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Thursday, July 17, 2008

About Gustis, Metros and Euros - IV

Day 5: Venice, Italy:
The weather in Florence was still a little gloomy, with the occasional shower dotting the day. We woke up by 6:30am and got ready to leave this town. Our train to Venezia/Venice was to depart at 10am. With our heavy bags and reluctant souls, we started trudging along the Arno towards the Santa Maria Novella station. I had identified a shorter route to the station, but still, it took us around 40 minutes to get there. On the way, there was a brief drizzle too. Nevertheless, we were before time, only to start gazing at the announcement board. As we were waiting for our train announcement, we could see an Indian family discussing some serious stuff. After a few minutes, a lady from the family dropped by and asked us if they needed to reserve seats on the train. We had our reservations and told them that it would be better to be safe and get them, rather than not get seating on the train and be sorry. When the announcement was made, it was announced that a train would depart to Bologna at the time our train was supposed to be. Again, don't go by the final destination of the train, but go by the time. We boarded the train, got our seats without any problems. No hassles with the ticket collector this time and everything went on smoothly. A clergyman was sitting in front of us and after a few minutes he left his seat and went out. For half hour he was not to be seen. My wife was getting worried and wanted to check his luggage to see if there was a bomb in there :-). Anyways, he did return and continued reading his academic papers, while we were playing rounds of hangman.

The train takes around 3 hours to reach Venice and passes through Bologna and Padova. Our reservations indicated that we need to get down at Venice Maestre station, while my research told me to catch another train or use the same train to go to Venice Santa Lucia. Remember to alight at Santa Lucia, this island is the "real" Venice. Venice's mainland station is Venice Maestre. The journey from Maestre to Santa Lucia is around 10 minutes and is very picturesque. A single road and railway line goes amidst the calm waters of the Adriatic and ends up at Venice Santa Lucia. The island of Venice is very different, narrow walkways, bridges over umpteen canals, boat buses, boat cabs, gondolas and numerous tourists fill this place. We reached around 1pm in the afternoon, to be greeted by hot weather and a blazing sun overhead. A map costs around 2.5 euro at the tourist information desk. Hmmm... pretty expensive eh? Was this a portent to what was in store? We picked up the map, but couldn't locate our hotel. We asked a security guard nearby, who told us that our hotel was very close by, perhaps 10 minutes by foot. We were pretty pleased and started coming out of the station. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Venice has lots of bridges, and to go across these there are lots of steps we need to ascend and descend. To make matters worse, the heat was unbearable and the station itself didn't provide any respite, as it had a fleet of 20-odd steps to descend. With our heavy bags we started descending the station stairs and crossed the Grand Canal (The largest canal that divides Venice into 2 halves). After numerous other canals our 10 minute by foot took us around 30 mins and we found our hotel, Hotel Arlecchino.
The hotel was very very small and our rooms were not yet ready. Apparently in Europe, the check in time is 2pm and the checkout is at 11am. After making us wait for another half hour or so, the bell boy led us up some lifts and then up some wooden stairs to go to our room. The hotel room was extremely small with really small windows, that hardly let any light inside the room. But on the brighter side, the bathroom was very long, but narrow and must be 1/3rd the size of the room itself.

The man at the concierge gave us a map and marked the guided tours we were supposed to go the next day and the gondola ride that was supposed to happen the same day. After a quick shower, we started exploring Venice by foot. The San Marco square is the heart of tourist activity in Venice and opens up to the bay. Navigating in Venice is a nightmare because of the narrow alleys, clearings amidst buildings and the many canals that criss-cross the city. The streets are unmarked as well. If you observe carefully, signs to the San Marco square are visible on buildings on main stroll routes. The beauty of San Marco square has to be experienced. A huge bell tower and a wide clearing with restaurants lining the square. Hundreds of pigeons flock the square, perhaps the feeding tourists their main attraction. The square leads to the boat docks at the waterfront. A huge poster of Roger Federer lines the passage that leads to the docks. The spectacle called San Marco square has been brought to life with a photosynth demo at http://labs.live.com/photosynth/. Try the tech preview on this page to experience it. On the way to San Marco square we observed an ice cream shop selling ice creams at 1.70 euros for 2 gustis, perhaps the cheapest ice cream we've had so far. An American student/visitor seemed to be owning the shop. Venice has many North African people selling leather bags on the streets. We tried to bargain for one of the bags. The bags seemed to be of very good quality and some of them were branded too (though I wouldn't trust the brand name). The person selling us the bag started off with a price of 110 Euro, we bluntly refused the offer and walked away. He came running behind us and asked us to quote a price. Ultimately, we bargained a big leather hand bag for around 30 Euros (Afterthought: perhaps we could've bargained for lesser 20 Euro, 10 Euro... perhaps :( ).

