What’s the best part of a road trip, of course, ROADS! and when it’s Norway, it becomes even better, driving across Fjords, tunnels, bridges, narrow roads, valleys, it was all unforgettable. While I wasn’t driving, I was shooting 😉 here are some of the views of Norwegian routes. The most scenic was Route 5, Route 63, & Route 64.
When it comes to exploring cities in Europe, I am a bit reluctant, especially when someone recommends going to the “old town” (I know there would be cobblestoned streets, a church, a town hall and a lot of expensive cafés).
However, Oslo turned out to be a pleasant surprise, a city flooded with modern architecture and music, we explored the area around the Opera House in Oslo for a couple of hours before setting off to our cabin in the countryside.
I don’t consider myself as a person with a Bucket List, maybe, because I have a broken bucket, so whatever plans I put in there, just leak out and never happen. So as soon as I realized that it’s possible to drive around Norway with an Indian driving license, I planned a road trip with my friends. Although, when we started with the plan, we were 9 people, planning to take a big Mercedes Vito van and drive around Norway. But, by the time of the trip, it was just 5 of us. So we rented a powerful Volvo V70 and sailed on the road trip of a lifetime.
So in 5 days, we traveled a little shy of 3000 kilometers, drove through and explored over a dozen of cities, drove through hundreds of kilometers of tunnels. And saw such a heavenly country that you can never get tired of watching. I won’t bore you with this text, enjoy the pictures. Continue reading “Norway #1: Friends • Fjords • Fun”
The most common question I’ve been asked in past couple of weeks is: Tell me some places to visit in Stockholm. Now the normal touristy destinations are quite different than the way one can explore a city while living for a longer time. There is a possibility of exploring those far, secluded unspoiled places where no tourist would go and only locals would know about. Fortunately, I’ve been exploring Stockholm for past one year with my photography group comprising mostly of natives, so we have gone to a lot of places that I wouldn’t have been able to discover by myself. So here are some recommendations for places to go in Stockholm and around, and don’t bother about searching them individually on the map, at the end of this blog there is a Google Map with everything marked on it, just bookmark it and start exploring. Continue reading “STHLM Guide #2 : Exploring Stockholm”
Before leaving for Trento, one of my friends has suggested me that if you have a choice of going to just once place near Trento, it should be Riva Del Garda, then a day before leaving for Riva, my friend Federico suggested to go on a hike on the Old Ponale road. Continue reading “Hike from Riva del Garda on Old Ponale road”
This summer, I went in Trento in northern Italy, attending a summer school at Uni-Trento. Lot’s of things happened on the trip which made it even more memorable, I took a loooong bus ride to reach Trento from Stockholm, went on a sponsored “study” trip to Venice and even went on a hike to nearby Riva Del Garda. Continue reading “Two weeks in Trento”
I remember that in my previous blog, my closing sentence was “I won’t go to Venice or Milan unless someone pays for my ticket”. Guess what, we got the chance to visit Venice for a “Study trip”. Currently, I’m attending a summer school in Italy at the University of Trento, which Includes a study trip as well, and luckily, the plant that we were supposed to visit was just 30 minutes away from Venice. I will skip the details of “Study visit” part of the day for obvious reasons.
Venice is a totally unique place, I have been to places deemed as “Venice of the East”, “Venice of the north” and I used to proudly flaunt about those as well, but believe me “Venice is Venice”, irreplaceable. No matter how many times you have seen it in Casino Royale or The Italian Job, the real thing is totally dreamlike. Everyplace where one could imagine a road, lies a canal, with water all around. An island that looks like a fish on the map houses a plethora of colorful houses, cafés, and shops. There are a lot of magnificent churches as well, roaming around directionless in those narrow alleyways is a wondrous feeling in itself.
I’ll stop boring you with text and let the pictures do the talking. Continue reading “A “study trip” to VENICE !!”
40 Hours of Traveling
5 Countries (Sweden – Denmark – Germany – Austria – Italy)
2200 kilometers
Continue reading “The Longest bus journey of my life (YET)!”
There is one ubiquitous thing about all big cities in Europe, no matter how beautiful they are, there would always be a hidden treasure, somewhere in the vicinity of that place and that would surely be an unspoiled and less crowded place. Sigtuna is an example of this around Stockholm.
I thought of making most of my time by exploring such places around Barcelona. With one side of Barcelona surrounded by sea, there are three other directions to explore, if you go north, you get to explore the pristine beaches of Costa Brava, If you go south, you’ll again reach the amazing beaches of Sitges and many more towns to follow, but if you go opposite to the sea, you’ll end up on majestic mountains of Montserrat. Let’s start exploring from Montserrat itself. Continue reading “Sun • Sand • Spain: #2 More than just Barcelona”
After my previous trip to Prague got screwed up, I had a couple of lessons, first was not to plan short trips and second was to see the weather forecast very carefully. On top of that, I realized that it doesn’t make much sense if I just go for a weekend to a place and complete a touristy checklist in a day or two and come back. I need to stay longer to soak in the beauty of any place. That’s why, this time, I planned a weeklong stay in Barcelona, most importantly, to satiate my craving for Sun.
I read it somewhere, “Barcelona assaults the senses in every possible way” (of course not the bad ways), and I found it to be absolutely true, the place is so enthralling that even a week after returning to Stockholm I find my mind wandering on the Catalonian beaches every now and then. Continue reading “Sun • Sand • Spain : #1 Barcelona”
Flight, Camera, Action 