“We are strictly a point to point airline.” says the conditions apply text of Ryanair. We managed to find that out the wrong hard way. :(

I was supposed to be enjoying a 4-day sojourn in Barcelona rather than blogging from a friends house right now. The flight was scheduled to depart at 1245hrs yesterday. We were on time, passed the security clearance without hassles and waiting our turn to board. Suddenly they announce that due to bad weather our flight is indefinitely delayed. Hmmm.. Ok… a slight delay no probs. Quarter of an hour later comes the second announcement that our flight is canceled, but they will give us a refund or a free booking on some other connection. Ok fine. We go to a counter to check out our options. She says there is a flight from Frankfurt-Hahn the next day morning. I asked whether they would provide us accommodation and transportation, basically because it is very difficult to reach this airport in the middle of nowhere. She tells me that I have to check that out with the Ryanair people and she doubts whether they will help us. Next question: Where do you find someone from Ryanair? Her reply – “In Ireland!”. Neat. Rather clever. No one from Ryanair is there in the entire airport. Can you believe that? And apparently to get the refund I have to spend money and post them a letter to an address in Ireland! Good heavens!

I didn’t know that what Ryanair meant by point-to-point was from the departure terminal to the arrival terminal in the same airport! Sorry for the bad joke.. but screw them! If you ever get a chance, do yourself a favour, shell out some money, choose a proper airline and don’t fly with Ryanair! :(

This was my second trip into Austria. Driving again and for the first time while it was snowing. The temperatures outside were really down the scale during our onward journey, reaching -8 to -10 at places. But salutes to German engineering, there was not one trace of snow on the Autobahns even the though the area around it was covered in a think white blanket of snow.

We started off from Plochingen in the evening and reached Vienna by midnight. We were hosted again by Sandeep’s cousin Soumya chechi (of Chicken Bonn fame ;)). It was tough finding her house because our navi was not working outside Germany and the signs in Vienna were poor even compared to Indian standards!

Next day morning, we drove to the Schloss Schonbrunn. The city roads of Vienna were not ice-free as the autobahns and handling the car on ice was a pretty scary experience in the traffic of Vienna! The schloss was quite good and I was impressed by the Princess ‘Sissi’ who once lived there – for once a European princess was actually beautiful :)

After a brief stay there, we drove towards the city center. There we walked around the quite charming city and somewhere in the city we found the desi ‘Cafe Coffee Day’! It cost us a lot, but the welcome we got was pretty cool. They even gave us a bag of coffee as we left. The place seems to be pretty popular in Vienna too.. way to go India! After the CCD experience, we went to a huge Christmas market right outside the ‘Rathaus’. The Christmas market had a brilliant atmosphere with the numerous stalls selling a variety of curios, hordes of people chirping away, children riding ponies, a live band playing and even a glimpse of the Vienna mayor! We ended our day with a visit to the parliament building which has some beautiful Greek sculptures adoring its front yard.

The next day was mostly spent at home cooking away. After another nice meal we bid farewell to Soumya chechi…

It was an odd time to visit this much hyped about place. It was already November and winter had already started showing up its head even up in Stuttgart. But we had 3 days to ourselves and with no other long breaks likely any time in the near future, we set out on a Thursday morning on an Audi A3.

Our first destination was Zürich. We crossed the border (not before revving up the Audi to 230 on the autobahns, off course) at Schaffhausen. The contrast with Germany was only gradual, the scenery did not change dramatically but the roads did – they had speed limits :) . Zürich was a pretty nice city, we intended it to be just a short stopover and walked a little bit on the city streets. The rest of the city we saw from the car. Nothing of note, except that I got a little scared when I found myself across the tram track with two trams heading towards me!

We headed towards Flüelen, a nice small town alongside a lake. The drive was just brilliant through the winding mountain roads alongside a lake. You know, after that I started thinking maybe speed limits in Switzerland is probably a good thing. You can see a lot more and take in the beauty and appreciate it much better. At Flüelen we parked alongside the lake and took a stroll. It was really beautiful. The mountains and lakes presented a view as if it was right out of a picture postcard. After a few hours we moved towards Luzern our halt for the night. We had difficulty finding the youth hostel, so we got to see a lot of the city in the car thanks to a very crappy navigation system (which I heard was manufactured by Bosch). Finally after we managed to reach the hostel, we did explore the city a little bit on foot in the night. The ‘flower bridge’ was really good, maybe even better if we had seen it during day. The whole city had a nice classical touch to it. Great!

