Florence -Visiting the birthplace of renaissance

With out doubt, good weathther has been trying to catch up with me. Whenever i am leaving a city i can see the skies clearing up. Finally it caught up with me in Florence. My host Pasquale is a typical Italian from south of Italy,  with a sense of humor and a heart laugh. He is an economist and a consultant, and visits Florence occasionally. He rents out the roons to the university students near by, and unfortunately for me, he just found new tenants. The room reserved for me has gone to a Hungarian girl, and the other one to a British guy, so my bed is now in the living area. ” you have lost a good room but gained good company” Pasquale said with a laughter.

Cycling in a new city is not a good idea. Any thing can go wrong with the cycle, the traffic and the weather, but when he offered me his cycle to tour the city, i took the chance, and was very relieved to bee back home with nothing going wrong with three cycle, traffic or the weather. It is a magnificent but small city, very doable on the cycle. It was the center of art and culture in the 15th century, and widely considered to be the birth place of Western civilization.  

Florence certainly made up for the disappointment of Milan. Even better, this was the cultural promotion week in Italy so lot of attractions were free, though i had pre-reserved some key attractions to avoid the long queues. That turned our to be a good idea and i could cover a lot in a couple of days,  including Santa Maria cathedral, church of Saint Croce, the duomo, Bargello museum, and the most famous Uffizi. What i didn't finish myself, Pasquale showed me on a private guided tour the second day, along with the historical nuggets to go with it.

Some of the views from the old bridge and Michael Angelo plaza were magnificent . The paintings and the sculptures were astonishingly beautiful, and i finally understood why among the thousands of beautiful sculptures, some like the statue of David are considered path breaking and pinnacle of the art form. It was easy to imagine what the city must have been like in its hey days. Luckily, it still retains its charm from centuries ago.



Location : Via Francesco Caracciolo, 77, 50133 Florence,

Milan- more friends to make than places to visit

Milan was only a transit spot for me from Geneva to Florence. it was to late by the time I figured out that all the museums in the city are closed on Monday, and the only real famous painting to see -the last supper by Michael Angelo- was booked out in advance. To make it worse, my hosts informed me they wouldn't be home till 830, and it was still raining. And the idea of carrying the bag pack the while day didn't appeal to me.

Luckily I had met Sushila and lucci at Vishal's wedding in London. They live in Milan downtown, and had kindly invited me for coffee in the afternoon. I called Sushila and preponed the plan. After coffee she gave me the city guide, An umbrella and marked the places of interests and off I went after dropping my bag pack at her house.

Other than the Duomo, the rest of Milan was bit of a disappointment , specially after what I had seem in this journey so far. Most of the museums were closed anyway. I hung out with Mohit, an MBA student from Paris, and his wife Itisha and just walked around the city. It was the design week in Milan, but I want planning to buy any furniture so we avoided that.

After spending the evening with Lucci and Sushila again, I went to my hosts place- Rick and Ilaria, and had a nice little evening with a typical Italian dinner and post dinner conversations. I was quite exhausted though and feeling more tired by not doing much during the day. I was off to steep soon afterwards. It was time to look forward to Florence and some good weather

Location : Via Francesco Caracciolo, 77, 50133 Florence,

A marriage made in heaven, executed in London

Isn't it ironic that men made illusions like nations and religions often dominate and decimate the reality of love, probably the only thing that God ever created. So it is such a pleasant change that two of my close friends, Vishal and Natasha, a Hindu boy from India and a Muslim girl from Pakistan , are getting married, in London. The families have risen above the narrow boundaries of religion and nationalism to bless the union and the fantastically festive and cordial environment at the ceremonies bellies the complexities and drama that went behind the scenes to make it a reality. I am truly happy to be here to witness and be a part of this very special moment. 

The other two positive surprises, though admittedly on a vastly smaller scale, are the realizations that most of the public museums in London are free (God bless the Queen!) and that it doesn't always dreadfully drizzle in London at this time (the weather has been holding up). I am staying in central London walking distance from most of the attractions, thanks to two lovely ladies,  Catherine, who owns the place, and Sabiha, who invited me to couch-surf with them, and making good use of the fact by visiting as many museums as I can and meeting my old friends in London.

London is undergoing massive upgrades because of the upcoming Olympics in the summer and I am sure some of it is causing traffic nightmares and  inconveniences to the people living here, but hopefully they well be rewarded in due course with a successful extravaganza and vastly improved infrastructure once the games are over. I am impressed by the cycle renting scheme where they have created these cycle renting stations peppered over the city and you can borrow from and return to any station convenient to you.

I have thoroughly enjoyed some magnificent art exhibitions by the masters, both classical and contemporary and the Victorian and Georgian architecture littered over the city. London is a classical mosaic of many different cultures and you can see by just walking a few blocks in central London and taking a few metro rides. I hope I will return to the hustle and bustle of this wonderfully alive and thriving city again, and next time for more than a weekend.

Location : Groenendaalstraat 11II, 1058 Amsterdam Oud-Zuid,

A perfect little weekend

Some journeys are just not meant to be. Vipassana turned out to be one such journey for me. Sujata had to leave to take care of her parents a day before I was supposed to leave for vipassana so I stayed back with the kids. Between taking care of the kids, completing long pending errands and reorganizing the house, the time really flew. I want even sure if I could do the India trip at all but Suj came back Friday morning and I took the evening flight out. Since tiger airways has no refund policy, I still had to come in via Bangalore instead of directly flying into Delhi, but that turned out to be a good decision.

