A photo essay

November 16th, 2005  |  Published in Adventure, Living, Personal, Photography, Travel  |  19 Comments

I was look­ing through my trip pho­tographs and decided to pick one or two from every place I vis­ited and do a quick photo essay : a mem­ory recap through all the places and sights I saw and the peo­ple I met. Just lit­tle mem­o­ries that keep pop­ping up… Here they are, coun­try­wise, but in no par­tic­u­lar order.

Lon­don Cab­bies: I loved them. They are bright, spa­cious (not sure what model of cars they are, but they look cute) and they are used gen­er­ously for pub­lic­ity pur­poses. So you have these colour­ful mov­ing adver­tise­ments teas­ing you as they pass you by. As I later found out, the dri­vers can be pretty inter­est­ing too.

(Warn­ing: longish post with quite a few pic­tures)

By the river Thames: Along­with with friend Sangeeta, her hubby Pra­teek and sis­ter, we drove down to Wind­sor Cas­tle. It turned out to be a sunny and beau­ti­ful day as we took a walk along the river and enjoyed watch­ing peo­ple go by as we sat and had lunch at a street­side café. For a moment, I imag­ined liv­ing in this cute house by the river :)

A driz­zly day in Barcelona: Unde­terred and with­out an umbrella, I decided to do some gal­li­vant­ing and reached the only famil­iar place I knew (I had seen it when I arrived) called Placa Espanya. From there, it’s a walk up to the Palau Nacional, where there is a museum, a beau­ti­ful gar­den and also the Olympics sta­dium fur­ther up the hill. I stood here for a moment look­ing out into the rain and drank in the view.

La Mer­cat Bou­que­ria: Attracted by the noise and atmos­phere as I walked down the Las Ram­blas, I chanced upon this vibrant mar­ket place. Rows of veg­etable and meat shops and lit­tle booths at inter­vals for folks to eat and drink. In one cor­ner, a gang of street per­form­ers kept the crowd enter­tained. As I walked around, I came across this rel­a­tively uncrowded and shaded section…

Evening by Lake Léman, Switzer­land: Steph drove us down to the lake­side on a Sun­day evening and though it was slightly over­cast, there were quite a few peo­ple enjoy­ing the beau­ti­ful views. The cloudy mist cov­ered moun­tains in the dis­tance pro­vid­ing the per­fect back­ground for this idyl­lic lake. A sail­boat going out for an evening spin, kids play­ing in the carousel (and par­ents wait­ing on the side!), skaters and rollerbladers get­ting their evening exer­cise, cou­ples roam­ing around hand in hand : the place had just the feel of a lazy Sun­day evening. I had faint flashes in my mind of Madi­vala lake behind my house being turned into a sim­i­lar set­ting. Ah, one can dream, ay?

Last evening @ Lau­sanne: I was writ­ing some­thing in my diary at Steph’s place when I glanced out of her kitchen win­dow, not with­out a tinge of sad­ness. Then I went rush­ing to look for my cam­era not want­ing to let go of the moment. Thanks Steph, for such a won­der­ful time :) And of course, meet­ing Vrinda was an added bonus.

First glimpse of the Eif­fel Tower: I walked up from the Tro­cadera Gar­dens metro sta­tion and came upon the gor­geous and tow­er­ing Eif­fel Tower. I stayed here for a while look­ing at all the other tourists like me, busy tak­ing pic­tures in front of the Tower. How can one visit this place and not take a pic­ture in front of it? Just as I was devis­ing schemes to get myself in a frame, this young Chi­nese tourist came up to me and asked me to take his pic­ture. I obliged and he then he vol­un­teered to do the same. So there, I too have a pic­ture now (and this one is not it!). After he left, this sweet pigeon decided I needed some com­pany and sat on the ledge as I admired France’s most famous mon­u­ment…

Tow­er­ing pre­sense: Later that same evening, from my bus I sighted upon the Eif­fel Tower again, this time from a dis­tance, a rather beau­ti­ful sight against the dark­en­ing evening sky.

In the shade of the Sacre Coeur: Tak­ing Jag’s advice, I decided to walk up the hill (instead of tak­ing the funic­u­lar : a small lift like struc­ture) where the beau­ti­ful and grand Basil­ica of Sacre Coeur is sit­u­ated. I got down at Mont­martre from the bus and walked around the nar­row cob­bled streets for a bit, enjoy­ing the sun­shine and the hus­tle and bus­tle of the place. Got myself a sand­wich, which I ate sit­ting on a bench, just beside the carousel and watched the kids play for a while. Then I took the stairs up. As you climb the hill, there are benches placed thought­fully at inter­vals. So in case you get tired on the way, you can take a break and enjoy the lovely view.