The walk from San Marco square along the waterfront is very serene. As you move away from the square the density of people decreases and the only thing is the sun beating down, the breeze blowing across and water splashing against the banks. At the far end of the water front is the Lido beach that has a wooded park with lots of benches, perfect for a siesta. We spent sometime there and at around 6pm we went to the Gondola starting point at Santa Maria Gigolo.
We were taken on a 45 minutes Gondola ride, a fleet of Gondolas on the waters of the Grand Canal. By now, the heat had subsided and dusk had set in, it was very cool and our ears were occupied by a singer on one of the Gondolas singing out opera-ish songs (perhaps in Italian). Boats and Gondolas form the spine of transportation in Venice. Our Gondola travelled through smaller canals and doorsteps of many apartments, hotels and residences. Just like blind street corners, blind canal corners have huge convex mirrors to avoid oncoming water vehicles. We then bid goodbye to our Gondola "driver" /oarsman and went looking for a place to fill our hungry bellies. Contrary to the omen about a very expensive Venice, we found food at Venice pretty inexpensive. A Pizza Margharita (our benchmark for food prices) was around 4.5 Euros. We were pretty pleased and had Pizza, before heading back to our hotels. The streets of Venice become really deserted after 6:30pm, I was not sure about it's safety, so we hurriedly stepped towards our hotel, just to be safe than sorry.

Day 6: Venice, Italy:
We started the day early as usual. We rushed to San Marco square, whose pier from where we were supposed to take an excursion to some popular islands like the Burano, Murano and Torcello. Accompanied by 6-8 more tourists, we set off the shores of Santa Lucia onto the "freeway" - like boat ways towards Murano. The bay at Venice seems to have specified "lanes" for boats that travel to and from the piers, just like the lanes on a road. Sticks that are pierced into the ground form the medians and the kerbs. The guide on our boat spoke fluently in English, Italian, French and German. Her accent was so Italian, that it was difficult to pick her up when she spoke English. So with ears strained towards her speech and eyes enjoying the waters around, we reached Murano island half hour later.

The boat took us directly to a glass factory. Murano is known for many glass factories that manufacture exquisite glass items like jewellery, chandeliers, decorative glass among others. A master glass artist gave us a small demonstration of how glass is blown and shaped. He made a vase and a neighing stallion in a matter of minutes. When he was doing his work, a commentator was telling us the details on how it was done. After 15 minutes we were taken to a showroom of the glass factory. I guess the designs and items there were protected under copyright laws. No one was allowed to take pictures, still or motion. The glass items were pretty pricey, given that the material to prepare Murano glass comes from France. We took a look at the beautiful works of glass art and then headed towards Burano island.

Burano is known for it's lace work and the uniqueness of this island is the brightly colored houses here. Each house is uniquely colored with outlandish shades of color. The guide told us that these were fishermen who lived on the island and it was a tradition
to paint their houses so exotically. We got to see an old woman doing lacework, the scene was straight from a fairy tale where the grand mom sits on a rocking chair, heads down doing lace work. There was lace work on sale too. We walked down the streets of Burano and bought a laced table cloth for around 20 euros. On our way back we had to hurry, as we were getting pretty late and the boat was about to depart.

