Here are a couple pics from winter:

But then, it was time to visit again… this time, much prettier spring-summer. Holzkirchen, and Tegernsee are the two small towns near Munich which I explored for some beautiful landscapes…

Please read the disclaimer by clicking here.

Below is the map of Istanbul (from Google Maps) – as you see, the entire metropolis is split in three by water. The main strait Bosphorus divides Europe and Asia, while European Istanbul is further divided into north and south by the Golden Horn. The southern tip was the location of the old city of Constantinople, and has most of the historical monuments and tourist locations.

The Eyewitness Travels’ guidebook on Turkey was very helpful in making the most out of the trip but Saudi Arabian Airlines deserves a special thanks for providing really affordable non-low-cost flight tickets – almost 40% less than the current market rates. So far, I’ve had the best airline food in Saudi Arabian Airlines, even better than Emirates and Etihad, and for the price I pay to fly SV, I would not mind flying with them again!

I typically do not take photos from the aircraft, but found it difficult to resist the amazing Cumulus mediocris cloud formation!

Once in Istanbul, we first walked straight to the Blue Mosque. It was the first mosque I ever entered, and also the most beautiful one!

The dazzling Iznik tiles give it the name of Blue Mosque, and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical Ottoman period

Right in front of the Blue Mosque, stands the much much older Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofia. Hagia Sophia, was a church from around 400 AD to around 1450 AD when the Ottoman emperor Sultan Mehmet ordered it to be converted to a Mosque.

In 1931 it was secularized and converted into a Museum. Today what you see inside is unmatched to anywhere else in the world. Christ and inscriptions of Allah in the same building!

Completed in 1660, the Egyptian Market or the Spice Bazaar is one of the largest markets in Istanbul. What you see inside is hundreds of shops selling pretty much the same stuff – all kinds of spices, sweets, nuts and dried fruits. Since the bazaar now focuses on tourists, if you go a little outside the market into the by-lanes, you can get better rates ;) and more variety.

The Grand Bazaar, completed around 1700 AD, is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the whole world. You will find around 3000 shops selling a large variety of things from carpets to lanterns, t-shirts to magnets, porcelain to gold, and many more things. It is a shoppers’ paradise but you need to be smart while spending and learn to haggle. Again, you would get the best deals if you venture out of the market and into the by-lanes – you will find a lot of whole-sellers, who would give you much better rates that would not require you to bargain.

On the other side of the old city, the New Mosque and Suleymaniye Mosque adorn the landscape, and are two of the most prominent features of Istanbul visible from the Bosphorus.

The Suleymaniye Mosque and the Shehzade Mosque overlooking the busy ferry docks at Eminonu. Both these beautiful mosques were built by famous Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan around 1550 AD.

Other popular places in the Sultanahmet square are the Historical Turkish Bath, and the Hippodrome. The pillar in the image below (right side), is the Obelisk of Theodosius imported from Aswan, Egypt and re-erected in Istanbul around the 4th century AD. It is one of the only few structures of the ancient Hippodrome of Constantinople that remain standing today.

You may spend anything between 4 Turkish Lira (about 2 USD) to 200 Turkish Lira (about 100 USD) for a cruise over the Bosphorus, the strait that connects the Sea of Marmara (Mediterranean Sea) to the Black Sea and links the Asian side of Istanbul to Europe. One trip was not enough so we took two! You get to see beautiful palaces along the Bosphorus, Yalis (seaside house), Mosques, and some very interesting perspectives of both sides of the megacity!

One of the most interesting things about the city is the multiple modes of transport that it offers its citizens and tourists. It has a very good mix of old traditional trams, to the most modern trams, subway trains, suburban trains, underground funiculars (trains that climb inclines), buses, ferries, and taxis!

No trip to Turkey is complete without having a traditional Turkish bath and watching a live belly dancing performance. Unfortunately, constrained by time and budget, we decided to spend our resources on something else. Having said that, I will rephrase – “No trip to Turkey is complete without having traditional Turkish food and sipping cay (chai/tea) and salep at a traditional Turkish tea shop!”

All we had for 7 days was Doner Kabab, and Simit breads, interspersed with gracious amounts of baklava, Turkish delight and coffee. Even though we both walked almost 5 km every day, we ended up gaining 1.5 kg each!

Turkish people are pretty! Especially the women ;) Most of the citizens follow Islam, but Turkey is a secular and open-minded country. Wearing the scarf or going to the mosque is not compulsory!

I think I have more photos of myself in this trip than all of my photos every taken all put together! Of course we had a great time shooting each other (with the camera), different poses, different backgrounds – but unfortunately, similar clothes since it was cold and we had just a couple of winter jackets!

Overall, it was a great trip! Great place, great food, and great memories! Unfortunately, you cannot do justice to Istanbul in less than 10 days, and to Turkey in less than 2 weeks. We could not visit any place outside Istanbul – the amazing hot water springs, the white sand beaches, Cappadocia rock formations and balloon ride… hopefully we will visit again, and cover what we missed!

I cannot end this post without mentioning for my dear friends and readers who would now like to visit Istanbul, that it was a budget trip for us and our total expenditure (for two of us) was Rs 1,00,000 or USD 2,000!

