Rants of a nerd
Posts tagged travel
Flower Girl Statue in Madrid
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Probably not the sight most people remember in Madrid. but this one was really good in a silhouette.
Difference between your ass and elbow
01 year ago
by siva
in Weird News
There are some updates to the Dubai-Pune Air India flight which had a near plunge into the Arabian Sea. This seems to be literally a case of not knowing one’s ass from one’s elbow.
The co-pilot of an Air India Express 737 sent the jetliner into a terrifying 7,000-foot plunge in May when he accidentally hit the control column while adjusting his seat, investigators report.
Madrid Photos
0Finally got around to uploading a bunch of photos from my trip to Madrid. This was back in January and the first of the bad winter storms across Europe was under way. Temperatures were below freezing most of the time, and indeed when the temps hit 2 degrees my taxi driver remarked that it was a relatively warm day!
![One of the old gates \](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4412409979_7cf03e2867_s.jpg "One of the old gates \")
There are a few photos from the Museo Raina Sofia. This was the only museum that I visited that allowed photography. However its collection is mostly crazy modern stuff. So I picked a few Picassos and Dalis here. Dali’s Girl at the Window is one of his best and is really worth the trip to the museum. Most people would visit it for Picasso’s Guernica – though I could not really find it to be extra special. The Guernica is one painting they do not allow anyone to photograph. In the neighbouring room, there is a study of the Guernica (included in the gallery above) along with many other details from the grand picture.
Among the three museums, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza was the one I liked best. Strangely, I found the collection of Carmen Thyssen to be the more interesting and nicer. The collection of paintings range from the 13th to the 20th centuries. They had a special exhibit called Lagrimas de Eros (Tears of Love), which featured famous art pieces depicting love and death.
I had very little time after this for the biggie: Museo del Prado. The importance of this museum is stressed in the fact that all three museums are connected by one road called Paseo del Prado. It has a good collection of Spanish art including many by Velasquez and Goya. I especially liked the painting called Las Melinas (The Young Girls), showing the daughters of the royal household.
Among other sights to be seen are Puerta del Sol (Gate of the Sun), Espana (where there is a memorial to Miguel de Cervantes – author of the Don Quixote story), some churches (Madrid Cathedral, San Francisco and San Andrea are in the gallery). Thanks to the extreme cold, I did not venture out into each of these places. I did brave the freezing conditions to get some snaps taken here and there. Was I ever happy to get back into the taxi and warm clothes then!
Right in the heart of the city is an Egyptian temple – Debod – taken out brick by brick and reassembled in Madrid. It was offered to Madrid by the Egyptian government as the temple would have been destroyed under the lake created by the Aswan Dam. Around the temple are some nice walkways (file away for a later visit in better weather) and a breathtaking view over some forests and the city.
For another trip to Spain, there is much to explore in Madrid. There are also the other cities like Barcelona and historical sites such as Alhambra to be seen. Till then…
Janjira fort
0We went to Janjira fort this morning, and had a good outing despite the sun & heat. It is a wonder that we cannot maintain monuments in this country despite professing a great love for our history and culture.
The fort itself is some 900 years old and unfortunately it has been done over with graffiti and littering. The boat ride to the fort is an adventure in itself! People hold on to anything, if only hope and prayer, as the rickety craft sails towards the rock in the middle of the sea.
Picture of the fort at right on my flickr stream.
Madrid: Old Town
0My impression of Madrid would probably have been permanently influenced by the few days I spent there. The hotel I stayed in (Palacio San Martin) was a nice old building in a nice old part of town. (A quick aside – it has creepy lights that switch on when motion sensors detect you moving in corridors)
It was at a fantastic location. Very close to the Puerta del Sol (the plaza which houses the famous bear and tree statue) and the Plaza Mayor, it is at the very center of the old city. Bounded by the Gran Via (Broadway) to the North, the “golden triangle” of museums to the East and the Palacio Real (royal palace) & Cathedral to the West. The second night I was there, I walked up to the Espana square – a 15 minute walk even in the freezing conditions. I did not realize it then, but I was just one block away from the palace itself.