10 minutes from Burano is the island of Torcello, the island where the first venetians (like Martians :)) lived.
When Torcello was thriving it had a population of nearly 10,000. But today the island has less than 15 people, as people have moved to the mainland. Torcello is a very calm, green and beautiful island with an old church, a restaurant and a couple of gift shops. We walked for a while in the island enjoying the greenery. It rained a little bit on our way back to the boat, but thanks to the pricey umbrella we bought, we didn't get wet. Some tourists fell in love with the isle and wanted to spend more time there and told the guide that they would make their own arrangements for transport back to Venice. Half past noon we were back in Venice, had a quick lunch, a couple of gustis of ice cream and headed back to our hotel. Later in the afternoon, we decided to explore Venice, north of the Grand Canal. The next day we were supposed to leave Venice for Torino (Turin) en route to Paris, but we had our train reservations from Venice Maestre. We wanted to know what time the same train would leave Santa Lucia. The information desk at the station did give us the necessary timings. We were supposed to be at the station by 7:45am the next day. From the station we walked towards Arsenale, a military establishment in Venice, perhaps an arms store. On the way, we had Fanta at a local grocery store and stopped by a Chinese-run communication place from where international calls were 20 cents a minute (cheapest we had seen so far). We called home, gave them updates about our safety and resumed our exploration of the city. The area north of the grand canal is less touristy and less expensive. At a point we were lost and a old man taking his evening walk, came all the way with us till the walls of Arsenale; really sweet people. After posing for a few photographs at the Arsenale, we decided to go back to the hotel and get a good night's sleep. The next day was supposed to be a travel day with a lot of unknowns. Also, we were to get up early if we had to catch the train to Turin. We were supposed to reach Paris after 24 hours of travel, by taking a train to Turin, a bus (we didn't know about this) to Chambery Challes in France and then another train to Paris. But things didn't turn out that way.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

About Gustis, Metros and Euros - III

Day 3: Florence/Firenze, Italy:

We were scheduled to travel to Florence today morning at around 10:30am. Since this was our first trip between cities in a train, we were extra cautious, waking up by 6am and getting set by 8am. Our prudent mindset got us to Termini by 9:30am as we were accounting for traffic jams, crowd and long lines. At Termini, there was no signs announcing the arrival of our train. It was not until 10:05am did they announce the platform where our train would depart from. Nevertheless, we, the anxious couple were waiting all this while, our eyes fixed on the announcement board. After the announcement was made, we made our way to the train through crowds of anxious tourists to board our train to Florence. One more thing to note is that trains are announced with their final destination in mind. The train we were taking was supposedly going to Milan Centrale via Florence. The wise thing would be to board a train based on the time and not based on the destination displayed. All coaches are marked with a number on the body of the compartment, this indicates the class. The coach number is a separate number that is generally indicated on a display panel on the compartment. My research made me easy to navigate to the appropriate 1st class compartment. If you have reserved seats, the seat numbers reset at each coach i.e. there are a number of seat 60s, one in each coach. We found our seats with ease and hoisted our heavy bags in the overhead bins. The bins are pretty narrow and for sometime I was a little paranoid that the heavy luggage would fall on my head (given my experience with Indian trains). Nothing untoward happened though. The seats are extremely comfortable and you have tables in front of you that can be used to fiddle with your notebooks or play a board game. The train finally departed Roma Termini towards Florence.

The distance between Rome and Florence is around 250km and the "Alta Velocita" Eurostar train takes just over 1.5 hours. Drinks are served free of cost in the 1st class compartment. Oranges in Italy are more red than orange and the orange juice we requested was the same. The steward provides everyone with a pack of freshening towels too. The experience is n-fold better than travelling on an American airliner. The ticket collector stopped by and asked our passes. We had our passes, but we had not entered the date on the pass. Keep in mind that whenever you have a Eurail pass, please enter the date before you use the pass for the first time on that day. Also, the Eurail pass is a different piece of paper than the paper coupon given to you with your seat numbers. We were not aware of this and the ticket collector threatened to levy a fine on us of 50 euros. I tried to explain to him that it was a genuine mistake, trying to act dumb and extremely apologetic. But he could not comprehend my English and for a moment I was thinking of a plethora of possibilities that could befall us. He may put us in jail, throw us out of the train moving at 100kmph, drop us off at the next station which would be a village in central Italy etc. But somehow, perhaps he could see the fear in my eyes, he gave me a warning and let me go. A fellow traveller (an Indian) then came up to me and told me that he and his family had faced a similar situation when they visited Italy the first time. It took some time for me to get over it, but pretty soon I was fine, playing hangman with my wife, as I had vented all my embarrassment by winning over her.