Early morning on Friday we dragged our lazy selfs towards our nächster halt – Engelberg. Again located in a very rural part of Switzerland the drive was fun all the way, especially the long tunnels and Ginu driving for the first time in Europe ;) (just kidding, he did drive great for a first timer). Our navi enabled us to see some probably unexplored areas of Engelberg, including a nice wooden bridge across a small brook with no civilization around. It was a good experience. We finally reached our actual point of interest, the cable car station to Mt. Titlis. We were expecting high costs and bad weather, but it turned out to be just the opposite. We were going in off season, so prices were nearly half and you couldn’t really ask for better weather at this time of the year. What luck! Mt. Titlis was an amazing experience, first time really up close with so much snow. We had our fun, playing like little kids with the snow. Too bad we couldn’t take any souveniers (you see, snow melts). Needless to say, the view was breathtaking. And as customary, I did fall stepping on some hard and slippery ice, and that too while encouraging Renu to be not scared and keep going up a small snow slope. Well embarrassing, but I am getting used to it as the falls are now getting fairly regular :D .

Another thing I noticed about Mt. Titlis (and generally Switzerland), I saw a lot of boards in Hindi. I was a bit surprised at first, but seeing the number of Indians there, well… The Swiss people are really smart, they have made very good use of Bollywood! Indians seem to be flocking to every corner of this beautiful country. It doesn’t end there either.. we even got some delicious Samosas from a very European restaurant at a rather cheap (by swiss standards) price!

Our stopover for the night was Grindelwald. I feel like I am repeating this too often (ah! guess who works for Bosch navigation systems.. hehe.. Anu.. no offense :D) but the navi, this time both the machine and the human variant (Sandeep) led us to a different hostel up a very scary hill only to find out that it is closed from October! I switched to a slight panic mode, but soon we realized that it was *not* the youth hostel we were supposed to reach! Hmmph.. what a relief! The youth hostel at Grindelwald was a good one – the Downtown Lodge – I would recommend this if you are on a visit. The city (or rather village) was a sleepy little place with a nice park (meant for children I think, but who cared, we all played! :D ).

We had planned to go to a place called Trümmelbach the next day, but unfortunately it was closed. We had Plan B, Plan C and Plan D and we kind of switched back and forth between which plan to actually take since we were always on an ‘unknown road’ according to the navi. Finally we decided to go to Geneva. We didn’t have much time to see a lot of the city because we had to reach Stuttgart by nightfall. But we did manage to catch quite a good glimpse of it and driving on the streets of Geneva was almost comparable to driving in a less trafficy city in India. I had a lot of good fun.. I could hear cars honk! Where else in Europe!! Felt so much at home <evil grin>.

By midnight, after a splash and dash on the autobahns again, we were back in Stuttgart. It was a great trip, probably a great time to visit Switzerland if our experience is anything to go by. It was incredibly cheap, cost us one-fourth of what it cost most of our friends who went in summer. But luck has to be on your side, we were blessed with brilliant weather… Whatever it is, do visit Switzerland sometime, unlike a lot of other things, it lives up to the hype… :)

No one can come back from Europe without visiting the city of Light can they? It was October and probably not the best time to visit, but this was probably our only chance so our gang of 8 packed off in a Eurolines bus from Stuttgart late night on a Friday. We reached Paris on Saturday morning and equipped with a Paris Visite card we set off exploring…

Our first stop was the Louvre Musuem. I am not exactly a museum guy, but this one I enjoyed. I got to see Mona Lisa in all her glory and roamed around some of the locations immortalized by the Da Vinci Code. After spending about two hours looking through some magnificent works of art we left the Louvre and walked along the Seine river, through Pont Neuf bridge via Place Dauphine, Sainte-Chapelle and finally reaching Cathedrale Notre-Dame.

