Eurotrip 3.0 : Monaco & Cannes!!

As we, the weary travelers, drove out of Pisa and by & through the Cinque Terre, the Italian & French Riviera, we were treated to some of the best views in any stretch of road in the world. So good in fact, that we were re-energized for the chequered flag of our journey, the last 3 days in Monaco, Cannes & finally in Milan.

We arrived in the evening in Beausoleil, France. The town is on a hill with Monaco down below, by the sea. One can literally take an elevator from France to the Principality of Monaco!  Our apartment-hotel (the Odalys Les Jardins d’Elisa) was a superb one with a well set up apartment overlooking the sea & the country-city of Monaco below.

Shyam stepped out to get wine & groceries for the evening and I was busy readying the pasta with Hari. The night views from the apartment were stunning and I managed to click some good long-exposure shots.

After filling our tummies with some more pasta and wine, we veritably crashed in our beds! The next day was going to be a drive down to Cannes, the red carpet & more!

With the season over, Cannes was almost a ghost town, as if people had simply run away. The drive into Cannes was an uneventful one and we reached there right in the middle of the day. Parking was not to difficult to find and was surprisingly inexpensive given it was Cannes! Certainly way cheaper than London, Hari confirmed.

We took a walk by the beach and ended up at a really nice restaurant in one of the by-lanes. Lunch was the ever-dependable  pizza. A good 25% more expensive than at most other places on our trip, but quite good! We drove up then, to the Church of Notre-Dame which gave some great views out to sea. The Church itself was quaint and simple, with not much to do.

As evening approached, we drifted towards the famed Cannes Red Carpet and did our customary Bond snaps and such. It felt quite weird, re ‘normal’, without all the celebrities and paparazzi… All in all, it was a nice, relaxed day, as was needed as our (in hindsight) grueling trip wound down to its last 48 hours. We had a quick bite at a McDonald’s and headed back to our apart-hotel overlooking Monaco.

At night, Hari, Vidya & I suited up to go spend some time at the Grand Casino of Monte Carlo, Monaco. The place was fairly deserted but it still had a slew of Ferrari’s, Benz’s & Porsche’s waiting outside – the owners and staff perhaps? My time spent studying at the casino in Kranjska-Gora earlier on in the trip came in handy as we won some money at the roulette table – something like a net gain of 100 euros. It was fun, but I was getting really sleepy by the end of it, as the clock sped well past midnight!

We returned to a good night’s sleep followed by a relatively early morning for checkout! The next few hours were spent driving up to the Oceanographic Museum, followed by the Prince’s Palace. While we didn’t go inside, the stunning beauty of the land standing tall against the sea kept us occupied.

The streets leading up to the palace were dotted with little clothes-shops and lovely eateries and and we had a nice lunch in one of them. As afternoon was turning to evening, we bade goodbye to Monaco to drive onwards to Milan (in pouring rain!). But not before we did two laps of the famed Circuit de Monte Carlo - an unforgettable experience taking me back to my days of being a formula 1 addict (doing more laps on the  computer game than I had watched in my lifetime)!

Eurotrip 3.0: Pisa...

The drive from Rome all the way upto Pisa was a tiring one. While it’s on most tourist itineraries, it was forcibly on ours as a single drive all the way up to Monaco would have been too tough to do.

After catching the Fontain de Triveli in Rome, we set out on our drive to Pisa. Lunch was at a place on the highway, and wasn’t really much to write home about. On arriving in Pisa, we were treated to its famous foul odour, which is ever-present throughout the town. After checking into our hotel room, we drove out into town to grab some grub. The restaurants weren’t all that great so we ended up having some shawarma at a ‘Turkish’ joint run by a Bangladeshi (again!).

We dropped by the leaning tower in the morning, and it was utterly unimpressive after the grandeur of Rome & the Vatican. After the usual pics of holding up the tower, leaning against it, etc., we were off! Next stop, Monaco!

Eurotrip 3.0: Rome & Vatican!

We arrived in Rome late in the evening on the 23^rd. It was going to be another campsite (Camping Roma) just outside the city. With the exact address not showing up on the GPS, we actually ended up asking someone for directions, something we should’ve probably done when we were close to the address anyways! (What idiots technology makes out of us sometimes J). The staff was quite rude on arrival, and even refused to consider Riya as a baby (despite the bookings.com policy not making any mention of it).

The bad mood was all wiped away though by Hari whipping up some awesome spaghetti pasta. Riya was fast asleep and with some red wine also flowing, the scene was set for a super night of fun. We had singing sessions, wearing the Venetian mask sessions, and jokes galore. My throat was a bit of a mess before the night started, and by the end of it, it was a colossal one. But it had capped a memorable birthday celebration for me which had started almost 24 hours ago, in a beautiful restaurant in Florence!