The journey between Rome and Florence takes you over grassy plains and long tunnels. Your ears pop in and out as you move at great speeds through these tunnels. When we were near Florence, we got our bags down and marched towards the door. Apparently, trains stop at stations for less than 5 mins and the Indian family who were travelling with us (a couple and a kid) take 2.5 minutes to alight. It seemed like they had practiced this routine to perfection. The station at Florence, the Santa Maria Novella station, is a pretty archaic station and a little smaller than the one at Rome. I had no clue how to get from the station to our hotel and was looking for maps of the place. The tourist information center had a long line and for 1 Euro they gave me a map of the city. I knew that our hotel was along the river Arno and after a few minutes I could locate the street where we would need to go. The cities in Italy are pretty small and we thought we could manage going to the hotel by dragging our heavy bags along the way. It was tough, but manageable. It took us a whole hour to navigate through the narrow crowded streets. We were pretty disciplined in being alert with our bags and belongings. I had heard that Italy was not as safe as the US.

Florence is a quaint town with narrow streets. I have hardly seen automobiles there other than buses that are used as means of public transport. As we wound our way through the streets, we couldn't find street names to navigate. As in Rome, the street names are not on sign boards but on buildings themselves. Once that was discovered, navigating the streets became very easy. An old woman and an young man were very enthusiastic in guiding us at one point when we were stuck in a square and didn't know where to go. Once we were on the bank of the Arno it was easy to find our hotel, Hotel Balestri. Hotel Balestri is located next to the Arno with the bathroom window facing the river. Our room was not spacious (same as in Rome), but was very bright and it had a balcony as well. My wife adores the hotel room very much. That afternoon we walked up to the Accademia to view Michelangelo's David which is housed in this museum. There are a number of other paintings and sculptures. We also visited the music museum that gave us a white-box view of a piano. For some reason, I was under the misconception that a piano was an air instrument. But this was dispelled when I saw how a piano works at the Accademia.

Michelangelo's David is a true master piece, a larger than life statue of David with his sling after annihilating Goliath. When we went to the Accademia, I saw people sketching the statue, discussing its intricacies, describing its features or silently admiring it. Such is the charisma behind this piece of art. To enter the Accademia you have to shell out 6.5 euros a person and you get to visit, David, the gallery of statues, the gallery of paintings and the music museum.


After filling our minds with David's perfection, we wanted to fill our growling stomachs. I had identified a vegetarian restaurant on the Internet near Bordo Croce before starting on our journey. We walked down to that place only to find that the restaurant had closed down some years back. The owner of the hardware store that has come up next to this place directed us to an "Indian" place on the same street. We went there to find that most of the food was over. But the person there told us that he would cook rice for us and make vegetarian biriyani at 3 euros a plate. After 10 mins, we were served hot biriyani that tasted pretty good. This eat-out is run by 3 brothers from Lahore, Pakistan who have been in Florence for 9, 5 and 3 years respectively starting from the eldest. After wishing them good bye, we walked back to the hotel, admiring the street artists and the chalk sketchers on the way. The chalk art is brilliant and is done in 4-5 hours time.

In the evening we took a walk across the Arno to Piazza Michelangelo, that houses a replica of the David. This Piazza, a very beautiful and romantic place overlooks the city of Florence on one side and the countryside on the other. The Piazza is up a hill with a fleet of stairs and is around 15 minutes walk from the Balestri. We came across a cat shelter on the way and my love for felines forced me to take some pictures there. Later that night we took a walk along the bank of the Arno and the scene was stunning with lamp posts dotting the banks of the river. The romance of Florence was captivating us as the seconds passed. A truly beautiful city.

Day 4: Florence/Firenze and Pisa, Italy:

In places like Florence, credit cards are not widely accepted and my suggestion would be to take adequate cash with you. We woke up early in the morning on day 4 and went exploring the Vecchito Palazzo and the Uffizzi gallery. We didn't enter the gallery, but it houses many renowned paintings of the modern era. Instead, we went along the streets of Florence looking for supplies. Florence, like Rome, has stone paved streets and stone buildings. The buildings are archaic looking, except that they are not brick-colored. We bought water at 60 cents a bottle at a grocery store and batteries at 4 euros for a 8 battery pack at a camera shop.

