was quite crowded but everybody there was either a resident of a nearby building or a jogger or  a pet owner. We were the only weirdos lugging a camera, so we felt a bit out of place there. We hurriedly took a few pictures and headed out of there.

From Giulio Agricola, we headed back towards the centre of the city but got off at San Giovanni which was the nearest station to our next stop, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran. This is considered the most important church for Catholic Christians and is the church for the Bishop of Rome (aka the Pope). So, we decided to mosey along there and take a few pictures of the outside and inside.

But, we changed plans and decided to skip the visit to the inside of the church. Instead, we took a few pictures from the outside and walked back towards the station, taking some pictures of a part of the wall that surrounds Rome. Next, we stopped at a gelato place for the kids to grab...what else, a gelato. The temperatures were again in the mid to high 30s (celsius), so we were looking for the tiniest bits of shade we could find to rest for a while. We decided that we had some time before the tour of the Vatican started, so we would get off at the station closest to Castel Sant'Angelo and then walk from there to the Vatican. So, we got off at Lepanto and started walking towards C S'A. On the way, we stopped for lunch at a sandwich shop that I don't recall the name of. By the time we finished, we realized we would be cutting it too fine if we went to C S'A, so we decided to head to the meeting point for the start of the Vatican tour. That's when we realized that the meeting point was not near the Vatican at all. Ironically, the meeting point was right next to our hotel near Termini. We had only about 25 min to go but we decided to take a chance by going all the way back. We rushed back to the Lepanto metro station and caught a train back to Termini. From Termini, we quickly hurried back towards our hotel and looked for the Green Line Tours office. By the time we found it and boarded the bus, it was almost full and ready to leave. The guide (Max) talked about the sights on the way and we reached the Vatican area around 2:50pm. The agenda had us visit the Vatican museum first followed by the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Cathedral.

We entered the Vatican Museum first and were taken quickly through the most important exhibits. I confess that we are completely ignorant about the finer aspects of art / sculptures / etc but we were still impressed by many of the things we saw in the museum. Next up, we went into the Sistine Chapel. Of course, this is the place where Michelangelo painted the ceiling with images of the Creation of Adam and the Last Judgement. The size and clarity of the paintings were visually stunning. The Sistine Chapel was, as expected, extremely crowded and hence noisy. There was a person at one end who was trying to stress the need for silence but nobody was listening because they were so busy talking! After admiring the ceiling and walls for about 5-10 minutes, we trooped out and headed to the Cathedral. This is another magnificent structure with exquisite sculptures and paintings all over (apart from the altar and other usual Christian ceremonial parts). Honestly, the size and scale at which Christian monuments are built are only rivaled by the ones found in Islam, I think. I don't think I've ever seen monuments of this size dedicated to the Hindu religion. Anyway, we spent quite a long time in the Cathedral and headed out to see the Swiss guards who guard the entrance to the Papal residence. After that, Max told us that we could browse around the gift/souvenir store while we awaited the bus to take us back to the hotel.

After we got on to the bus, we suddenly thought that we felt good enough to do some more sightseeing in the area, especially the Castel Sant'Angelo that we missed earlier in the day. So, we got off as soon as the bus crossed the Tiber over to the other side. Ashwin also google'd a Mexican restaurant nearby so we sat down at a Gelato shop to use their Wifi and find directions to it. The name of the place is Nero Caffe and it's near the corner of Via Paola and Lungotevere degli Altoviti. On a side note, I figured out that the prefix "lungo" means "along". So, in Rome, a road that runs along the river Tiber is called "Lungotevere...." whereas a road that runs along the river Arno in Florence (or Pisa) is called "Lungarno....". Anyway, back to Nero Caffe. I would highly recommend this place. The available flavors as well as the taste is a shining example of Italian gelato.

Next, armed with directions to the Mexican restaurant, we set out to find it. But, before we got very far, we realized that not having GPS or internet connectivity would make it very difficult to find our way there. We gave up on the idea and decided to head back to the hotel. En route, we found a Subway where we packed some sandwiches, bought some souvenirs and caught a bus (route #46) back to the hotel. Near our hotel and across from Termini, there is a small ristorante where we also had some soup and pasta.

That was the end of day #3 in Rome and nearly the end of our stay there.

Italy 2014 - Rome - Day 2

Another big / long day for us on day #2 in Rome. We had signed up for a guided tour to Pompeii and Mt.Vesuvius. Since Pompeii is near Naples (Napoli), we had a 2-1/2 hour drive in front of us. We had been asked to meet in Piazza del Popolo in front of the obelisk at 7:15am. We had requested the hotel to pack a breakfast for us which we picked up on our way out. Of course, later we found that the breakfast wasn’t very appetising. It was mostly hard crackers / rusk, some boiled eggs (which only I was willing to eat), a croissant and an apple.

