This was a trip ‘planned’ right from the day I reached Europe. You will see soon why the word is quoted ;)

The trip iternary in short was to drive to Frankfurt-Hahn from Stuttgart, then take a flight to Stockholm-Skavsta, drive around Sweden-Norway and back to Skavsta, take the flight back to Hahn and then drive back to Stuttgart. So with a few maps in hand and no hostel reservations we left on Saturday early morning. The initial part was smooth and we had a smooth landing at Skavsta airport which is still around 150KM south of Stockholm. (I wonder why it is called ‘Stockholm’-Skavsta). First thing to do was to report to our car rental agency Europcar and to our bad luck all other counters were open except the Europcar one. Finally after a few hurried phone calls, the guy at the counter came back with a lot of sorries and a story about some guy crashing their rented car. Anyway after an hour we got the first taste of the Scandinavian roads. They were small, not really up to the ‘German’ design, but still they were fun, really close to the fun you have in India. (except that people here mostly followed traffic rules ;) )

Our first destination was off course Stockholm. We did get a little bit lost in the maze of the Capital of Scandinavia even with our best driver, Mathew driving especially without a navigation system in our car. But still with the aid of some maps (and a classy navigator, yours truly ;) ) we managed to find the old town and even a parking spot. Stockholm did live up to its classy status, though that maybe a quick judgement since we spent only about 3 or 4 hours there due to time constraints. Our next destination was Uppsala where we expected to find accomodation. After forcing Nitya to take all the wrong directions we somehow again managed to find the youth hostel in the city. But alas they said they didn’t have any rooms! To our shock the receptionist even told us that all hotels in the city were booked. But Samrudhi (Mrs. Nitya) managed to get the receptionist to make some trunk calls to Gävle, the nearest city up north and we were able to get a room up there.

On the way to Gävle, I got my first chance to drive. And within minutes of that we were engulfed in fog – I mean a lot of fog. It was difficult to see 50m in front of me. But luckily nothing big happened and we reached the city without too much trouble. I gladly handed over the keys to Mathew who continued our adventure into finding the youth hostel. We had to find a building near the American Pizza shop, go to the front stairs, open up a white box with a secret password, get the key from an envelope marked Anoob (yeah even the Swedes spell my name wrong) and then find our room. Reminds me of a James Bond movie sequence. Anyway we were glad to get a bed to sleep after a marathon 16hr journey on a plane and 2 cars.

Next day we set out westwards towards Norway. We were targetting to reach the fjords by the end of the day, but at some point we realized that was quite nearly impossible. We totally underestimated the distances and overestimated the roads. So we decided to go as far west as possible and get a youth hostel somewhere. Our nearest possibility was the ski-resort of Trysil right across the border. But that decision also meant that we would have to sacrifice the Norwegian fjords. We were pretty badly dissapointed but there was no other option. Anyways the hostel at Trysil was really cool. We got a wooden cabin all to ourselves and it was really damn cheap! I would highly recommend that place.

Day 3 began with a scenic drive towards Hamar. I was dignified to drive through the first unmetalled pothole filled road I had ever seen in Europe. It was a lot of good fun! At Hamar we decided to try book a youth hostel somewhere for the night. We pestered the receptionist there with plans and counterplans and more. Finally after a lot of heated discussion we decided to take a hostel in Sarpsborg south of Oslo. We reached there a bit early so we went ahead a bit into the island of Hvaler. The drive again was exciting, through a tunnel under the sea. At Hvaler we had a nice walk through the bushes to a rocky beach where we spend the rest of the evening and watched a beautiful sunset.

Next day from Sarpsborg we took the road to Moss and from there a ferry across the Oslo fjord to Horten. It was a bit expensive, but was well worth it, saved us a lot of time too. We headed towards “Verdens Ende” the extreme south tip of mainland Norway. We spend some time by the sea on the rocks clicking away some pics and finally headed back towards Sweden to Karlstad. We had a mini Darsan of the busy roads of Oslo on the way but decided not to stop. We didn’t want another city to waste time on! We crossed into Sweden at Orje border post and headed to Karlstad. This time the youth hostel was not difficult to find. And again the hostel standard was pretty high.

Last day. Morning we cooked some food at the hostel and left the place by around 10. We stopped at some small beautiful villages and did a slow leisurely drive back to Nykoping to Skavsta airport. The plane was delayed for an hour or so (bloody ryanair!) and the Europcar guys made a mistake with our car reservations and we were left without a car to go back to Stuttgart. The europcar lady was shockingly rude to us, but anyway she did get a car for us, an Opel Zafira. It was difficult driving back since we were all damn tired. Anyway reached back home by 2 AM after a wonderful trip of a lifetime!

