Solitude at Midnight

Our last night in Rome and we decided to go by the Trevi fountain at midnight to see it in relative solitude. Unfortunately, all the tourists in Rome seemed to have had the same idea - and it had crowds incomparable:)



Anyway, it was a good opportunity to get more honey ice cream at il gelato di San Crispino, which is considered by many to have the best gelato in Italy.

Are there vegans in Switzerland ?

Its kinda tough being veggie in switzerland if you dont eat cheese. Their 2 signature veggie dishes are rosti and raclette. Rosti is basically hash browns dwowned in a half inch layer of cheese. You can optionally get it with a variety of meats or onions. This was good for the first time, but got boring quickly. Raclette was more interesting. Basically, they bring a live heated place to the table on which is placed a slab of cheese which is heated and melted. You are given a bowl full of boiled potatoes and some pickled veggies. There is also some raclette masala. The idea shave off molten cheese off the slab, dip the potato into the hot cheese and eat it with the veggies and masala. This was pretty tasty.

Overall, the amount of cheese we ate in Switzerland was etraordinarily high. We hopefully walked it off in the mountains.

Pics from Pisa

Overall, Pisa was the least impressive place we visited on the trip. The leaning tower was the smallest tower we saw on the trip. But still, it was fun for the pic opportunities it offered. There were hordes of people there pushing and holding up the tower.

All roads lead to...

... well, Pisa, in this case. We are driving from Siena to Pisa and reach a roundabout. 2 of the 4 exits from the roundabout point to Pisa, but it turns out that the fastest way to Pisa is a third exit!

Distance measures are sometimes strange as well - when driving to a small town, San Gimignano, the distance was 11 km to the city for about 5 kms. We drove and drove, but the signposts with the km readings stubbornly refused to update, until suddenly, the distance reduced to a mere 4 kms.

Other than these idiosyncracies, driving in Italy is fun and the Tuscan countryside is unbelievably beautiful.

Last Meal in Switzerland

Rice : 6 CHF
Raita : 4 CHF
Mixed pickles : free
Eating Thayir Sadam in Switzerland: priceless

Driving on the autobahn !!

Day 1 (Aug 8)
We rented an Opel from Frankfurt and drove all the way to Munich - some 650+ kms (Yeah, its all km here). This included driving to Karlsruhe. Resmi ably navigated with the help of printed google maps directions, a AAA map and a half working GPS. After triangulating our way to Kallu's place and sleeping off the jetlag, we took off the next morning to drive along the Romantische Strasse (Romantic Road). (Day2) This included stops at medieval Rothenburg Ob der Tauber, Nordlingen and Fussen. Its pretty cool to drive along a 2 lane highway at 100+ km/hr.


Fussen is the nearest point for the obligatory visit to the Neushwainstein castle (picture the Disney castle in a fantastic location surrounded by lakes and mountains). After a 30 minute walk up the hill, we clicked some pictures and were off on our way to Munchen.


Day3 (Aug 10)
Munchen was great. We reached pretty late and had dinner at the Indian restaraunt attached to the hotel we were staying at. The next morning, we went to the city and met with Resmi's friend. We had lunch with him at an excellent local cafe while he gave us a good idea of what to see in Munich in 4 hours. We climbed up a bunch of stairs at a tower in old Munchen to get an excellent birds eye view of the city. After going to the legendary Hofbrauhaus (oldest beer house around), we took a guided bus tour to go around the city. After that it was time to go to Salzburg.

It was great to meet with Sathish's dad who happened to be in Munich for the same few hours as us.

An aside
For those interested, the max speed I drove at was 185km/hr (~115 mph). The car refused to go any faster even after flooring it. I was passed at will by the nicer German cars on the road. Next time...

The Ogre, the Monk and the Maiden

In Interlaken, about to leave for Florence tonight. Interlaken is beautiful, dominated by three show capped mountains - Eiger (Ogre), Munch (Monk) and Jungfrau (the young maiden), with the monk protecting the young maiden from the ogre.

Highlights of the trip include traversing a glacier, seeing the Trummelbach falls and wandering around small villages.

Here is a picture of the Aletsch glacier near Jungfrau. More later...