We caught the Metro at Termini to a station called Flaminio. From Flaminio, the piazza del Popolo is just a short walk away, so we were able to get there on time. The square itself is very beautiful with the obelisk in front of a large pair of cathedrals (Santa Maria?).

We were about 50 tourists on a large bus divided into two groups with one tour guide each. They kept us entertained about the local sights as well as the program for the day. Half way to Naples, we stopped at Cassino for breakfast. Problem was that I had forgotten to convert our money to Euros, so we were running short of cash. The restaurant would not accept credit cards, so I had to use some of the cash I had for breakfast (mostly coffee and doughnuts).

We reached Pompeii at around 10:40am and met our local guide (Sasha or Sascha or Sacha). He led us through the streets of Pompeii in a smooth and well-rehearsed way. He had only a couple of hours to do this, so we only managed to see the highlights of Pompeii but whatever we saw was very impressive. We did a lot of walking in a very short amount of time as he led us through a vast mesh of interesecting roads with houses, baths, brothels and shops on either side. At the end, we also got a chance to look at several protected exhibits like the dog, the pregnant woman and hundreds of amphoras and other artifacts from that era.

The eerie stare of Mt.Vesuvius never leaves us, though, so you're always aware of the danger that awaits if / when the volcano decides to rumble again.

We broke for lunch at around 1:10pm. Lunch was paid for by the tour guide company and they took us to a pretty decent restaurant just outside Pompeii. We shared our table with a lady from Denmark who was visiting Italy with her teenage son. She worked as a graphic designer in Copenhagen. She said she was looking forward to an opportunity to visit India whereas we said that we were very keen to visit Denmark. We exchanged a few tips / pointers on visiting each other's countries during lunch.

After the fairly heavy lunch, it was time for us to head up to Mt.Vesuvius. The bus would drop us off about half way up and we had to hoof it up the rest of the way. It was going to be quite arduous, the guide warned us. 25 deg slope, about 1 mile to the top of the crater. She didn't tell us that the road was not tarred / asphalted. It was completely loose gravel that prevented us from getting a real grip both ways (climbing up / down). We have always thought that we were reasonably fit for our age, but that climb up Mt.V really showed us up for how poorly conditioned we were. I was gasping for breath by the time I was about 200m up and had to take several long breaks to be able to reach the top while older people were just passing me by. Ashwin was the fastest up to the top and I caught up with him after about 10 min. Sahana and Sneha were coming more slowly so Ashwin and I decided to continue walking around the top of the crater as far as the path would take us. In the distance, we could hear rumbling and theorized that it was normal for a dormant volcano to experience frequent rumblings like this because of the movement of magma under the surface. We didn't realize at that time that we were very wrong!

The view from the top of Mt.Vesuvius was spectacular. Although it was a bit hazy, we could see Capri and Sicily in the distance. Naples was, of course, clearly visible with it's coastline and the buildings in downtown. The crater itself was not as deep as the Halemaumau crater in Hawaii but it was still a good 1000-1200 ft down.

Sahana and Sneha caught up with us just as we turned around and headed back down. We had just about 20 min to make it all the way down to the bus parking. Again, Ashwin and I went off at a faster clip, slipping and sliding down the slope whereas Sahana and Sneha followed more slowly and cautiously. The rumbling, we now realized, was due to a quickly developing storm. The sky became ominously dark and the wind picked up steadily. By the time we reached the exit to the bus parking area, the wind was just howling and making it nearly impossible to put one foot in front of the other. I would guess that the wind speeds were nothing less than about 75 km/h. I couldn't see Sahana or Sneha and started worrying that one or both of them may have been carried away by the wind. Just when I started feeling a couple of drops of rain, I saw them turn the last corner and heaved a sigh of relief. We quickly ran towards the bus and stood in line to get back on. Thankfully, the rain held off until we got on to the bus and, in fact, held off till we got back on the highway towards Rome.

On the way back, the bus stopped once again at Cassino for a quick coffee and shopping for wine, limoncello, chocolate, coffee and souvenirs. We bought a bit of everything since they accepted credit cards (remember we had almost no Euros by then!). From Cassino till we alighted at Rome, the tour guides did their best to plug / market / sell their other tours. Finally, they dropped us off at the same place (Piazza del Popolo) around 8:20pm. We caught the Metro back to Termini, having walked about 19000 steps, 7.8 miles and climbed about 26 storeys.