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I went to the Italian island of Sardinia for a four day break with 6 friends of mine a couple of months ago. We didn’t do much there but to chill on the beach, but since we had an awesome time its worth sharing anyway.

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily. It is quite far away from Italian mainland but just a few miles south of the french island of Corsica. Sardinia is not as crowded as Sicily, and not as developed as a tourist destination as other Italian destinations. The capital is Cagliari which is to the south of the island.

We went to a place called Santa Teresa which is on the northern tip of Sardinia. The plan was to stay in a sea-facing apartment owned by parents of one of the group members. We flew to Olbia, which is a port in the north-east and serves as entry point to the posh resorts off the north-east coast, the likes of Porto Cervo on the Costa Smeralda (the Emerald coast), where the rich and famous of the world descend in their yatchs in the summer. We obviously had no plans whatsoever of celebrity-spotting, not even footballers and pop divas, so we headed straight to our less posh but much nicer destination a bit further north.

The apartment was wonderful with great views across the mediterranean (we could see the island of Corsica sitting in the balcony!) and the local harbour. We actually ended up spending quite a bit of time in the balcony enjoying long meals.

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Continued from The Juggernaut and Older stories

We alighted at Puri, full of the excitement and expectations of a new kid entering a new park, and hunger - spiritual and gastronomical. The Sun was strong, breeze kindly. We were relieved to land in a favourable weather. Though landing in trouble was what we narrowly escaped as we had already decided to take the Panda from the Holiday home itself. There were a few Pandas hovering around at far end of the platform itself. To one such Panda’s question “Kahan se aaye ho-Where you from?” SPV was to curtly reply ”Kahin se nahin-from nowhere” to get the repartee ”Aaasman se tapke ho-fell from the sky?” and answer in a laconic and finally repelling “Haan-Yes”.

Do not tell your name and place to any one, anywhere, except to the priest with whom you have some prior understanding of offerings. Once they know your name, they will be able to somehow make you do as per their will.

We had our accommodation booked at hotel Niladri – meaning Blue Hill! We had to pay token fee of Rs.10 each for two rooms that each-myself and SPV- were entitled. However, for the two extra rooms that we had booked the tariff told to us was Rs.1600/- but we could bring it to Rs.1200/- for “AC Deluxe” room. We also went to nearby hotels, before checking-in in Niladri to survey the market, but to our astonished disappointment the tariffs were at their peak and started in the range of Rs.2000/- to 2500/-. We were told that they were running full. However, since there is a row of hotels of a diverse classes along the Swargdwar road, one can probably get accommodation at cheaper rates. For example in our hotel itself the Non ac was going for Rs 800/-. In other hotels which were a little offset from the road, the rates would be still lower.

The most favoutable season would be September to March - just after the rains and before the summer sets in. In mid March, we felt that even a Non-AC room too was comfortable.

A misty morning
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Encouraged by the feedback on my Badrinath Kedarnath trip report, here I am with my new offering on the Jagannath Puri. This part is centred mainly around the Jagannath Temple and other places in Puri. Hope you will like this humble effort also. Please also bear with the quality of snaps, all of which are captured from my mini DV video footage.

The Abode of Lord Purushottam Jagannath

Based on response to this one, I will also post the write-up on other places that we visited viz. Chilika lake, Konark temple, Lingaraj temple, Nandan Kanan, Dhauli, Pipli. We consciously skipped the Dhaulagiri-Khandagiri caves.

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Recently had the chance to visit Cornwall in the UK for a three day trip with my friend. Honestly, the reason was purely because I couldn’t get my visa for Spain in time for the intended trip to Costa del Sol and Madrid, and I desperately needed some sun and sand. However, having said that, Cornwall is arguably the most beautiful part of England.

The County of Cornwall is at the south-western tip of Britain, and the tip basically stretches out into the sea. So Cornwall’s north coast faces the Atlantic while the south coast faces the English Channel.

The area, although being small, provides a varied option in terms of landscape and activities. The north coast is grander with more golden sand and surfing beaches, while the south is more sheltered beaches with coves and bays. The very tip (called Land’s End for obvious reasons) is more remote and rugged than anywhere else in England. Newquay and St.Ives’ are a couple of popular towns on the north coast and Falmouth, Truro and St.Austell on the southern coast. Since we had three days and we did not want to keep driving around everywhere, we decided to choose between the north and the south. We eventually decided to go for South Cornwall, as the beaches are less touristy and more quaint, it is quicker to reach by train from London and also has a couple of extremely popular gardens that we wanted to check out. On top of it we learnt that Daphne Du Maurier, who wrote ‘Rebecca’, one of our favourite novels, based it around the area we were intending to visit. That made the excitement two-fold.

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