The Notre-Dame was just an amazing piece of architechture and truly lived up to its fame. The insides of the cathedral was incredible and very serene, true to a place of worship, though the buzz of tourists was a little absurd at times. Our next destination was Place de la Concorde. It is a huge traffic hub built in 1757. There stood an Egyptian obelisk claimed to be the oldest object made by humans surviving in Paris. Ahead of us lay the Champs-Elysées the most famous avenue in Paris. We walked ahead for 3 km to reach the Arc de Triomphe. It was very nice to look at and part of one of the many famous symbols of Paris. We decided against going up the arch though.

Next destination was the most famous of them all – The Eiffel Tower. We had to stand in a long queue to catch the elevator that takes us up, but it was well worth the wait. We reached on top at the best possible time and were treated to glory of Paris in daylight, sunset and darkness. It was an incredible feeling and a magestic vista. The chilling wind was nearly unbearable but we just couldn’t make ourselves leave the place. It is truly one experience you should not miss.

After this we had to get to our hotel at a Parisian suburb called Cergy. But unfortunately the sub-urban trains where on strike and we had to take some difficult alternate routes, but finally we made it. The hotel was just ok but the breakfast was wonderful!

Because we had gone to most of the important places the previous day, we could go out on a more relaxed pace on Sunday. We explored a bit of the Ile St-Louis. I didn’t find it particularly attractive except for a nice leisurely walk which fitted in perfectly because we had a lot of time. We then visited the Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon rests, nothing special again, and left towards Abbesses.

At Abbesses we ate lunch at an Indian restaurant, which was a mistake I thought. We explored a bit of the streets and alleys of Abbesses before heading towards Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. The basilica was also another example of fine architecture. It looked grand against the blue skies of Paris and provided a great view of the other side of the town. Also a nice place to frame the Eiffel tower if you have a camera with a good zoom (I boast of one ;) ). We again had plenty of time and relaxed on the steps towards the cathedral, pondering about the 2 days in Paris.

Paris on the whole is a very enchanting city with lot of things to offer. It may not be my most favourite place but it is indeed close. Glad to be able to tick mark one more place off my checklist of things to do before I die :D

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Germany is a land known for castles. But I have not really been to any of them. As you can see I am not really into this castle and palace stuff. However many people have told me Neuschwanstein was different. So I decided what the heck, lets visit it!

The touring party this time comprised of only the people I knew well – Renu and Ginu both relatively new comers and Ann the veteran who had come all the way from Hildesheim to meet us. We decided to take the first connection from Stuttgart and that meant we had to cut our Sunday sleep again. Anyway Neuschwanstein was not too far away, changing 4 trains to reach Fuessen and taking a bus from there we reached the village of Hohenschwangau. From there it was either a walk, by bus or by horse carriage. We took the most modern transport of them all and not surprisingly the fastest and more importantly the less tiring ;)

The first view of the castle itself told me that this was different. They don’t really allow self explorations inside the castle so we had to take the guided tour for 7 euros. To be honest it was totally not worth it. You get to see some 4 or 5 rooms inside. Ok, they are exquisite and looks good, but you don’t get to spend too much time there to really appreciate it all. We came out and the skies which were a bit cloudy and foggy started clearing. We walked towards the Marienbrucke which was just 5 minutes away. The view of the castle from there was breathtaking and the Gods were kind to us to give us some very clear weather. This is something you should not miss. I kind of got the picture why this was nominated as a candidate for the new seven wonders of the world (it didn’t make it btw).

The king who built this (Ludwig II) was described as a mad eccentric king. Hmm.. I don’t know about that, but sure this guy had a great artistic mind and a vision. This was definitely *the* place to build a castle. Most of the beauty of the castle lies in its location. Really a fairy tale castle. Classic! It is a pity that he was killed before the castle was completed (which never happened). He had the power to turn his dreams into reality but never lived to see it done. Hope I had that much vision (yeah and off course the money) to build something like that… Yeah I know, dream on Anoop, all you are going to build is some computer program ;)

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Getting there:
From Stuttgart/Munich take the train to Fuessen. It takes around 4 hours from Stuttgart. From Fuessen take Bus #78 to Hohenschwangau. Buy the tickets from there for the guided tour which I don’t recommend. You can walk upto the castle in probably 30-40 minutes. A mini bus (2 euros) takes you up in 10 minutes and there is an interesting horse carriage ride too which we took while coming downhill. It was not too bad.