We were scheduled to leave for an excursion to Pisa in the afternoon and had to go near Piazza Della Stazione (the circle near the station) to catch our bus to Pisa. It started raining a bit there and we had not accounted for rain in Europe in our checklist. We didn't have an umbrella and we bought one from a vendor selling them on a street corner. He was demanding 6 Euros and we bargained it for 3.8 Euros, ah, what a good deal. But a gust of wind tore a piece of the umbrella and a few meters down the lane we found a shop selling umbrellas for 3 Euros. So much for our street smartness and bargaining abilities. We reached the station and went a little further to a fort near the station, Fort Basse. The guard there thought that we were there for a medical conference only to realize that we didn't look like doctors from any angle of his imagination. He sent us out and told us to go around the fort to view the gardens and the fountain that form the facade of the fort. At around 3pm, we boarded a bus to Pisa, an hours drive from Florence across the province of Tuscany, known for its olive oil. On the way, the tour guide pointed us to nurseries specializing in ornamental plants, the largest chinese community in Europe and a host of towns that marked the landscape.

We arrived at Pisa under gloomy skies and were taken into the square at Pisa that hosts a cathedral, a baptistery and the famous leaning tower. Only limited tickets are sold per day to go on top of the leaning tower and naturally we were late. The leaning tower is 55 meters tall and from the 4th storey onwards an architect tried to correct the tilt by building pillars perpendicular to the plane of the ground. The cathedral nearby is built in Romanesque style peppered with a lot of Islamic arches. The tour guide showed us the chandelier that Galileo had observed to come up with the concept of a simple pendulum within the cathedral. The cathedral was built from the riches of an Arab ship that was looted by the Italians. Pisa is a very small place and not very impressive. On a lighter note, the tour guide was telling us that public restrooms were the cheapest in Pisa at 30 cents a person when compared to 1 euro in Florence and 1.5 euros in Venice.

We got back to Florence by 7pm and took another walk along the banks of the Arno. We had identified a Mediterranean restaurant the previous day and had dinner there. It turned out to be managed by an Indian. We had some good biriyani and Pizza Margharita (Pizza with tomato sauce and cheese, our staple diet at most places during our trip). We were the only people in the restaurant and he had a good chat with us. During dinner, it was pouring outside and once we were done, the rain had stopped and we walked back to our hotel. We were scheduled to leave Florence the next day to Venice, but the captivating charisma of the city was giving us the Stockholm's syndrome and we were very reluctant to depart.

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Monday, July 14, 2008

About Gustis, Metros and Euros - II

Day 1: Rome, Italy:
The first thing you observe about Rome is the abundance of tourists and tourism related businesses. Naturally, everything at the heart of Rome is very expensive. Water is 2 Euros a bottle while gas is cheaper at approximately 1.5 Euros per liter (more expensive than the US). Nevertheless you can't drink gas in Rome's weather and we had to resort in buying bottles near tourist locations. We learnt these lessons very quickly and my recommendation would be to visit grocery shops in residential areas to buy your ice cream or water or any other supplies you would need. The stuff there is inexpensive and we employed this trick for the rest of the tour. The afternoon we arrived at Rome we took the hop-on hop-off open tour bus to go around places of interest. The cost of the tour bus is around 18 Euros/per person/day. The buses circulate through Rome and you can ride on any bus between 9am - 7pm.

The tour started off from the Termini station and our first stop was Piazza Venezia. Rome is filled with huge stone/marble structures and all the roads are paved with stone. In our entire stay at Rome, I hardly remember seeing tarmac on the roads. "Piazza" in any Italian city is a circle (or a square) and the word pizza comes from the same root is my guess. Two guards, still as statues, guard the monument of Victor Emanuelle, the first king of unified Italy. My heart went out for the 2 guards who were weathering the heat and the place felt a little devoid of human rights. We then went to the Colosseum which is a few hundred meters from the Piazza. We were not very impressed with the Colosseum, though it could be a architecture marvel when it was built. Hoards of people visit the Colosseum, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world at 11 Euros a person. Many artists in ancient Roman military attire entertain tourists and pose for photographs with them for a price. There were a few outliers who had dressed themselves as Egypt's Pharaoh King Tut.


After a weary day, we thought of having some dinner before retiring for the day. Contrary to the belief that vegetarian food is hard to get, we found it relatively easy to find veggie food. A veggie pizza slice comes for around 3 euros, though later we found out that we could get an entire pizza for 4.5 euros. In the night, we decided to visit the fountains at Piazza Della Republica near the Termini station. It is quite a spectacle as it is surrounded by renaissance styled buildings and cobble stoned roads. On the automobile scene in Italy, we found many cars that were/are sold in India like the Daewoo Matiz, Cielo, Opel Astra, Fiat Uno among others hurtling across the stone streets of Rome.

