We had requested Vivek, to come at his leisure and take us to any convenient sight seeing locations. Vivek came around 1030 AM. Manav was with him. We decided to go to Windsor Castle.
The drive to Windsor castle took around an hour. We had a good look at the country side on the way. There is a lake close to the car park, where ducks were in abundance. It was a great view on the Windsor lake.
The walk to the castle was just about 5 minutes. The castle was breathtaking. The surrounding areas were exceptionally clean. We paid around 15 pounds per head to enter the castle. The arrangements for ticket issues, etc., were well taken care of, in the sense that there were personnel to ask you what you wanted to see and direct you to the appropriate counters.
As in all big palaces and castles, the sight of the living rooms, drawing rooms, bedrooms etc were exceptionally huge with extremely rich looking furniture's.
There was a group of school children, being taken around, presumably with their teachers. The questions they were asking the personnel manning the castle viz How often does the queen visit the palace, when did she come last, which was the chair occupied by Prince Charles in the dining table etc., made one proudly look at the kids generation.
There is a doll room attached. where clothes worn by the royal family during various ages, with the name and address of the manufacturers were on display. Proud advertising for the manufacturers. Photographs of the royal family at various ages and occasions were very well displayed. This included the young days of Prince Charles, his school and college days, days spent with Late Princess Diana, marriage with the new princess, the children of the Prince etc., It was a splendid display.
We had a good tour outside. Here also, we saw the typical British guards. The way they move around every 20 minutes, catches the attention of one and all. We filled up a questionnaire and got 3 free passes for the next visit, which we gave to Vivek.
We exchanged our Euro for Pounds at a local bank. Had lunch at Mac, courtesy Vivek. Had a wonderful half an hour at the lake, feeding the ducks and enjoying Manav's reactions whenever he had ducks jumping at him for the feed.
We returned to the hotel at 1730. We decided to have dinner on our own, and requested Vivek not to pick us up for dinner, Saw a Euro cup soccer match on TV and went to sleep.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Day 11 - London (Last day with TCI)
According to TCI, this is the concluding day. You know what that means? Get up at 0600, have breakfast at 0700, check out at 0730. That is a day, as per the travel agents.
Well, we got up to say good bye to all our co travellers. We exchanged telephone numbers, and e mail IDs. Of course, the two of us decided to have a late breakfast.
We had breakfast at 0900, and checked out. We waited for Vivek to pick us up, which he did after making us anxiously wait till 1100. We drove down to his house, or the place where he was staying. He is on the verge of buying a house and is now staying with his friend. We had good coffee, made by Priyanka, his friend Parish's wife. They have a cute kid, also 2 yrs plus, called Trishh. We spent a couple of hours, being entertained by the continuous fights between Manav and Trishh.
Vivek took us out for lunch. Had a Masala dosa, after 12 days and enjoyed it. We then checked into Premier Inn, the hotel where Meenakshi is working. The room was excellent. We then went to his house again, had dinner there at 2300 hrs (that is their meal time), and returned to the hotel. The next few days in London was our extended holiday.
Well, we got up to say good bye to all our co travellers. We exchanged telephone numbers, and e mail IDs. Of course, the two of us decided to have a late breakfast.
We had breakfast at 0900, and checked out. We waited for Vivek to pick us up, which he did after making us anxiously wait till 1100. We drove down to his house, or the place where he was staying. He is on the verge of buying a house and is now staying with his friend. We had good coffee, made by Priyanka, his friend Parish's wife. They have a cute kid, also 2 yrs plus, called Trishh. We spent a couple of hours, being entertained by the continuous fights between Manav and Trishh.
Vivek took us out for lunch. Had a Masala dosa, after 12 days and enjoyed it. We then checked into Premier Inn, the hotel where Meenakshi is working. The room was excellent. We then went to his house again, had dinner there at 2300 hrs (that is their meal time), and returned to the hotel. The next few days in London was our extended holiday.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Day 10 - Paris and London
We were told bu our guide, that we had a long drive ahead of us to the Euro tunnel and then from there to London. The drive was 5 hours. Before getting into the Euro tunnel, we exhausted all our Euro coins, by purchasing snacks at one of the Auto Grilles.
We reached the Euro tunnel at 1430 hrs. Before that, we had to go through immigration, which took about 30 minutes. Our coach was to be driven into a train, and the train itself, through the tunnel to reach England. What an amazing engineering feat. The train drive was just 45 minutes. We had lunch on the train (outside the bus), and went on exploring the train from inside. We reached the other side in no time. The bus was driven out of the train, and we started driving around in England.
What surprised me though, was the efficiency of our coach driver. In England, you drive on the left hand side of the road, unlike Europe, where you drive on the right. The change over was not even noticed. And to drive through London traffic like this!
We passed through a lot of Indian (particularly Tamil( shops on the way to London. It made us feel at home. We were met by our London guide at Hyde Park.