Scot­tish coun­try­side: As we made our way by bus from Edin­burgh into the Scot­tish heart­land, all we could see for miles on end were rolling hills and sheep. The bus dri­ver help­fully informed us that there were 3 mil­lion peo­ple and 7 mil­lion sheep in Scot­land. Amaz­ing, innit?! A few hours into the jour­ney we entered what is called the moor­lands : just miles and miles of des­o­late undu­lat­ing land cov­ered in moss coloured bracken.

Look­ing for Nessie: After the des­o­late moor­land, the scenery slowly changes and becomes more forested as we approach the Ness area, home to the famous Loch Ness lake and mon­ster. How could I resist ride on the boat to go look for Nessie? Hav­ing heard so much about this famous mon­ster, it was quite a thrill to finally visit the lake where she has granted many sup­posed sight­ings over the years. Whether Ness really lives down there or not, the loch con­tin­ues to profit from all the folk­lore and myth.

A day @ Inver­ness: The river Ness that flows through the town of Inver­ness even­tu­ally joins the Loch Ness. All through the river’s jour­ney is a path­way beside for those who are adven­tur­ous enough to walk. Not feel­ing that adven­tur­ous we decided to walk around the town instead. Being Sun­day, every­thing was closed. It was dark and gloomy and driz­zling a lit­tle. But the sun came out after a while and that cheered us up con­sid­er­ably as sat by the river read­ing news­pa­pers. After a while, Aparna (a friend’s friend) came and picked us up from there and we shall be for­ever grate­ful for her gra­cious­ness as she took us both home and we chilled out there for the rest of the day till we had to catch our bus back to Glasgow.

Responses

1. Pranjal says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 11:51 am (#)

   Thank you much. Beau­ti­ful essay.

2. prithi shetty says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 11:58 am (#)

   Lovely

3. GN says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 12:33 pm (#)

   You took me through a vir­tual euro­pean guided tour!

4. ~ Shibs. says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 1:44 pm (#)

   Most beau­ti­ful, love! :)

5. spyder_Z says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 2:03 pm (#)

   u gotcha nice blog :)

6. Amit says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 2:03 pm (#)

   Amaz­ing!!!

7. Prashanth Manikya says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 2:39 pm (#)

   Nice writeup and gr8 pho­tos!! Thanks for sharing :)

8. rEEna says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 2:44 pm (#)

   lou­uly! noice!
   Loved the eif­fel shot from afar!!!!
   And the Scot­land pic too!

   rEEna

9. Kapil says:
   

   November 17th, 2005 at 4:20 pm (#)

   If you ever start tuto­ri­als on “great pho­tog­ra­phy tips” by Anita Bora. Please, please do invite me.
   Amaz­ing shots and seems like you indeed had a great trip. Besides the world looks so very dif­fer­ent from the eyes of a pho­tog­ra­pher. Like the pigeon pegged opp. the Eif­fel Tower — Beautiful.

10. Sam says:
    

    November 17th, 2005 at 4:32 pm (#)

    Nice pic­tures! Looks like you had a fun trip.

11. Khushee says:
    

    November 18th, 2005 at 5:34 am (#)

    You’ve cap­tured your trip in some beau­ti­ful photographs :)

12. nandish says:
    

    November 18th, 2005 at 1:36 pm (#)

    lovely pho­tographs. looks like u had a gr8 time!

13. Sinfully Pinstripe says:
    

    November 18th, 2005 at 4:03 pm (#)

    Am shak­ing my head in awe. Those are brilliant.

14. Bobby and Mona says:
    

    November 20th, 2005 at 1:01 am (#)

    Its through your bril­liant pho­tog­ra­phy we realise that we are sur­rounded by such beauty

15. Nithya says:
    

    November 21st, 2005 at 10:04 am (#)

    wow! the last evening at Lau­sanne snap is jus outta the world!:) So is the Eif­fel tower snap with that pigeon… great capture..:)

16. Sabir says:
    

    November 21st, 2005 at 3:16 pm (#)

    Beau­ti­ful pic­tures, the Eif­fel Tower against the set­ting sun is breath­tak­ing. Thanks for sharing.

17. Satya says:
    

    November 26th, 2005 at 2:09 am (#)

    gr8..which cam­era have u been using

18. Eric says:
    

    November 29th, 2005 at 6:51 pm (#)

    Hey
    just wanted to say .what if you slep and shot the pigeon/eiffel tower pic­ture you know with the pic­ture as low as pos­si­ble in the pic and more of the eif­fel tower pic you would get more of the tower and the myr­iad build­ings at the back & sky while the bird in the fore ground also maybe if you could come directly behind the bird and get more of the tower dunno just suggestion

19. chikuado says:
    

    January 18th, 2006 at 6:55 pm (#)

    absolutely enchant­ing!! the pho­tos were so beau­ti­fully placed, that they seemed to take off where the words left, and bring you right back to the next para­graph, where it starts :-)

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