Day 2: Rome, Italy

We were to visit the Vatican today and the tour would start at 9am. Rome has 2 metro lines, one that runs north and the other that runs south. The Termini station has a metro stop and it was pretty convenient for us. The ticket to use the metro is 1 euro. We took the metro at 8:30am to reach the Ottaviano, the starting point of the Vatican tour. Our tour guide was half hour late and we had to shell out 20 Euros per head towards the entrance fee to enter the Vatican museum. The Vatican, the smallest republic, is walled and appears like a fort on one side. The center of the Vatican is the gigantic St. Peter's square that hosts the St. Peter's basilica. The Vatican tour includes the museums, the Sistine chapel and the St. Peter's basilica (the biggest in the world). The most impressive aspect of the museum were the frescoes, paintings and the fantastic tapestries that were displayed. The ceilings appeared to be moulded carvings, but they were actually paintings in 2-d that give us a 3-d effect. Don't miss this aspect of the museum, it is very impressive. Over 4 million visitors visit the Vatican every year, apparently the most visited place on earth. I'm not very sure about the authenticity of this fact as I could imagine more people visiting Tirupati in an year. A quick check confirms my suspicion. Nevertheless, facts apart, the Vatican is pretty impressive. The tour guide explained to us the different messages Michelangelo had coded up in his world famous frescoes at the Sistine chapel. One thing that dawned upon me was the fact that philosophies of different religion had a unifying theme. The unifying theme is the detachment from the material world and the control of the senses.

Whenever we see renaissance statues, we observe the statues are blind. Was the sculptors of those times not adept at sculpting eyes? No, the truth is that gems formed the eyes of these statues and over time these gems were either stolen or lost. From the vast courtyard of the St. Peter's basilica the tour guide pointed us to the quarters of the Pope and the balcony from where he would wave at the people who come to visit the Vatican. After the visit to the Vatican we got back to our hotel and had a lunch of Pizza and pasta with pesto sauce at a nearby restaurant. Restaurants are pretty expensive, and our lunch costed around 25 Euros. We again set out later in the day and walked along side the Tiber. The Pantheon is another place we wanted to see and after walking through many small streets we did reach the place. People were very friendly in giving us directions even though they didn't know English. I remember the lady who showed us directions to the Pantheon walk half the distance with us, a very kind gesture. It reinforces my belief that people are basically good, it is only the circumstances that make them rude.

An observation I made about European cities is the presence of a river splitting the city. London has the Thames, Paris the Seine, Rome the Tiber, Prague the Vlatava, Florence the Arno, Vienna the Danube and so on. These smooth meandering rivers add to the appeal and romance of these cities. The heat was getting to us and we thought of having ice creams on our return to our hotel. In Italy, ice creams come in Gustis. One gusti is a scoop of ice cream and could cost around 1 Euro. By the end of our trip we were trained to observe the rates for a gusti of ice cream in any shop. In Rome and Florence, we couldn't find a place where a Gusti costed less than 1 Euro. But in Venice we found an American lady selling ice cream at 1.70 Euro for a couple of gustis, perhaps the cheapest I've seen. My wife's obsession with the fountains of Piazza Della Republica continued and we made another trip to that place that night. We were scheduled to depart Rome the very next day with memories of the Vatican paintings and the beautiful Tiber.
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Sunday, July 13, 2008

About Gustis, Metros and Euros - I

A visit to Europe has always evaded me for the past 4-5 years for some reason or the other. More than a resource crunch, I feel it was a lack of resourcefulness on my part that prevented me from realizing my dream earlier. By the end of May this year, I had decided to take up this sojourn and visit a couple of countries on this continent. It was a bit more special as it would be a honeymoon vacation for a newly wedded yours truly. Europe's diversity starts from its name as the only continent that doesn't start with the letter 'A'. The diversity continues through each country's language, culture, food and system. We had decided to spend around 10 days exploring 2 countries, Italy and France.

