Page 3 of charuavi Travel Blog Posts


Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg May 21st 2010

St. Petersburg - Canal Cruise Once you have finished the ‘palaces’, you look around and then the city’s charm slowly starts growing on you. You realize that there is more to the city than its palaces. In fact, the rivers, Neva, Moyka and Fontanka as well as several canals make it a cleaner, larger Venice or a much more charming Amsterdam or a colder, less humid Bangkok). The Gulf of Finland, bordered on the horizon with distant blue hills, looks so beautiful that you almost forgive the Tsars for usurping it. The ‘River and Canal cruise’ is highly recommended. It is the most enjoyable way to see the city. You can almost touch the underside of the bridges as your boat passes beneath it and yes, the canals are clean and are not made to do ... read more
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Europe » Russia » Northwest » Saint Petersburg May 21st 2010

The Hermitage Did I see the darkness of night while we were at St. Petersburg during the second week of May? Not at all, because it was light when I woke up very early in the morning (about 4:30 AM) and it was still light when I went to bed very late at night. (about 1:00 AM) However, the word ‘light’ should be taken here to mean a weak, insipid fluorescence filtering through the dark clouds. In fact, the long twilight of the cloudless nights was brighter than the dark, cold days. Perhaps that is why they are called ‘white nights’, a regular, annual phenomenon in Northern latitudes but unusual to our Indian eyes. It would have been romantic walking hand in hand with Avi along the rivers and canals of the city when the night ... read more
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Europe » Greece June 18th 2009

Before our Greek cruise, we had never read or heard about ‘Sea Diamond’s sinking in the Santorini caldera. Every day we read the English newspaper, watch TV news and generally keep ourselves informed about happenings around the globe. So, I still do not know how we could have missed this news or maybe we just forgot it because it did not hold any significance for us that time. So, when the guide pointed out the area marked by buoys in the Santorini caldera and told us that, that is where Sea Diamond sank, we still had no inkling what she was talking about. However, when we came back, I surfed the Internet for information about Sea Diamond. I found plenty - articles, Wiki, You-tube, you name it. The Sea Diamond belonged to the same company that ... read more

Europe » Greece » South Aegean » Santorini June 18th 2009

Every Aegean island is beautiful but I believe Santorini is the most scenic of them all. All the Aegean islands are prone to earthquakes and related volcanic activity, but Santorini is especially so because it is at the center of South Aegean Volcanic Arc. The Santorini volcano erupts periodically (here I am speaking in geologic terms and ‘periodically’ means millions of years.) and changes the surrounding landscape/seascape totally. Thus, Santorini was a round island once upon a time. It became a ring of land filled with sea, looking rather like an atoll after one volcanic eruption - without the coconut trees, of course. (An atoll is formed by the activity of live coral, however. It does not have a volcanic origin.) Then the ring of the atoll broke after another eruption, giving it the present embryonic ... read more
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Europe » Greece » Crete » Knossos June 17th 2009

We had ‘compulsory reading’ of John Keats’ poem ‘Isabella’ a.k.a ‘A Pot of Basil’ in college. When young girls and boys go to the college in India, generally speaking, they are facing co-education for the first time because before that, they have been strictly segregated. Perhaps, they start having romantic thoughts about the opposite sex. Our college authorities had come up with an excellent plan to nip all such fancies in bud. The poem ‘A Pot of Basil’ is enough to turn your stomach and bury all romantic notions that the girls and boys may harbor. Readers, be forewarned. The poem is not for those who are timid or squeamish. You need a hard heart and strong stomach to read it. http://www.online-literature.com/keats/3812/ Read the above link at your own risk. The very idea of Isabella finding ... read more
The  fresco of dolphins in the Queen's chamber
The stones of the Palace became crystallized and brittle due to rains
The Storage Jars

Europe » Greece » South Aegean » Rhodes June 15th 2009

There is nothing much common between me and one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the ancient world’ namely the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue which was 107 feet tall, made with bronze framework supported by masonry inside and covered by brass plate; which stood on the Island of Rhodes. It possibly served as a lighthouse. However, there IS one thing common between us - weak knees. When an earthquake hit Rhodes, the Colossus broke at the knees and collapsed. I collapse even without an earthquake when I have to walk uphill, because my knees too give way. {Avi has suggested one more commonality between the Colossus and me. “You are equally brassy, brazen” he says. This is possibly because I insisted on calling our 4-day cruise a ‘Greek Odyssey’ and he does not agree with it. ... read more
Lovely sunny day
Lindos scenery
The Acropolis of Lindos

Europe » Greece June 15th 2009

Patmos has been continuously inhabited for at least 2000 years since ‘The Book of Revelations’ was written on this island by John the Apostle or his pupil. We had booked the evening shore-excursion to Patmos because that day we had given a miss to the morning excursion to Ephesus. We had already visited Ephesus on our Turkish tour. It is so fabulous that I do not think a short 2-hour visit from the cruise-ship can do justice to it. Especially, if it rains during the visit, the whole excursion becomes an exercise in futility, since there is no shelter anywhere on the site. The day dawned cloudy. We sat on the upper deck and enjoyed the view of Kusadasi port from the ship. As luck would have it, it DID rain at Ephesus that morning and ... read more
An island near Kusadasi port
The scenic island Patmos
Our ship

Europe » Greece June 14th 2009

The Aegean Sea is dotted with hundreds of islands, of which some are uninhabited. Some of the islands were important cultural centers in the past but are deserted now, but for tourists who visit it during the day-time. Delos is one such island, to which Mykonos played the second fiddle in the past. Just 2 Kms separate the two islands. Mykonos was never the cultural center in the past but it is now a sort of cultural crater-- the center of pop-culture, the Mecca of the jet-set, the island of the night-clubs. To the tourists on shore-excursions from the cruise-ships, this island first appears like a stockpile of white soap-boxes, placed end-to-end. Only when they alight at the jetty and start walking on the streets of Mykonos, its allure starts spreading on them. I believe Mykonos’s ... read more
The Mykonean highways
The Mykonean shopping
The colorful balconies

Europe » Greece June 14th 2009

What can you write about a city that has been written about by thousands of people for thousands of years? Greece has been called ‘the cradle of Western Civilization’ and Athens was axis on which this cradle moved back and forth. If Sparta was the brawn of Greece, the Athens was the brain. The flowering of Philosophy, Science, Arts, Literature, even sports that took place in Athens bore fruit in European civilization. Athens seeded all the intellectual progress of the Europe. The Greek prominence was challenged by powerful enemies - Persians namely. The famous battles, both on land and sea, that have been fought for dominance - Marathon, Salamis, Plataea - in this region, brought the best Greek military talent to the fore. It is amazing that Athens’ able political leaders became equally adept naval commanders. ... read more
The cute funicular
The view of Parthenon on a background f Athens
Sunset from Lycabettos hill

Europe » Greece June 14th 2009

In the ‘brave days of the old’ the Greek hero Odysseus sailed the Mediterranean for ten years trying to reach his home, Ithaca. (For ten years before that, he was fighting at Troy.) What do people like us do in these ‘coward days of new’ if they want to sail the Mediterranean and do not have 10 years to spare? They take a 4-nights-five-days Aegean cruise. Being cowards, they do not even take a chance of ferries getting cancelled between islands and consequently, getting stranded on one island. That is exactly what we did. After our successful Japan trip, I had full confidence about my ability to plan travel to minutest details to a country but I found travel-planning for Greece an impossible task. We wanted to visit Athens and the three islands - Mykonos, Santorini ... read more




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