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The next morning was a late one. After having the usual brunch in the camping village, we drove out to meet the monumental achievements of Roman architecture. Starting with the Colosseum, the sheer grandeur of Rome has to be seen to be believed. Each structure is made with utter disregard to scarcity of any materials or space. It was as if the kings just told the architects & engineers “Make it as big as you can, with whatever it takes!” I think, by the end of evening, I had seen so many of these structures with my jaw agape, that it had an irreversible change of shape! And we had, literally, just seen one ‘street’ full of monuments. No pictures can do justice to this place. And to think that it was made all those centuries ago, made it that much more awe-inspiring.

After the 'monument'al dose and what seemed like an age of having pasta & pizza, we were craving for some good-ol’ Indian food. We hooked up the GPS to direct us to any Indian restaurant around, et voila – we made it to a place called ‘Jaipur’ and had some delectable roti & curry!! Ah, what a relief it was!!

The next day was reserved for the Vatican, and for the size and sheer detail of it, it probably needed two, even for the regular tourist. The audio guide was seemingly endless and had so many layers and levels, it was difficult to go through it completely while keeping pace with what we were seeing. And it was near impossible to take time at every exhibit with Riya powering through like a Duracell bunny!! :-)

I simply had to continue my ‘jaw agape’ expression through the Vatican, with each painting or work of art being of such intricate detail and such historical importance. All said & done, they had also packaged it all really well, and I just thought to myself that if some of India’s sites had packaged their art and history even half as well, they would see many, many more international visitors than the Vatican.

After spending the day gnawing through Vatican, we dinked into a McDonald’s to get a quick bite before we headed back to the camping village. On the way, I picked up some wine at a store run by a Bangladeshi, and that was to keep us company as we wound down the day with some light food and snacks. 

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We had planned 3 nights, and 2 days in Rome, and in the end it was just about right. The major sights – The Colosseum, Vatican City and the infinite list of monuments, were all covered comfortably.

Eurotrip 3.0: Florence!

We arrived on the eve of my birthday in the beautiful city of Florence. I was told that the city’s vibe is much like Bombay, and I could already see why. At 9pm on a Saturday night, it was near impossible to get any parking! We rode around for over half an hour before we could find a parking lot which wasn’t full! By the end of it we weren’t quite sure which area we were in, but it didn’t matter, we had parking!! Just outside the parking lot, was a road dotted with restaurants and pubs. People were stumbling in and out of most pubs, as we passed by looking for a quieter place to settle. Round the corner was just the place we were looking for – a nice little restaurant, buzzing with people having their pizzas, pastas and wine. We had to wait a bit for our table to be available, and I was already eyeing some yummy-looking seafood on one of the tables. Once we had our own, and the menu, I instantly looked for the seafood platter, and knew that the new year in my life was going to be rung in with a satisfied tummy. J

And the platter did not disappoint. Vidya & I dug into the fish, prawns and calamari! Shyam ordered a rice dish and didn’t look too happy, so joined in some of the seafood binge. Big brother, Hari, done with his veggies and wine, was more than happy to take the tab, making my birthday-eve dinner even more memorable!

But there was more to come. As we got to our lovely serviced apartment, at the stroke of midnight, the three stooges conjured to pick me up and give me a dose of (rather labored) birthday bums. I was at least 20% heavier than my 50 or so kgs when I had gotten my last dose back in college. But Hari’s work at the gym ensured that he alone could carry most of the weight. It ended a one-of-a-kind celebration with family and we were all set to get a glimpse of the Duomo next day before riding to Rome…

Sunday morning was as all Sunday mornings should be. Late, relaxed and lazy… We had to checkout by 12, so that necessitated some scrambling for brunch, but that was about it.

We headed straight out and were lucky to find a parking spot just a walk away from the magnificent Duomo. The entrance line looked long, but moved quickly. I had dinked away to get some cash and by the time I rejoined the line, the gang was right at the entrance!

The structure was beautiful on the inside as well with sunshine streaming in through multiple stained-glass windows, including some on the incredibly high domed roof. We strolled around for a bit, I tuned into the ‘Santa Maria’ audio-guide, and took some snaps before heading out to shop for some good leather goods. After about an hour or so, only Vidya managed to get hold of a stunning pair of boots for a steal. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular (as usual), so ended up empty-handed (again, as usual). We had a rather long drive to Rome, so after a quick bite (PIZZAS, what else?!), we headed out to our penultimate destination in Italy – Rome, was a calling.