Now why Italy and France? I always had this yearning to visit Paris and hence France. But being in Bangalore, applying for a Schengen visa via the French consulate involves travelling to Mumbai for fingerprinting and interviews. Given my sedentary self, I tried to find out ways to get away by not going to Mumbai. The alternatives, apply to the Italian or Austrian consulates where the chances of being called for an interview are minimum, if documents were prepared meticulously and were complete. Also the Schengen visa guidelines mandate you to apply for a visa from the country where you would be staying for the most number of days on your visit. I chose Italy over Austria and after everything, I don't regret my decision a bit.

Applying through a travel agent was easy enough except for preparing the documents. They wanted everything from my voter's id to my marriage certificate and everything in between. The height was when they asked me for a no-objection certificate from my employer that it was ok for me to go to Europe on a vacation. After a week, I ended up with visas for my wife and me, a pasted paper that says "Visto" (Visa in Italian perhaps). Prior to departure we had a brief checklist of things to buy and didn't account for Europe's diversity of weather. A couple of small backpacks, sun screen, moisturiser (a must for me even if I visit the Sahara desert), cotton clothes, jackets to keep you warm, insurance, currency (Euros at 71 rupees a piece), supporting documents, some packets of MTR ready-to-eat, Maggi noodles (people had scared us about the lack of veggie options in Europe) and some contact numbers. We were all set to leave on May 26th from the new airport at Bangalore.

The new airport is pretty impressive, though the size of the airport was smaller than what I had imagined. We were flying my "favorite" (sarcasm intended) airline, Air France and as usual my love affair with this airliner continued. The flight was late by about an hour and given that he takes a full 10 hours to fly from Bangalore to Paris CDG, I was pretty certain that we would miss our connection to Rome's FCO. But the ground staff were fairly responsive and immediately changed our tickets to a later flight from CDG to FCO. Mentally, I was gearing myself up for losing my baggage, reaching Rome 24 hours late or a plethora of such disasters. But everything went smoothly.

We arrived at the Rome Fiumicino airport (FCO) also called as the Leonardo Da Vinci International airport at around 1pm after commuting via CDG. No one even bothered to place a stamp on our passports. Yes, there was no immigration/customs check at FCO and we were on the streets of Rome after gathering our baggage. I was frantically looking for a place where we could get a stamp on our passports, but there was none and we were allowed to walk out of the terminal without any interruption. We walked straight to the railway terminal at the airport. A train, the Leonardo Da Vinci express (a non-stop train) takes us from the airport to Termini, the main railway station in Rome. The journey is around 30 minutes and a first class ticket costs around 11 Euros. We had a 4-day Eurail pass that we used (no need to pay if you have a pass) and hauled all our baggage into the 1st class compartment of the Leonardo Da Vinci express. Rome was hot and sultry at 28C and the train was pretty crowded. Most tourists on board the train seemed to be Americans, many among them old couples who perhaps were there to visit the Vatican. On the way the landscape was boring flat lands with apartment buildings lining the tracks. The majority of the buildings were brick-colored and appeared to be pretty identical. It appeared as if we were moving through a communist colony. Cloth lines, window shutters without glass and TV antennas decorated these ghetto like apartments.

After half hour, the train arrived at the Roma Termini, the central station at Rome. We had booked our hotels pretty close to the station and dodged a couple of taxi solicitors to be on the streets of Rome. But which direction do we go? As we were new to the place we didn't know where to get a map from nor did we know of any public transport system. My research had told me that the hotel was walking distance from the station. We asked a couple of cops who were standing nearby and they were quite rude. Atlast, one of them pointed us the direction we should be walking. We started looking for a place called Via Del Viminale asking every Tom, Dick and Harry on the way. Tom included a cop, Dick included an Indian man (I mean a person from the sub continent) and Harry was a woman at a beauty boutique. After 15 minutes of walk with 2 bags, 2 back packs and 2 weary bodies we found Hotel Impero. The gentlemen at the concierge spoke English (we were very glad) and gave us our room keys. We took the keys and opened the room we were supposed to be in and it was already occupied!!!!! Before we could go down and complain, the bell boy came racing upstairs and pointed us to our actual rooms. The man at the concierge apparently had made a mistake. The bell boy apologized profusely and we were happy to be in our room out from the heat of Rome. If you think this incident was shocking wait to read about our hotel room experiences in Paris in the posts to come.

I will be continuing with my posts about our European adventure. Till then...
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