Eurotrip 3.0: Oh Osijek!!

My second (and last) evening in Zagreb was an amazing one. Vladimir came back from work and we decided to cook ourselves a meal! I cooked some Indian style egg plant/aubergine/brinjal/baingan curry and cut up some salad. Vladimir a.k.a. Leny, made some tomato+mushroom+onion sauce and also cooked some turkey meat in the oven. I had made the curry with an assortment of ‘spices from Istanbul’ that Leny had purchased on a recent travel to the city. I had never imagined I would be cooking a meal in Croatia with spices from Turkey! :)

The next day, I had my drive to Osijek starting at around 2 pm. Leny’s friend Marco offered to drop me as he was headed to Osijek as well! We took a longer, more scenic route, rather than the regular 2 hour drive on the highway. But it was raining all the way and I didn’t manage to get much of a view beyond a few meters from our car! It was belting down, but we were still doing a 100 km/hr on some stretches!

Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia, with a grand population of 90,000 people! The whole city can pretty much be covered by an hour’s walk and in my three days there I took at least 3 such walks! It was cold and drizzling when I arrived on Thursday evening, but ‘Katty & Shek’ were not going to let that dampen our spirits. A Hollywood/Bollywood romance of love across continents, my friends Katarina & Abhishek were to be married on Saturday! And the party in Osijek was just about to begin.

Outside club Tufn@ in Osijek!

It might be a small town, and it might look quiet, quaint and laid-back, but boy do these folks know a thing or two about all night partying! In my 3 nights in Osijek, I tucked back into my hotel room at 5am, 5am and 8am respectively! After each night I’d think, “no way I’m going to be able to do this again tomorrow”, and then, we’d go out and do it again!

Between all the partying there was the walk through the old town and by the river, football at a plush green local ground, and of course, the most amazing, awesome wedding!

After a groggy Friday morning & afternoon, the evening was perfectly setup for a nice walking tour through the city. All the ‘internationals’ got together at the Cathedral and led by our Professor in Psychology plus part-time-guide, we were off. At 95m high, the Cathedral is humongous, and looks like a whole football field could fit inside of it.

Osijek is super green - there are parks, parks & more parks…! The guide told us about an award that was instituted for the ‘Greenest European City’ in 1981. Osijek won that award for 3 years running, but was subsequently ‘banned’ from consideration as there was no other city that came even close! What’s great is that even after 30 years, it’s still just as green, and just as much a walking/biking paradise! All roads and parks are flanked by separate biking/roller skating and walking lanes! And it’s not unusual to find people cycling even in the middle of the night!

And then there’s the river. The Drava meanders along the Northern edge of the city and is dotted with walking paths and cafés… I could imagine spending early evenings playing some football at the ground just by the river and following it up with a drink at one of the cafés!

I happened to do just that on Sunday evening and… oh, the joy, THE JOY!!

The wedding was on Saturday and started at around 4pm in near-perfect weather. The sun was playing hide & seek with the clouds and there was the slightest nip in the air. 17 degrees C. I was nice and comfy in my coat! The flags of India & Croatia led the procession into the hall! I was tasked with waving the flag at the entrance and thoroughly enjoyed my 10 minutes of fame doing it!

Then, in the hall, we were treated to a traditional Croatian song & dance with sword-wielding women in colorful dresses. It was an absolute treat to watch! The scene shifted to the church soon after for the wedding vows.

The couple arrived on a horse carriage with two gleaming-white super-horses! It’s the grandest entrance I have seen at a wedding and I think it will be tough to match for any other weddings that I will get to experience in my life.

The sweetest little princess angel girls led the way for the couple into the church, dressed in sparkling silver white with magic wands that have a little star on the tip! It was perfectly choreographed and worked to the smallest detail. Ruzica, Jelena & Ana, the ‘project owners’ for the Osijek leg of the wedding had already done a fantabulous job!

After the ZNMD style bridesmaid, best-man & couple ‘woohoo’ outside the church, the scene shifted back to the wedding hall where a cultural extravaganza awaited everyone. After a short round of speeches, everyone was treated to a special Bharatanatyam dance performance by Katarina’s friend Maya. As the wine & drinks began to flow, a traditional Croatian band played some peppy music. Soon, the couple and the entire guest list were on the huge dance floor beginning to have a ball! I hadn’t seen a wedding where each of the guests was singularly enjoying so much! The music soon switched to a Serbian rock band, attracting cheers from the Croatian guests as the previous band was getting a bit too traditional for their liking!

The drinks and party and after parties continued till Sunday morning, and so ended one of the awesomest weddings I will get to see in a lifetime, if not the best, in one of the prettiest cities I will ever be to!