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The route:

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Finally I got a chance to take on the autobahns of Germany. And it was a lot of fun! With a bit of coaxing Mathewji, finally agreed to trust me on my driving and we set off in a rented Toyota Avensis. It didn’t start off too well, with me being not very comfortable with driving on the “wrong side” and with the might and size of the 178 bhp Avensis compared to my poor old Maruthi 800 that I became too used to in India. But it all took just a little bit of time to get used to. Once I was in the autobahn, it all came back to me… I touched my personal land speed record of 120kmph in less than 60 seconds and rewrote history to go up to 218kmph. That is a number that I am not going to forget for quite a long time.. woohoo! :)

Our first destination was a place called Obersalzberg. We intended to go to a place called Eagle’s Nest up the mountains, but unfortunately too much snowfall meant that we couldn’t go. We headed towards the next place in the list Berchtesgaden. The main attraction was a visit to a salt mine that was constructed in 1518 and still in operation. We had to wait for 3 hours to get in, but it was well worth it. We had a great time going deep underground and seeing how stuff works inside. It was excellent with a roller coaster like ride down a shaft and a lake inside (yes an underground lake!) complete with a boat ride through it! It was so much fun.

By evening we headed towards Salzburg and crossed over into Austria. We had some trouble finding the hotel we were staying in despite excellent help from our navigation system. Anyway once we were there we decided to explore the city in the night. It was truly an enchanting place. No wonder it produced a musician like Mozart. Very peaceful and serene and well preserved too. Next morning again we had bad news. The famous ice caves were also closed because of the snow. So we decided to spend the morning in the Hohensalzburg, the castle overlooking the city. It was nice, and had excellent views of the city from above. There was also a nice Museum inside.

By afternoon since we had nothing else to do, we decided to do some road not taken trips. We drove to a place called Kaprun. The drive was excellent through small beautiful country roads of Austria. But even there we were unlucky as the treks were closed due to avalanche. Sigh! Spirits were a bit dampened, but we anyways headed back to Plochingen, and I also got a chance to drive in the city. It almost ended up in a disaster with me not judging a kerb properly, but luckily nothing happened except that my confidence was dented a little bit. Kind of like god’s way of saying – don’t get too comfortable son, you are driving in Germany! hehe.

All in all I did enjoy the trip a lot despite not being able to visit all the places. For me it was the journey that was important, not the destination.. I got to drive!! :)

This time the trip was to Venice – the queen of the Adriatic, a romantic city of canals, gondolas and paper-masks.

We took a bus from Stuttgart on Friday evening and reached there Saturday morning. After a bit of freshening up at the Tronchetto car park where the bus ends, we headed towards Murano – famous for its glass factories. There we were treated to a wonderful demonstration in glass blowing. The “glass-master” showed us his incredible skills in making a wonderful sculpture of a horse, in a matter of minutes. We then visited a number of glass article showrooms with great displays of art in glass. Though tempted to buy despite the high prices, we were prudent enough not to, just for one simple reason – glass breaks! :)

Our next destination was Burano, another island just a 30 minute boat ride away. It was a nice quiet place with a lot of shopping alleys selling among other things, the famous Venetian masks. I did grab one, had to go for a small one that wasn’t too heavy on the pockets. After loosing our way a little, we managed to get back to the boat stop and headed towards Lido, a beach on the coast of the Adriatic sea. It was crowded but the beach was nice and relaxing. We had a taste of authentic Italian pizza there, which tasted pretty much like any other pizza I have had, so I have doubts about the “authenticity”!

Next stop was St. Marco square – the most recognizable part of Venice. We had the most fun there. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of pigeons there. It was a lot of thrill feeding the pigeons. Put some corn on your hand and there they would come neatly picking off every single piece. The most well behaved pigeons I have ever seen! One even perched on my shoulder and posed long enough for the perfect photo :). We then roamed around the narrow alleys of Venice dotted with small shops, fantastic old buildings, churches and off course the canals. The gondolas – the Venitian boats – were tempting too, but this time the exorbitant prices and lack of time forced us not to take a ride. They looked really grand though. Maybe sometime later…

It is amazing how a modern city can still work without cars or trucks. Everything runs on boats – ambulances, government authorities, police, local transport… I have always wondered how they could do this practically, but during the time I was there, there was never a place that wasn’t accessible by boat or by a short walk! Spectacular!

By evening we head back to Tronchetto (which is Europe’s largest car park by the way), time to leave. After a comfortable ride, reached back Stuttgart on Sunday morning. It was a nice trip and well worth loosing sleep for 2 nights in a row! :)

And to all my Keralite readers – Happy Onam!