We had a 3 hour session with the London guide. She was typically British, authoritative in whatever she said and extremely proud of herself. We were totally confined to our coach, except fro a short toilet stop and at the Buckingham Palace. The sight of the palace and guards, was exceptional, despite seeing these so often in movies. We drove through, the London Bridge, Tower Bridge, West Minister Abbey, Picadilly, Trafalgar square, Madame Tussaud's etc., The guide kept on giving anecdotes of each place in good humour. We saw an Iraqi, with a poster informing that it was now ...... days after the Iraq invasion, and justice was yet to be given. This was in Trafalgar square. We saw the Houses of Parliament, the famous Lords and Oval cricket grounds. All this done in less than 3 hours. We thanked ourselves for the decision to stay back in London with Vivek, for a few more days. I pitied the others in the group.
We checked into Hotel Ibis ( see a separate Blog on my Ibis experience). We then had dinner in an Indian restaurant. I wanted to call Vivek, to ask him to pick us up, the next day. We had no London coins, with us. It was past 2000 hrs, and there were no money changers open. We tried to use Euros, in and Indian shop to make a call. Although he would not accept Euros, the shopkeeper was kind enough to allow us to make a free call. Nice of him.
More about London in later blogs.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Day 9 - Paris
Today, was a free day for us to roam around on our own. Half the group had gone on a tour to Disney Land. We did not join and hence were on our own.
As a first step, we figured out, with great difficulty (language is a big barrier), the way to the nearest railway station, and from there to the main market area. We managed to get a map to the nearest railway station, called Mainswille. After a real leisurely breakfast, 10 of us started our own tour, with me as the leader.
We managed to follow the route on our map, for a couple of streets. We had been told that the station was a 30 minute walk and hence were careful not to lose our way. We met a school going negro boy on the way and asked him the way to the station. As he could not understand English, I showed him the map on my hand and asked him in sign language. He immediately turned around and gestured to follow him. I was under the impression that he would lead us to the end of a street and point out the way. Instead, he just kept walking. I had serious doubts, as to whether he had understood me correctly. Whenever stopped and asked, he only smiled. On the way, he waved to a few more negro boys and continued walking. I literally had to run to keep pace with him. The others, who were following were much slower than me and one can imagine their plight. I then had to stop him every few minutes for the others to catch up. Just to make sure that we were on the right way, I asked one of my colleagues to also ask passers by. Unfortunately, there were hardly anybody on the roads. All sorts of thoughts came to mind- was the boy one in a group of muggers, and were we going to get mugged- was that the sign he showed his colleagues on the way. Would he demand money for showing us the way (Anything nominal was O.K). Finally, after a full 40 minutes, I could see the station. I thanked my stars and caught hold of the boy's hands and thanked him profusely. I thought he was also going to the station. What happened next was unimaginable. He just turned around, gave a big smile and started walking back. Imagine, the poor boy had walked all the way, only to ensure that we got t right. What a shame to have so many doubts.
A few members of the group, said that the Almighty had come in the disguise of the boy to show us the way.
We boarded a train at the station (after a lot of enquiries. We learnt that when you buy 10 tickets, u get a 20% discount) and got down in a station near The Opera. We first did a lot of street shopping, and then got to admire the Opera House
and all the statues and carvings there. We sat on the steps for a while, had coffee in a nearby shop and started our walk to Arc deTriumphe. We asked a cabbie for the route. He politely told us that we need to walk for at least 30 minutes. The weather was fine and out job was to walk only. Incidentally the rest of our group got lost, shopping.
We took the long walk at 1230. We walked across Champ De Elysses admiring the shops all the way. It took a long 45 minutes to reach the magnificent Arc
. We of course, had our lunch on the way. We took the walk back to the station, where we got down. It took us a further 30 minutes. We shopped again and reached the station at 1530 hrs. We had been literally walking since 1030.
2 more of our group were waiting for us in the shopping arcade. The 4 of us took a train back. As we were tired, we decided to take a cab from the station to the hotel. We could not get any. We just enquired with a bus driver, who had parked his bus. He politely wrote the number of the bus we were to board and pointed the location, where it would stop to us. We waited and boarded the right bus, when it stopped, only to be told by this driver, that the bus would not go to our destination (all in sign language). He could not guide us further. We got another Negro saviour,
who simply took our hands and made us sit in the same bus. He got down after a few kilometres, asked us also to get down and pointed out the way to our hotel.
Thus ended our day long adventure, in Paris. Of course, we enjoyed it.
Some good Samaritans.
As a first step, we figured out, with great difficulty (language is a big barrier), the way to the nearest railway station, and from there to the main market area. We managed to get a map to the nearest railway station, called Mainswille. After a real leisurely breakfast, 10 of us started our own tour, with me as the leader.