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The trip now moves to Wattens, Austria & as I type this in the train en route, I’m going past snow capped peaks, green valleys and crystal clear rivers shining in brilliant sunshine!! Looks like Osijek is already going to face some competition in the ‘prettiest city’ race in my head!

Eurotrip 3.0: Zagreb - what might have been

A dark, cold mist descends on the beautiful Zagreb skyline as I write this. Just yesterday it was twenty-five degrees C and brilliant sunshine. Today it’s ten, and pouring biting cold rain! That’s also been the story of the city of Zagreb in the last few decades…

Just like any leading European city!

I was lucky to catch this beautiful city in all its ‘sunshone splendour’ yesterday. Landscaped green gardens and lakes dot the city, with mountains overlooking in the horizon! Humongous buildings and monuments greet you seemingly at every other corner. Modern trams whiz past you taking commuters and tourists alike from one place to the next. Wide open roads make traffic seem light even at peak hours. Its an urban paradise!

But all of these are the product of Marshal Tito’s time in Croatia (one of the socialist republic blocks of the Yugoslav Republic). The 60s & 70s were the sunshine years in the state. Most of the road, rail & tram systems that we see today functioning in central Zagreb and indeed in all of Croatia are thanks to that time. But after Tito’s death, and the break-up of Yugoslavia into Croatia & other states, it’s been dark days.

When I landed, on the face of it, Zagreb looked like any other Western European city. Good infrastructure, efficient public transport and some beautifully preserved architectural wonders. Scratch the surface, though, and it’s not a very happy story. My host, Vladimir, talks of a sense of despondency amongst the public, of a sense of what was (the great 70s), and what should have been – but for the war. The thought s are echoed by the waiter/owner of the restaurant where I have my lunch… “These are bad times, sir… The margins are nothing and customers are just not there” – this coming from a restaurant right in the center of town next to the Cathedral where I had a scrumptious meal for just 10 euros!

The ‘bad times’ have not, though, caused the city to fall into the hands of crime & such. It is still a safe place, and an absolute delight for tourists.

I took a long 6-7km walk around the centre of town, spending time at the tourist hotspots – King Tomislav Square, Marshal Tito Square, Zagreb Cathedral & Ban Josip Jelacic Square to name a few. There’s also a nice little statue of the great scientist, Tesla sitting, thinking, on a street corner. The whole place gave me a vibe of being laid-back and yet a bit on the edge – almost as if you were lying down but with one eye open looking around warily.

Sight that greets one at Zagreb station

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Getting to Zagreb was a mini-story in itself. I took a round-about route from Marseille to get to Barcelona via Toulouse. A quick look at the map will tell you I traversed two sides of a triangle. But that was the only routing that saved me a night-stay at a hotel. It set me back by some 140 euros but the train ride was comfortable and even included a first-class coach from Narbonne to Barcelona with a video of ‘Wonderful creatures of the sea’ playing on the solitary TV. While the France leg of the journey was cloudy and dark, as soon as the train crossed the border (and Spanish border inspectors), it was sunny Spain all the way!

An evening flight from Barcelona meant I had a few hours to kill. I made it up to Park Guell, one of the few things I had missed on my last trip. The ‘usual’ insane Gaudi creations welcome you at this historic park. It has some great views of the city as well and is worth spending a couple of hours just wandering.

Park Guell

The flight from Barcelona to Zagreb was uneventful but for a few bursts of lightning that bode of possible rough weather in the coming days in Croatia.

It took me a whole day of rest to recover from the wedding party & all the traveling around it. Recharged, I walked entire Zagreb town dry and today it’s onwards to Osijek.

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Perhaps, Croatia joining the EU next year will provide the silver lining that this city & this country so desperately need. If all goes well, Zagreb will be restored to its former glory and will challenge other major European cities.

To hope!!

Eurotrip 3.0 : Paris, Côte d’Azur & the story of the missing baggage

How often have you heard people’s baggage not coming in with their flight? Maybe a couple of times… And how often has it happened to you?  Most likely never! It was the same for me… until…

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A couple of months back, when I was booking tickets for my upcoming Eurotrip, my regular ticket ‘agent’, cleartrip.com gave me Turkish Airlines as the cheapest option. 42,000 rupees for a Mumbai-Paris, Milan-Mumbai circuit seemed like a decent price versus competition. The usual suspects, Emirates, were conspicuous by their absence at the top 3 in the list. Last time I flew Emirates for 32,000 in an almost similar route. Sadly, it wasn’t to be this time, and I had to contend with 42,000 with Turkish Airlines. A quick call to my friend (who’d recently been to Turkey on Turkish) gave me confidence that it was a fairly decent airline. (Later I would find out that Turkish Airlines are the ‘European Airline of the year’ winners two years running! More on that soon).