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Rheinfalls is a small attraction in Switzerland just a stone’s throw across the border from Germany (literally). We could travel there by train taking just the Baden-Württemberg state ticket and the journey took just two and a half hours from Plochingen. My first time out of Germany also meant it was the first time I had to take my passport out after the airport checks. But all was smooth and took just 5 minutes of our time before the policemen waved us through at the Schaffhausen railway station. We had to take a bus from there and I was instantly proud of my German as I successfully asked the driver to get us a group ticket. He didn’t even ask me back anything and I didn’t have to say twice. Good! I have improved a lot ;)

The bus was interesting, it ran on overhead electric lines but not on rails, my friends say it is common everywhere, but this was the first time I saw one, so found it curious. Anyway after a short ride we got down at Rheinfalls and a short 10 minute walk later we reached the place where the Rhein ‘falls’. It was good. It wasn’t big, but it was good. After a few uninteresting photo sessions we decided to take a boat ride. Boy.. This was good! We went close to the falls and I suddenly realized the falls weren’t as small as I thought initially. We could feel the whole power of the water thundering down. It was a very different experience.

Coming back, we found an Indian dhaba-wallah! Can you believe it? In Switzerland! Had some pav-bhaji and a nice masala tea. It did drain some Euros (Swiss Francs rather) unlike the dhaba wallahs back in India. The food was good, at least was glad to have some proper Indian food after a while. It was run by a Rajasthani guy who seemed to think Bangalore was a city in Kerala. So typical! ;) That proves he has been out of the country for a long long time as confirmed by him later. Anyways after restoring Bangalore to it’s rightful state we said our Namasthes and headed back to the train.

That was it actually. Not much to see, but what was there was good. Anyway this August 12th was a special day for me. It is not every year that you can celebrate your birthday in two countries ;)

It was a dream come true for me. Ever since I started watching Formula One, since around 10 years ago, I had always wanted to be there.. to watch and hear the power of those machines, and finally I did that.. and wow! It was an amazing experience.

9 of us met at the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof on Friday ready for the grand adventure. And boy there was excitement even before we started the journey. One of my friends forgot to take his tickets for the race and he announced that minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. Well.. we had no choice, but to continue.. We weren’t going to miss the race because of a minor memory lapse! We send him packing asking him to take the next train and meet us somewhere on the way. The initial part of the trip was thus spent on speculating whether or not he will make it in time. He did eventually and we all had a good laugh about it.

That settled, we continued our journey in the night. It was really an adventure reaching the place. We had to switch 7 trains in the night and didn’t get more that 15 minutes of continuous sleep that night, despite which we were all in high spirits till reaching the Mayen Ost station, the nearest that the German railways would take us to the circuit. Then came the surprise. To our shock there was no bus or no other easy way to reach one of the biggest international sporting events in Germany! We struggled to find a taxi and finally when we got one we had to pay dearly for a 25km ride. No option, we had to take it or miss the qualifying. We reached on time and the taxi guy atleast left us within walking distance of our stand. All that was soon forgotten. As soon as we heard the engines of each of those amazing machines roar we forgot all that struggle and all that tiredness. It was crazy! The noise was defeaning as we enjoyed every second of it all. We even had a glimpse of the crash of Lewis Hamilton just around the corner where we were located. But all this was just a demo of what was awaiting us at the race next day.

After a struggle to get back, we finally made it to Cologne where we had to spend our night. It was a pity that we couldn’t explore the nightlife in the city thanks to our tired selves. It seems to be a wonderful city and I’m definitely going back to visit. But now our focus was on F1 and we needed to get a good sleep if we were to enjoy ourselves at the race on Sunday.

Next day we reached on time, all set for the race. It started. It was the kind of excitement you would never get watching a race on TV. The atmosphere was truly wonderful! And lo.. just as the race started, it started raining.. and it rained heavily. We had not been prepared for the rain and got totally drenched but no one really bothered. All we were interested in was the race. And after a few crashes and mistakes the race got stopped! It was a pity since an unknown Markus Winkelhock was leading by nearly 20 seconds at that point that too in his first race! But the restart spoiled everything for him and it was back to the same old story. Ferrari and McLaren chasing each other. And towards the end, a brilliant drive by Alonso saw him overtake Massa and win the race. We joined the celebrations with all the fans there witness to a great race.

After the race too there was plenty to do. There were some stalls set up by the teams and it allowed us to see some F1 cars close up and also see some stunts. We had a lot of freebies to take home too.. from photos with the F1 chicks to team posters. Wanting even more we did a bit of souvenir hunting and I controlled myself to grab just a model car and an authentic team cap – needless to say, both were of Renault. It was a pity that Renault were no where near their world championship class of a year ago. I am sure I would have enjoyed the race even more last year when they made everybody else look like minnows. But nevertheless it was a great experience. I wouldn’t say once in a life time, because I am sure that this is not my last race!

I had booked the tickets long before I even left India and needless to say this was going to be one of the highlights of my visit. And it was. I am not sure if anything can beat this experience. It was worth every single Euro I spent (and it was a lot!). Finally even I can declare – I was there. I saw it live. :)