Europe

Benvenuto a Roma – Welcome to Rome!!

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ROME – doesn’t this word alone trigger your imagination? Doesn’t it make you feel the romance in the air? Doesn’t it talk about style, culture, history etc etc ?? Yes, it surely does! The city is full of offerings for all varieties of travelers. It offers its best to everyone and makes sure that no one person goes back unsatisfied!! Am I talking like an ambassador of Rome who is proudly publicizing about it?? Naah, but frankly, I don’t care how I sound right now. All I want to do is to share my experience about my 2 day tour to this city which SURELY wasn’t built in a day!

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Portsmouth Ahoy! – Day 13 & 14

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Our 14th day in London was much more fun – for me. Our plan was to go to this town called Portsmouth. It is a waterfront city, with a lot of fun stuff to do, like arcades, amusement parks, and the most important of all, beachesJ. It is also the birthplace of Charles Dickens. Mausi Ji has a house there, and so we were going for an over-night trip.

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Southend-on-Sea Visit – Day 12

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We could see the water shimmering white, much closer to the beach now. The beach had started looking a rich shade of yellow, and we could see those cute little typical English houses in the background, beyond the beach. Anyhow, we reached the little pier all excited, hoping for some coffee or food stalls. However, the pier was just that – a pier. It was a wooden structure, with a huge-ish area to walk about in and a few benches to sit on. The view was quite lovely, and there was something about standing in the middle of the water, with the wind in your face and the sun shining above. The water tide had come in quite a bit and I wanted to get back to the beach. The next train was due half an hour later, and so I decided to make the most of it.

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Let’s Walk everywhere – Day 10 & 11

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Today was our tenth day here in London, and our plan for today was, er… nothing. We were basically going to sleep and rest for the first half of the day, then we would go to The Garden Café for a quick bite, and then for the second half we would come home and sleep and rest a bit more.
We decided to play a little game of taking pictures of the signboards that came on the way.

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A Quiet Day in Romford – Day 9

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Today was our 9th day in London, and my mother had planned for us another ‘fun’ day at the mall. The logic was simple – it was raining, we had to be indoors, so we might as well be indoors outside. We were to go to The Brewery first, and then The Liberty Mall, both located within close proximity of each other, in Romford. Romford is one of the major commercial centres in the London suburbs.

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Iceland – Reykjavik, the capital !(Last part)

Iceland – Reykjavik, the capital !(Last part)

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Reykjavik is a small city having a total population around 120,000. There are very few foreigners here and Indians are hard to find. There are a few Indian families and 10 students in Iceland University. Reykjavik is on the North Atlantic sea. Since the warm gulf stream traverses nearby Reykjavik, the climate of Reykjavik is never harsh. A maximum of 15/16 degrees in summers and around -5/-6 in winters. Some days may see temperature as low as -16C but these are rare. We enjoy 6 months of day and 6 months of night here. Another interesting point is that every other Icelanders vows to have met a ghost or troll or an elve.  There are certain places around Reykjavik known for such entities.  I have yet to meet one !!

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Thames River Cruise & Much More – Day-8

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It was a two-tiered open-top boat. We, of course, went to that top deck and took the seats in the front row. The weather was quite pleasant, sunny with just the right amount of wind, so that you weren’t too cold when the boat moved. A guide was giving us little nuggets of information on the landmarks along the Thames River. Mom and I were both busy clicking pictures on our respective devices, but did manage to intake most of the info being given by our guide. We had a closer look at Westminster Abbey and the Big Ben as we sailed past. We saw Canary Wharf, the Tower of London, the retired battle-cruiser – HMS Belfast; St Paul’s Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern, Tower Bridge and a lot of other bridges. It was a lot of fun going under the bridges, with mom trying to take pictures of the underside of the bridges.

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Iceland – Glaciers , Green and Blue

Iceland – Glaciers , Green and Blue

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Remember the scene of James Bond’s film Die another day, where Pierce Brosnan had a car chase in a lagoon with an ice palace in background ? Voila there we are going now to the Ice-lagoon, One of the most beautiful place on earth.

The Vatnajokull glacier, the biggest glacier in Europe is surrounded by magnificent mountains, slopes… the whole route to Ice-lagoon gives a feeling as if we are in heaven. Beautiful small villages, water-falls and meadows !!!

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Iceland – the land of waterfalls (Part 3)

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The most unique is their gait. These horse, unlike all other horses in the world, gallop without moving their backbone. It is just like toy horse. Only the legs of the horse move and upper portion (back) remains steady. All other horses in the world, when move the rider has to jump up and down with his back… but here the story is altogether different.

Click on “PLAY” button to  see the beautiful gait of Icelandic horses

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Iceland – (the moving continents) part 2

Iceland – (the moving continents) part 2

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The first tour is called “Golden Tour” and it consists of  pingvellir (spoken as thing – vetlir), Geysir and Gulfoss.  This Golden circle is a 5/ 6 hours journey by tourist buses, but it can actually take the whole day, if you are driving on your own, because tourist buses only stop at fixed places, but there are so many view points in the way that you need a full day to complete this circle.

So on a beautiful morning, after killing the cloud demon and freeing the Sun, we started our journey from Reykjavik and reached pingvellir… a distance of 40 Kms covered in one hour.  Pingvellir is the biggest valley in Europe and is on the banks of ping lake, again the biggest lake in Europe.

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Hello Wembley, Hi Freddie – Day 7

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The moment we reached the station I zipped out, making a run for the stadium, dodging people left & right, while mom followed closely panting behind. The stadium could clearly be seen from the station, but the speed with which I was sprinting did not exactly allow me to take my eyes off the road and the people on it – yes, the ones I was dodging – and so I couldn’t soak in its beauty, magnificence and all at that time.

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Iceland – the forgotten heaven !!

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When Indian travelers go to Europe, the prime target is always Eiffel Tower of Paris, alpine meadows of Swiss or Rome or Venice or London or  Keukenhof at the farthest.  


Iceland is not even known to many Indians.  It came to news mainly when its volcano erupted during summer of 2010, causing major disruption in air traffic across Europe, bringing many  airlines to the brink of bankrupcy.


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