Prague the historic city in Czech, May 2018.

The beautiful city of Prague/ Praha in Czech has a lot of history and many interesting places to visit.

We decided to visit the famous Prague castle, cathedral, Charles bridge and the night life with authentic Czech food at “U Vejvodu”

To start with we stayed in an independent house in Bechovice that had 3 bedrooms. Very well maintained and absolutely stunning, with a kitchen.

The trip to the 9th century castle was an extremely pleasant experience for many reasons. Couple of which I would like to quote here;

1) we were in the castle on the first day of tourism season, that meant all entries were free.

2) The tour guides who work for the castle were suppose to render their services for free, only for that day. They had also requested retired guides to come and help tourist for free.

So guess what we had this young old sweet man all of 88yrs near us. He asked us can I help you and I said well, we are not sure if we need a guide, since we were not planning to spend a lot of time there. He said no problem I can just tell you as much as you want and you know I will do it for free. I laughed and he said, don’t laugh I am serious. And than he told us that we had indeed arrived on a very special day.

And from then on we walked and talked together for 3hrs. He had a wealth of knowledge, since he worked in the castle for almost 50yrs. He just loved us, because he had not met any Indian before and he was very curious to know a lot about India. We exchanged a lot of information about our respective countries. After 3 hrs we kissed him goodbye. I really take a lot of good memories from this particular trip. Mr Slavek you stole my heart. I will always remember you in my memories of Prague.

Charles Bridge full of tourists, but a good place to hang around, with a good view of the castle from below.

Dinner at a local restaurant was total Czech with whole load of meat. Czech’s eat a lot of meat and barely any veggies. I presume a vegetarian might have a difficult time here. The restaurant that we visited is open till 3am everyday and till 4am on weekends. You must have guessed how hard they party!

Quaint Salzburg, Austria May 2018

Salzburg was the shortest and sweetest. Motive of seeing this city was to know more about the legendary musician “Mozart”.

Konigssee lake was our first stop just when we were ready to cross the German border and enter into Austria. This beautiful lake konigssee is a part of the Berchtesgaden national park. We stopped by to see this mesmorising lake surrounded by mountains.

One interesting thing to notice in Salzburg is when we park and enter the old city through the tunnel the temperature suddenly drop and it gets so cold that we literally have to get our jackets on.

Historic centre of the city of Salzburg is a photo view point and if you are a tourist photo is mandatory.

Our main stop followed. Mozart’s museum, this use to be his home. It is well preserved with loads of information. A lot is written about him, his family and his compositions. If you are a music lover and have tried your hands on the notes and music of Mozart, it is a place one would like to visit.

This sure made us hungry and so we decided to have our lunch at the open farmers market. This place has a good choice of fresh vegetables, fruits and bread.

Another important point to be noted is that we walk atleast 6- 9kms everyday. This helps us digest all the food that we consume. So it’s hard work and food.

Salzburg, Austria sure was another country, another culture and another learning.

Travel – this helps you grow!

The Big Brother Germany May 2018

And why do I call it the “Big Brother” well I personally felt of all the countries I visited in Europe, Germany was much more advanced and forward.

Our long drive of more than 10 hours was completely worth. Our entry to Munich was by first searching for a place to have dinner. We accidentally discovered a wonderful quaint place Gasthof Zahler. This place is run by a family that serves the most authentic German food, cooked in their kitchen. The food and service was par excellence.

Our stay was as exciting as our dinner, we stayed in a chateaux that had beautiful rooms. Not sure if chateaux’s are built anymore, ours was a pretty old one, but taken care of very well.

The next morning we visited the most talked about place in the soccer world, The Allianz Arena, the home of FC Bayern. Our tour there was an eye opener in many senses. We got to see the mamoth stadium that accomodates 75,000 people on a match day. Our tour guide walked us through each and every part of the stadium. We sure were impressed by this dream land.

After the Arena, we just decided to walk past the field and open space around the chateaux and oh my god it was such a beautiful evening walking near the yellow vast quite land.

Bavarian dinner is exciting. We tried quiet a few dishes at Die post and they were all very good. The waiters were traditionally dressed and that sure added to the flavour.

It was time to say goodbye to this beautiful country with another awestrucking breakfast place in the neighborhood where we could smell the fresh bread being baked.

And I would again conclude by saying. ” Travel brings a new horizon to your life and when you share it with others, it illuminates their life’s too”

The Beautiful Netherlands May 2018.

Netherlands the place of Color and fun.

Amsterdam is the place we visited. The drive from Brussels to Amsterdam was beautiful. We stopped by for coffee and lunch.

Checked in to ibis and I must say it is a pretty decent place. We ensured we did not stay anywhere in the main cities, since we wanted to enjoy the country side.

On the first day we visited zaansechans, this is a historic place where one gets to see the huge ancient windmills that were built in the 17th century. The place were clogs are made traditionally. And ofcourse loads of varieties of cheese. My personal favourite was the pesto cheese.

The place is very well maintained inspite of the fact that it’s so old and have do many tourists walking in.

The food at the Restaurant De kraai was very basic, but yummy with savoury ham and cheese and sweet strawberry pan cake.

And I was very pleased to meet by friend Daniel who took the day off and travelled all the way for 3hrs to meet us. Really appreciate it my friend.

The fishing village of Volendam was awestrucking. I personally like water fronts and this one sure was one of my favorites. The calamari, fish and chips from the carts were yummy no doubt.

One important observation was in Amsterdam people use bicycle extensively. The main station has a special reserved parking for bicycle. There are not hundreds but thousands of bicycles parked there and it’s a treat to see it. Not sure how people identify their bicycles, but I am sure they have figured it out.

The night life and boat ride at Amsterdam was fun. The boat ride gave us a brief history about the water ways and how efficiently it’s been used than and now. There are two thousand odd working boat houses were people live, pay their taxes and maintain it well. Somewhere I was dreaming about something similar in chennai. Since our water ways are just stinking and unused. And I believe dreams do come true!

The food options are many in the city, but since we were too tired we decided to get some shawarma and kebabs from a Palestinian food place.

Next morning was exciting since we decide to visit the most colourful keukenhof. The important information about this place is it’s open only for one month in the whole year. The Tuplis are beyond beauty. It is a place where one feels happiness, joy, love and peace. The colours can heal us totally. There are thousands of visitors every day. But everything is so well organised and there is no confusion at all.

Our experience was very pleasant. The drive was very smooth.

Our special thanks to our dear friend Dinesh who agreed not only to host us, but also drive us to this beautiful place and share a his previous experience of traveling through the length of Europe.

Save that little money from all your expenses to travel, it sure makes a lot of difference in the way you look at life. My travel experience has surely given me a different perspective and made me understand that people think, talk and act based on their experience. So there is no wrong or right. As long as we follow basic human rules in your life.