Lakhotia, Ramya and the rest  – thanks for dreaming about Istanbul with me, made my resolve to travel stronger!

I got to visit two cities, or towns – Lund and Malmo. Lund, is a university town famous for the Lund University established in 1666 and one of Scandinavia’s largest institutes for education.  It is also the oldest city in present day Sweden, and you can see why, from the photos. I found some really beautiful architecture in Lund, perhaps even better than Copenhagen. Copenhagen looked very much like a brand new city, but Lund, a very old archaic place trying to finds its foot in this century!

This photograph was shot at around noon, but you can see that the sun is far from being overhead! Beautiful sunshine, however the temperature was well below –5 C.

Clearly, I had to take a pic showing the name of the place! Unfortunately young boys, it is pronounced as “Loond”.

One of the two Indian restaurants in Lund

Inside the Lund Cathedral – perhaps the most beautiful cathedral I have visited

…

Next stop, Malmo – the southern-most and the third largest city of Sweden.

I would mostly, let the pictures do the talking here! But again some really beautiful architecture!

And of course some really long mid day shadows :) This pic taken around 2pm, 55 N of equator and amazing shadow lengths!

Oh my favorite pic :)

Wow! Lots of travel to be shared, but even before that, some more travel left to be “travelled”!

See you guys in March!

After a relatively dry year 2011, the window of opportunity shined early in 2012… this one is the first in a set of 4 great cities I visited in 4 different countries in Western Europe.

Denmark is a small country, and Copenhagen its capital is the largest city. It is large, but not really in comparison to Mumbai, New York, Chicago or even Hyderabad :)

A metro train ride – and there are automatic driverless metro trains in Copenhagen – from the airport takes you to downtown Copenhagen in less than 20 minutes! So you can imagine the size of the city. However, the downtown area is not really as small and completely walkable as Chicago. But people walk – and they cycle a lot in the Nordics!

Here are some not so good photographs that I could take in freezing –4 C.

Reminds me of Vail, Colorado

What you see in the pic below, is the strait separating Denmark and Sweden, and the tiny vertical lines form one of the first and the largest offshore wind farms in the world…

I guess that’s it for now, some other countries in the following blog posts :)

And this is for 2011…

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before? Changed jobs.

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next? I dint have one, but I have one for 2012.

3. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? August 31st, left Pune.

4. What was your biggest achievement of the year? What did I achieve?

5. What was your biggest failure? Finances!

6. Did you suffer illness? No!!!! Wow, finally!

7. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Idiots :) Always!

8. Where did most of your money go? Food, Stock market

9. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Hyderabad!

10. What song will always remind you of 2011? The One That Got Away, Fireworks, Rolling in the Deep, Saibo

11. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder? Happier.

12. What do you wish you’d done more of? Playing badminton

13. What do you wish you’d done less of? Eating!

14. Did you fall in love in 2011? Yes. With Roshnai all over again :D

15. How many one night stands? None :|

16. What was your greatest musical discovery? Adele.

17. What did you want and get? Good city to live in, oh, and new friends !

18. What did you want and not get? International travel.

19. What was your favourite film of this year? Shor in the City

20. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I had sushi with Roshnai :) I was 26.

21. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Certainly, a trip abroad!

22. What kept you sane? Photography!

23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. Stop wasting time with people who do not matter!

24. Which new places did you visit in 2011? Purushwadi (Sahyadris, India), Hyderabad (India), Udaipur, Kota (Rajasthan, India), Hampi (Karnataka, India)

25. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year -
Do you ever feel already buried deep? Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing…
Do you know that there’s still a chance for you, ‘Cause there’s a spark in you?

After 5 pm, kids of almost all ages would be playing in the compound, and games could be anything from hide and seek to cricket. Outside the compound, a few street kids would often play marbles, or just make a lot of noise beating sticks on to empty cardboard boxes. Today there weren’t many. He had a few toffies in the pocket of his shirt, that he had got to give to the little ones playing around. Today, they stayed in his pocket, oblivious to the few kids running around.  Ankit, on his way back from school, peeped from the entrance archway of the building and saw him sitting on the porch. He walked gracefully all the way with his heavy school bag hanging down his shoulders, and with a little smile on this face.

“Hello Dadaji, how are you”, he greeted with a larger smile, which was striking against his un-tucked shirt, and open shoe laces. He had probably rolled down a muddy football field in school, and that made his cream coloured shirt look caramel flavoured.

“Shall we go?”,  saying that with widened eyes Dadaji got his back erect with stick ready to walk. That day Ankit was late in coming back from school, he perhaps had an extra hour of sports. It was already getting dark with the sun having gone below the visible horizon.

“Ankit, will you come down to play?”,  one of the smart chaps swinging a cricket bat asked him as they were about to go upstairs.

“Lets play on the floor in half an hour”, saying this he slowly escorted Dadaji to the elevators.

Please note: This story is part 2.1 in continuation of Melody of Life

This post was shamelessly inspired by the The Marriage of Symphonies

The above photos capture what you can expect to find in a typical market on the streets of old Hyderabad. The Charminar, and the Chowmahalla Palace have been intentionally left out. You can find them in heaps on the internet.

Hyderabad is great for old buildings, jewellery, antiques, traditional medicines, spicy food and some random things… Enjoy!