We managed to follow the route on our map, for a couple of streets. We had been told that the station was a 30 minute walk and hence were careful not to lose our way. We met a school going negro boy on the way and asked him the way to the station. As he could not understand English, I showed him the map on my hand and asked him in sign language. He immediately turned around and gestured to follow him. I was under the impression that he would lead us to the end of a street and point out the way. Instead, he just kept walking. I had serious doubts, as to whether he had understood me correctly. Whenever stopped and asked, he only smiled. On the way, he waved to a few more negro boys and continued walking. I literally had to run to keep pace with him. The others, who were following were much slower than me and one can imagine their plight. I then had to stop him every few minutes for the others to catch up. Just to make sure that we were on the right way, I asked one of my colleagues to also ask passers by. Unfortunately, there were hardly anybody on the roads. All sorts of thoughts came to mind- was the boy one in a group of muggers, and were we going to get mugged- was that the sign he showed his colleagues on the way. Would he demand money for showing us the way (Anything nominal was O.K). Finally, after a full 40 minutes, I could see the station. I thanked my stars and caught hold of the boy's hands and thanked him profusely. I thought he was also going to the station. What happened next was unimaginable. He just turned around, gave a big smile and started walking back. Imagine, the poor boy had walked all the way, only to ensure that we got t right. What a shame to have so many doubts.
A few members of the group, said that the Almighty had come in the disguise of the boy to show us the way.
We boarded a train at the station (after a lot of enquiries. We learnt that when you buy 10 tickets, u get a 20% discount) and got down in a station near The Opera. We first did a lot of street shopping, and then got to admire the Opera House
and all the statues and carvings there. We sat on the steps for a while, had coffee in a nearby shop and started our walk to Arc deTriumphe. We asked a cabbie for the route. He politely told us that we need to walk for at least 30 minutes. The weather was fine and out job was to walk only. Incidentally the rest of our group got lost, shopping.
We took the long walk at 1230. We walked across Champ De Elysses admiring the shops all the way. It took a long 45 minutes to reach the magnificent Arc
. We of course, had our lunch on the way. We took the walk back to the station, where we got down. It took us a further 30 minutes. We shopped again and reached the station at 1530 hrs. We had been literally walking since 1030.2 more of our group were waiting for us in the shopping arcade. The 4 of us took a train back. As we were tired, we decided to take a cab from the station to the hotel. We could not get any. We just enquired with a bus driver, who had parked his bus. He politely wrote the number of the bus we were to board and pointed the location, where it would stop to us. We waited and boarded the right bus, when it stopped, only to be told by this driver, that the bus would not go to our destination (all in sign language). He could not guide us further. We got another Negro saviour,
who simply took our hands and made us sit in the same bus. He got down after a few kilometres, asked us also to get down and pointed out the way to our hotel.Thus ended our day long adventure, in Paris. Of course, we enjoyed it.
Some good Samaritans.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Day 8 - Belgium and Paris
We departed the hotel, as usual after a good breakfast.
Our first halt was at The Atonium, in Brussels. The Atonium, is an exploded view of the Atom. By exploded, I mean exploded a billion times. They have created this huge structure out of steel. That this is an atom makes one wonder. This was a 15 minute halt, where we all took photographs. There was an exhibition, in the place the previous night and the adjoining areas, were fully littered with beer bottles/cans and junk. The city wakes up late.
We then had a long, long drive to Paris. We eventually reached the outskirts at 1330 hrs, where we parked for lunch in an Auto Grille. We sat out and had our usual lunch, this time with some pickles and ended with a lot of fruits.
As we entered Paris, we saw a burning car n the middle of the street. Perhaps an accident. There was no hue and cry. Our tour guide, was informing the key places to us, before a local guide joined us at the Opera House.
She showed us around, with some explanations, here and there. The guide had a very good sense of humour. She showed us the various carvings/statues of the old music wizards in the Opera (All sitting in the coach). She showed us the famous Ritz, where Princess Diana stayed with her boy friend, who was the owner of the Hotel. We parked the coach for a 15 minute photo shoot at the Concorde square. The place where thousands were guillotined made us wonder, how cruel rulers could be. The guide kept telling us about the latest French president and his model girl friend turned wife and their living habits. It seems he is nicknamed "Tring Tring", as he loves to have money around him always.
We then drove around Champs de Elysees and gaped at the various latest showrooms. The Arc de Triomphe, resembled the India gate, and has also been made as a mark of respect to the dead soldiers. A good looking sight.
We saw the famous Louvre museum (seated in the coach). When referring to the paintings in the Louvre, the guide did make it a point to mention that "The Last Supper " painting was not in The Louvre, as mentioned by Dan Browne, and that The Da Vinci code was only apiece of fiction.
The pride some people have in their religion is amazing!