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I’m sure I will come back to Florence someday. While this visit lasted only a few hours, it whetted the appetite enough for a Florence Part Deux. There are some places where, when you arrive, you just feel at ease. Florence’s similarity to Bombay, perhaps, gave me that feeling.

Eurotrop 3.0 : Venice!

After the incredible ‘high’ of Kranjska Gora, we moved towards the ‘low’ city of Venice. We were to camp just outside Venice, in the town of Marghera, at Camping Jolly. This was the first “Camping Village” that we were going to stay at. I was looking forward to it after the glimpse I got of camping at Camping de la Treille in Cavalaire-sur-Mer, France, earlier on in my trip.

A Camping village is set of row houses with the bare necessities – a few beds, dining table, kitchen with utensils & gas and bathrooms. They’re quite cramped on the inside, but with ample place on the outside – usually a sit-out area with a wooden floor, tables & chairs. I noticed several families completely setting up shop at these ‘villages’ as though they were going to stay there for weeks, if not months. And that’s how they usually go, I suppose, like a holiday home away from home!

Camping Jolly also had a supermarket, restaurant and pub in the premises – so one could do shopping for veggies, pasta & such for cooking themselves a good lunch, and then have a glass of wine & shake a leg in the evening. We bought a ton of stuff as supplies for the next few days that we were going to spend there. (In hindsight, these were low quality & expensive, so we actually shopped for supplies at supermarkets in the city instead).

The drive down from Kranjska Gora was quite eventful, with everyone agreeing at some point that we’d clearly crossed over into Italy – with drivers driving appallingly (in comparison to Austria & Germany of course; compared to India they were still angels!). We had stopped at a fueling station and I decided to check the tyre pressure. Turned out we had lost pressure so Hari & I went about filling some more air. Half way through we realized that we were actually seeing all readings in the wrong unit, so we had to release some pressure to get it back to where it was, which was normal to begin with!

We reached in the evening and were happy to have dinner at the restaurant in the village. The waitress at our table was in a particularly sprightly mood and danced in with the menu, and our subsequent order. The food was just about alright and we were ready to have a good night’s sleep before we set out to Venice in the morning.

There were regular buses from the village to Venice and we took one around mid-day. The weather was quite warm and our hats and shades were put to good use. The bus dropped us off just outside Venice and we were to take a train, the ‘Tronchetto’, to the other side, into the floating city of Venice. The train went past a port terminal where several luxury cruise ships were docked. As the mini-train rolled into the station at Venice, there were glimpses of a bustling city teeming with tourists. We didn’t really have much of a plan for Venice, apart from just walking around, having gelato & pizzas and getting lost!

And that’s pretty much what we did for the next couple of days… The idea for Day 1 was to go in the general direction of Rialto & then San Marco. There were several instances of us veering off track thanks to a promising looking street, but over the course of the afternoon, we did make it there. The big, expensive restaurants were overpriced and the food wasn’t all that appetizing. It’s the little ones tucked in alleys, that typically don’t have place to sit, that we figured served the best food. You can see a lot of people just streaming in and out of these joints, picking up food (usually pizzas) and leaving in a jiffy. We tried out one such place, with pizzas at just 1 euro a slice! For 10-12 euros, the five of us were a nicely ‘fed up’ bunch!

On the way, we picked up Vodafone connections from a proper Vodafone store that promised some 100 minutes of free calling to India. But over the course of the trip we realized it was a scam as we ran out of minutes with just 20 minutes of talking! Didn’t read the fine print, I suppose!

After walking for over 4 hours, we made it to San Marco, a large open square with a tower and church on one side. It was well worth going on top of the tower to get a glimpse of Venice in the setting sun! The views were to die for and the weather was perfect!

We headed back to the village for the night and cooked ourselves some nice pasta before retiring for the night. The next day, we were back to walk around a lil’ bit more and do the famed Gondola ride in Venice’s waters. 80 euros for a 20 minute ride in rather suspect, dark, smelly water, was a bit steep. It’s a usual bucket-list item, nevertheless, and I was glad I got that out of the way!

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Life seems to slow down when in Venice. Nobody’s in a hurry. Everyone’s just meandering through and has a smile on their face. It’s a place stuck in time, without any large, imposing, shining modern buildings. It’s also a place where everyone’s an equal. The millionaire and the pauper are both on foot. No BMWs, Mercs or Jags. The sounds you hear are the chatter of people, heels on cobblestones, sometimes church bells in the distance, and pretty much nothing else.