Espana houses a fountain and a column dedicated to Miguel de Cervantes. The column has a statue of Cervantes and he looks upon statues of two of his most famous creations – Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Not too far from this is the temple of Debod. This temple was to be a victim of the building of the Aswan dam in Egypt. Anwar Sadat offered the temple to Spain and it was shipped stone by stone and reconstructed in Madrid. It is a beautiful monument.There is something incongruous about an Egyptian temple surrounded by modern European office buildings, though.
My taxi driver informed me that the monument at the entrance to the the garden that houses the temple was erected in memory of the people killed in the terrorist attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004.
PS – photo above taken with my N900
Update: Fixed a typo “s/wound/would”
Geneva: Two
0This is going to be a quick one. Posting from Geneva airport on the way out to Paris and Madrid. The weather is terrible across northern Europe incl. Paris, so I tried to get out of this route into a direct to Madrid. But Air France refused to let me cancel or even “no show” my way out of this. Crazy.
Geneva airport had a lot of luggage lying around when I landed. Now I know why: there has been a baggage handlers’ strike going on! They are trying to break the strike by bringing in handlers from Zurich.
The other crazy thing here is that the airport serves France and Switzerland and is located at the border (question to self: is this near CERN?). So to get into this flight, I had to go through French customs and check-in on the French side of the airport. When I landed also I noticed the split, but this was really interesting since they have two sets of check-in counters and all…
Today was indoors completely, but for the hotel to office and office to airport. Cold yes, but not exposed to it.
My flight boards in 6 minutes, so I will sign off here.
Geneva: One
0Part 1: Getting Here
It is the end of the holiday season and tickets were hard to come by, so I was put on a route through Paris CDG on Air France. The flight was nothing to talk about, but Paris CDG almost put LHR to shame this time. Firstly it is freezing weather (at the 8 am landing time, it was -6 degrees C). And they asked everyone to get into buses, which meant alighting on the tarmac in that cold. Not having anticpated this, I had my warmest stuff (and consequently heaviest) inside the check-in bag.
Still had some warm stuff. Got on the bus and on to terminal 2C. Flight to Geneva leaves from 2F. Okay another coach. Again brave the cold and get to new terminal.
As if this was not enough, the boarding gate was changed at the last minute. Right, things have not gone well with CDG so far, but it seems to be looking up. The old departure gate would have taken us through a bus (cold again – getting the theme?) and the new one had an aero-bridge! Yay! Not so fast. They make us climb down the aero-bridge and into a bus. So there you have it, in one of the coldest winters in years, CDG decides to shunt me through the open air at every opportunity possible.
Part 2: First impressions
Geneva is a lovely town. My hotel is at the edge of the old town and near the private banking district. The lake Geneva is just around the corner and I had a lovely walk in the afternoon along its bank watching the Jet d’Eau – a 140 feet tall fountain. Later I walked in and around the old town walking up to the Plainpalais, Place de Bastion and the University of Geneva, past the St Peter’s Cathedral. One very interesting sight was the Eglise Orthodox Russe – the Russian Orthodox Church.
Being Switzerland, everything is maintained well. The roads are cleared of snow properly. Nevertheless there was so much snow that I slipped several times – one time on a slope when I was certain I would take a tumble. But my luck held and I was on two feet all along!
More: I wanted to get this post up quickly in the time before heading to a business dinner. Photos and more will follow.
PS: The couple of recent travels to France has really improved my French. I am able to understand aircraft announcements now!
Evening at Malshej Ghat
1We were treated to a spectacular sunset over the hills at Malshej Ghat. The sun had gone down and the skies were lit in shades of purple and blue.
Minutes later it had gone dark. The moon had come out well before sunset, but its beauty revealed itself truly after dark, playing peek-a-boo with the few clouds that were scattered across the sky.
Lenyadri
0These pictures are from our recent trip to Bhimashankar and nearby areas. Here we are at Lenyadri, the location of one of the Ashta-Ganapathis (Eight Ganapathis). This is about half way up the hill. Appu, of course, blended in well with the surroundings having brought color-coordinated outfits along…
Appa and I looking more out of place and winded.
And the local native? Well let’s just say he was not too sure why we were there.