I was back in the city probably after a seven year period. My last experience was that of horrible traffic jams which had made me cancel a few meetings, and despite all the infrastructure progress it felt like city traffic had grown faster than the infrastructure and filled all available space. The airport was new, nice and shiny but way too far from the center of the city, where

Kavita and Manish lived, who had generously agreed to host me in Bangalore. Manish, or tiger as he is known among friends, is easily one of the most well read person I know, and both are passionate about education. Unfortunately, the other thing he likes is horse riding for which you have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. I had no desire to burden the poor animal with my heavy weight but it seemed like a good opportunity to practice some early morning photography. Dhruv, their 10 year old son not only shares his passion in horseriding, but he had been equally passionate about drawing horse figure. He had seen the horse figure I had done in blank ink many years ago and was keen for me to spend some time giving him some sketching tips. Now I never really learned sketching, but past experience a have taught me that giving kids even very little tips, but lots of encouragement and practice usually have the right learning effect.

A birthday party in the afternoon and a pizza party at home in the evening were perfect recipes for a sumptuous Saturday, made better only by a chance meeting with Ashok, who happened to be my roommate asking with Tiger in or first year of college. Dhruv wanted me to watch war horse, and from what little I saw and read on Rohan's blog about the movie, it certainly was worth watching except that I was too jet lagged by now. At least for me, those many houses in a day was enough.

I had a reasonably early flight on Sunday to Delhi but we did manage to find time for some roller blading on a dead end road near the lovely Vidhan Sauda building and sumptuous breakfast at the Oberoi. I was worried that the legendary Bangalore traffic may cause me to miss the flight but luckily it was a Sunday morning and driver knew how to avoid any roads with potential traffic problems.

The flight was uneventful and my cousin Neel came to pick me up at the airport. By this time India was facing another humiliating loss to Australia in cricket.after meeting every body at home, Neel suggested we go and see the hockey Olympic qualifier final between India and France. India had not even qualified to play in the last Olympics. The organization was poor even by India's usually abysmal standards, but Indian team made up for it and mauled France 8-1. It was a great result for my first ever live hockey match and a good way to end a perfect little weekend in India.

Location : Kachnar Marg, DLF City Phase I, Sector 26, Gurgaon, Haryana,

Prashant

Location : Kachnar Marg, DLF City Phase I, Sector 26, Gurgaon, Haryana,

Prashant

Location : Kachnar Marg, DLF City Phase I, Sector 26, Gurgaon, Haryana,
Prashant

Exploring an island

3 Ltrs in this and you can cover all of Samui

On top of the SUV

Like all successful ones on the Internet, couchsurfing.com is brilliant but simple idea, which is effectively executed to satisfy a human need. It is designed to connect travellers and hosts in different countries, each benefitting in a certain way, and fostering great friendships and experiences along the way. I should thank Chachra for introducing me to this, and after mostly hosting for a couple of months, it was time to see if it works the other way too. Before coming to Samui, I had sent a few random requests if any body would have time and inclination to show me around, and I did get a few responses, if only to meet up for lunch or drinks. It wasn't a bad start.

Chinese Buddha

Waterfall 2

Anastasia Simakova, a tall lanky Russian girl (and why btw, are they all six feet plus!), wasn't quite the 'local' I was expecting to meet through couchsurfing, but she worked in a travel and tour company, and lived near the Big Buddha temple - the biggest tourist attraction on the island. She agreed to meet me for lunch. I rented a scooter for the day, but as I was driving one after many years, and for a tourist attraction Samui has very few signs in English, I was duly late though she was polite enough not to complain. She is from Sochi, the winter Olympics location for 2014, and told me incredible stories about how the government dresses up english teachers as ushers and bartenders to give the impression of English speaking city to the Olympics committee, or give a day off to everybody to make it look like a busy happening place. And how the government officials come before the elections to get the details of how many people are voting from the household, and for whom! She doesn't think Russia will be a democracy ever.

Big Buddha

Buddha in Durga Avatar?

Even though she doesn't like two wheelers as she has no sense of balance, she decided to show me around Samui. The first stop was the Big Buddha temple. This a magnificent structure on a hilltop near the sea, with beautiful views around it. But I was more intrigued by the next Buddha temple we visited, which depicted Buddha with 18 hands, very much reminding me of way Durga is depicted in Hindu mythology. They also had the laughing Buddha in the same complex. Next stop was few kilometers away to see the mummified monk, who has been positively dead for over 23 years, but the body has been preserved with supposedly very little mummification. We were close enough to visit the nature park and the waterfalls with in, though it was bit of a climb and our hired car with in the park abandoned us when their office closed. Luckily a very nice couple from singapore gave us lift back to our scooter. On the way back we stopped by to see The grand pa and grand ma rocks, Shaped like human genitalia, and one couldn't help but wonder that the grand pa must have been a real hony man in his day.

Finally managed Lotus pose

Mummified Monk, dead since 79

It was a long drive back so we stopped by for some dinner. I had seen pretty much all that I wanted to see of the tourist attractions in Samui. Anastasia had some other plans for the weekend but she liked the way it eventually turned out. It was, as she skyped me later, 'a very peaceful, relaxing and positive-energy-filled day'.





Location : Mae Nam, Ko Samui, Surat Thani 84330,
Prashant