The last point of halt was the Eiffel Tower. We had a good 90 minutes halt here. The tower is just imposing to say the least. The scenario, with gardens all round and the beautiful Siene running across, is a sight to relish. This, according to me Ia a place, where one can spend entire evenings gaping around. We went to Level 1 only and had a few snaps, besides having a good view around. We came down, after 40 minutes, and strolled around the place merrily. We then had a cup of white coffee, while sitting and admiring the visitors from all countries.
The next was dinner t 1030 hrs (good food) before retiring to bed at a new hotel. The next day was off (on our own). The feeling that we could get up late, was very refreshing.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Day 7 - Germany and Belgium
Before I start writing about the day, I must inform that I had started enjoying the continental breakfast. Cereals of all types with big helping of milk and chocolate were getting tastier by the day.
We departed at 0830 hrs, for a cruise on river Rhine. We reached the cruise point at 1030. Had to wait for about 30 minutes, before boarding the cruise. Enjoyed window shopping in some small shops, which were also selling cuckoo clocks. Those who had second thoughts after Black Forest could make a buy. We did buy a set of coffee mugs for Madhu here.
The cruise was excellent. We had a good view of old castles and huge churches, as we passed. The vineyards, for which Europe is so famous, were great to see. We had a cup of coffee, as we relaxed during the one hour cruise.
Our next halt was Cologne (Koln). This was a 2 hour drive from the cruise point. We halted here for lunch.
The church is huge and imposing. The Gothic architecture on view, is a real sight. We had a good half an hour in the church. The glass work, is to be seen to be believed. We heard that this city was bombed thrice during the world war. However, nothing happened to the Divine church.
We had lunch at McDonald's. The only toilet in the vicinity is in Mac. I feel that Mac may be earning more revenue from the toilet, than the food, as they charge 50 cents for each usage.
We were commenting on the price of the Cheese burger, when a colleague gave a nice piece of information.
We then drove to Brussels the capital of Belgium (and the European Union. The tall buildings in Brussels had more of a resemblance to Singapore, than other European cities. The comparison has to stop here, as the place is quite dirty (for a European city). We visited the Grand Palace, which is the market square. This is of course, full of traditional European buildings. There are quite a few home made chocolate shops here. We had finished our purchase quota at Switzerland.
Belgium has quite a few beggars. They just sit on the pavement, with huge dogs by their side. There are also beggars, sitting by the side of statues, dressed and made up like the person in the statue.
Not a very good sight.
We then proceeded to see the Mannekin Pis statue. Ever heard of this? The guide's version is
We departed at 0830 hrs, for a cruise on river Rhine. We reached the cruise point at 1030. Had to wait for about 30 minutes, before boarding the cruise. Enjoyed window shopping in some small shops, which were also selling cuckoo clocks. Those who had second thoughts after Black Forest could make a buy. We did buy a set of coffee mugs for Madhu here.
The cruise was excellent. We had a good view of old castles and huge churches, as we passed. The vineyards, for which Europe is so famous, were great to see. We had a cup of coffee, as we relaxed during the one hour cruise.
Our next halt was Cologne (Koln). This was a 2 hour drive from the cruise point. We halted here for lunch.
The church is huge and imposing. The Gothic architecture on view, is a real sight. We had a good half an hour in the church. The glass work, is to be seen to be believed. We heard that this city was bombed thrice during the world war. However, nothing happened to the Divine church.
We had lunch at McDonald's. The only toilet in the vicinity is in Mac. I feel that Mac may be earning more revenue from the toilet, than the food, as they charge 50 cents for each usage.
We were commenting on the price of the Cheese burger, when a colleague gave a nice piece of information.
It is said that the economy of a city is based "on the price of the Mcburger". No wonder, Mac is yet to open in Chennai, even though they have outlets at all other importanct cities in India. The Chennaites, are probably more purse conscious.
We then drove to Brussels the capital of Belgium (and the European Union. The tall buildings in Brussels had more of a resemblance to Singapore, than other European cities. The comparison has to stop here, as the place is quite dirty (for a European city). We visited the Grand Palace, which is the market square. This is of course, full of traditional European buildings. There are quite a few home made chocolate shops here. We had finished our purchase quota at Switzerland.
Belgium has quite a few beggars. They just sit on the pavement, with huge dogs by their side. There are also beggars, sitting by the side of statues, dressed and made up like the person in the statue.
Not a very good sight.We then proceeded to see the Mannekin Pis statue. Ever heard of this? The guide's version is
"When Belgium was ruled by the French, there was great resentment amongst the Belgians. There was little they could do about this, as they were getting beaten from all fronts. This little boy - Mannekin - it seems, used to stand on the balcony of his house and vent his feelings, by peeing on the French soldiers, marching by. Once Belgium got on their own, they erected a statue of the boy peeing". Amazing isn't it! Now, this little boy is one of the star attractions here.
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