The good thing about the connection was that it had only a 1 hour stopover in Istanbul – so was almost as good as the direct flight, but half the fare! Leaving Bombay at 6 in the morning, I would be at Paris by 2 in the afternoon (Paris time). I thought that was pretty cool. Suddenly Europe didn’t seem that far.

On the day of the flight, I reached the airport uneasily early at 3am and groggily dragged myself to the Turkish counter. A rather irritable guy was behind it, and I confidently told him that I had no luggage to check-in. I wanted to take my suitacase/trolley with me so that I could just step out of Paris airport & head to the city to catch my train (which was 2 hours later) to Hyères, in the South of France.

Since the guy obviously had no better business, he asked me to weigh my bag. Grudgingly, I agreed. It was 14 kilos, 6 kilos over the ‘limit’. If you fly frequently enough, you will notice that the ‘limit’ applies most often when the dude at the counter has nothing else to do. I had no choice but to hand in the suitcase.

The plane was choc-a-block full and I wondered where on earth were so many Indians going, on a Friday morning that too! The plane was quite normal looking, quite different from the classy Singapore Airlines or the (once) shining Emirates. The staff didn’t seem very friendly, and I couldn’t blame them – the hoards of Indians there were loud, and completely unaware of rules. One dude kept pushing back his seat while the plane hadn’t even taken off. Another old aunty got up to go to the loo as the flight was taxiing. It was chaotic to say the least. Not something anyone needed at 6am!

The food that came once the flight took off was run-of-the-mill. Istanbul arrived rather soon as I dozed off desperate to catch up on the night’s lost sleep.

Istanbul airport looks a lot like Dubai - A bustling transit airport with people running from one gate to the other. All I got, though, was a brief 30-minute glimpse of it as I hurried to catch my connecting flight to Paris.

The plane to Paris was trash and 50% of the screens weren’t working. The ones that were, only had the flight path being displayed. Yes, it’s only a 3 hour flight, but that doesn’t make it a non-international flight. Hell I paid 40,000 bucks, at least show me a movie no! And if this was the European Airline of the year, I shudder to imagine what the others would be like!

I landed at reached the baggage belt at exactly 2.00 pm. The bags started coming in 4 minutes. Pretty soon though, I was checking my watch time and again. My suitcase was nowhere in sight and I was having less & less time to get out of the airport, to the city and to my train! During the long wait, I had intuitively checked where the ‘missing baggage’ counter was, and how people were exiting once they took their baggage. All scenarios had been worked out. And contingency plans prepared. At 2.55 pm, after multiple delays, staff coming and checking the belt as it had stopped working, the ‘baggage delivery completed’ sign flashed. Contingency plan 1 was to be put into action! I headed straight for the missing baggage counter. They told me that the bags will arrive only at 6pm. That meant I had to miss my train. But that also meant I had to go to the city, get my ticket reworked and come back to take my bags.

But, surprisingly, they offered to deliver my bag wherever I would be! I hadn’t planned for this ‘contingency’. So I filled out the form and asked them to deliver it to my hotel in the South of France. But I would be there only 2 days and that would also mean I would attend my friend’s wedding having bought clothes off the shelf in one of the most expensive places on the planet!

Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen. So I went into the city, took the tickets from Alice and reworked ‘em to get a later train from the airport itself. My cousin sister, who lives in Paris, also joined me for the trip back to the airport. I picked up my bag, which arrived on the same belt as soon as I reached there, as if on cue, and we had some nice pasta & sandwiches before I was off on my train to Marseille.

Cavalaire-sur-mer (sur mer literally translating to ‘on the sea’) was the final destination and it’s a 2 hour drive from Marseille. Usually people rent cars and go there, but I had a pickup waiting in the form of one of the wedding party – Mathieu. We had a nice chat (about Marseille, Cavalaire, Syria,traveling in general & Manchester United) along the way and picked up Alice in Hyeres (another town between Marseille and Cavalaire) who was stuck there as there were no buses to Cavalaire!

Cavalaire-sur-mer

Clearly public transport isn’t something that the Côte d’Azur (Blue Coast) is famous for. Usually the rich and famous come in their Mercedes’, BMWs et al, or their private jets, which land in Hyeres-Toulon airport!

Brilliant blue waters all along the way, clear blue skies and awesome roads. It’s driving paradise! I remember the game NFS where one of the tracks was ‘Côte d’Azur’ and I dreamed of going there sometime. That dream is now fulfilled. 

Côte d’Azur - unparalleled driving pleasure