June 24 saw us celebrate our 25th anniversary. Given the kids just want to come home to their beds and sleep, they wanted us to be gone to celebrate it somewhere far away.
San, the planner, did an amazing job of planning a one week trip with practically one day in each city in eastern Europe for the most part. Only thing I had to do was to give a list of places or Viator tours of interest in those locations.
Our first City was Zadar. We took three flights to get there. SFO to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Dusseldorf, and finally Dusseldorf to Zadar on different airlines. We were tired by the time we got to Zadar airport. Got a Taxi and were dropped off at the old Town. This is literally a walled area that looks like the inside of a castle where no cars are allowed.
It took us some time to find our hotel. It was a beautiful hotel right next to one of the gates to the walled area. We just got dropped at the wrong gate!
The whole place was beautiful. Cobblestones that were smooth from years of feet walking on them.. it had been hit by the war but was rebuilt. We had leftover packed food and we just ate that in the hotel room after walking around our hotel. It was already late and most of the stores were closed. So we went to sleep early.
The next morning we had to walk a mile to the group gathering point for our all day adventure.
The roads were empty but beautiful. . .
Our beautiful hotel.. (the room was decorated Honeymoon style).. The Palazzo venezia!
When San starts posing like this on day 1, I couldn't be happier!
Video highlights..
Have 1000's of pics and videos from this trip, but never got around to blogging about it. As soon as I came back work caught up. Then my dad's condition took a turn for the worse as he swallowed kanji into his lungs. At one point doctors asked my mom to notify next of kin as they didn't think he would survive the night. We were all there in India and he made a miraculous comeback and is home now. That meant the blogs never made it.
My goal is to clear those out of my camera and laptop by writing at least one little blog before bedtime everyday. . .
The previous post in this series on our travel in Buenos Aires is here..
For some reason, I decided to use iPhone photos for the most part, that too without any processing and my FIL promptly told me that my photos are usually a visual treat and my standards are going down.
Given few people still read this blog, decided to use nicely cropped, edited photos for this post. It is still mostly iPhone photos. Hope it gets the bar back up again..even if slightly..
After the cemetery visit, we drove to La Boca, which is not an upscale neighborhood but is one of the oldest places in Buenos Aires that was populated, mainly by waves of immigrants. There is an old world charm in this place that is very unique! Parts of it, the walls, the doors and windows reminded me of walking around old neighborhoods in Mylapore. In fact one of the steets brougt back memories of TSV Kovil street. My brain does a number on me when in new places and connects random things. So walked around in a daze absorbing the sights, sounds and smells.
one of my favorite shots on this trip!
Caminito was interesting.. with the center piece being an ice cream shop. There was a long line so we skipped the ice cream. We were also on the clock for the private tour.
this photo courtesy of our tour guide who was trying to direct folks to be out of the shot.. he did a great job!
Then we moved on to San Telmo area and the market. The entire place was full of antique shops. Old books, LP's, cameras that went extinct, Simpson's bobble head dolls, crazy stuff that used to be in the last bottom row in Navarathri golus when I was a small boy.. it was amazing!
we went into a lane that had these umbrellas.. it had more of a French vibe to it than the Spanish vibe we expected.. the place started getting crowded, given there were offices there.. we managed to take a few photos
Once the crowd saw what I was doing with the next shot, everyone was trying to copy it.. was telling the family that I take it as a compliment and am not the least bit offended.
After the family decided to eat some empanadas at one of San Telmo's hottest places, we made a move to see the Obelisk and what is dubbed the Times Square of Buenos Aires.
There was no parking, so our guide stopped the car on the road side and said "10 minutes is all I can wait if you want to run across and take pictures".. and we did manage to do that and get back, jump in the car and go back to our hotel area.
this whole obelisk thing was weird. It was in the middle of the busiest part of the city and the barricades and barriers around it made it less appealing. There were too many walking signals around and the pedestrian and car traffic was a disaster waiting to happen. Also there is no way to get a decent shot of us and the Obelisk given the short distance in front of it. The locals seemed to be very happy with the monument.. we were all wondering how it fit with the rest of the area.. it stuck out like a sore obelisk!
the kids never share their pics with me.. and I am definitely not allowed in their social media circle.. but I do have these type of memories.. watching them grow into confident young women!
we stopped at a few more places to take photos of monuments (our time was up and I made a request.. so it was nice of our guide to do this!)
we even stopped by the area where all the big hotels are.. the lobby decorations in Buenos Aires are interesting..
We thanked our guide who was a really nice person and ate leftovers from what we had packed for lunch at the hotel. Had to finish the food anyways as we were to check out. We had two hours to spend before our ride to the airport. San and the little one stayed in the hotel restaurant after checking out. Jr. and myself decided to go back to the waterfront to get a taste of the famous Luciano's ice cream. It was a 40 minute walk one way but we made it, had ice cream and got back in time to catch our ride to the airport... only after coming back to the US did we realize that this ice cream is from California but has become very popular in Buenos Aires!!
the dulce de leche here is apparently a hit.. so we had to get a taste of it. It was yummmmmmmmmyyy!
we walked past the boats (which were museums .. didn't realize it the previous evening!)
We made it in time for our flight.. but it was late. So we ended up in the crowded airport for an extra two painful hours before finally boarding for Porto Iguazu..
A video for the last part of the city tour. We covered a lot of places in 4 and a half hours!
Would definitely recommend this private guided tour of Buenos Aires through Viator. Our guide was Martin and he was a really sincere guide! Not sure if you can ask for him through Viator tours. . .
We said bye to Buenos Aires as there was not going to be any more walking around the city.. we had no idea..
The whole trip was all about Iguazu falls. Have way too many photos and videos to process from the next day of the trip. The next post on this series will have to wait..
After visiting the Leo Carrillo Ranch, we moved on to Double Peak park. This was a beaufiful park with some play area for kids and a trail path for everyone in Carlsbad/San Marcos area.
Reminded us of Hunters point in Cupertino. The views were awesome and the kids had fun with a triple fulcrum see-saw! It was interesting and we have never seen a see-saw like this where 4 or 5 kids can walk up and down.
Then we took a short break and drove to Old Town for New Year's eve dinner, at El Coyote! Most of the shops were closed but we got to watch the window displays in this area.. some of them were quite interesting!
Then we watched ladies make tortillas at Guiness book record speeds.
The dinner itself was quite interesing with a couple of guys with guitars singing for the ladies! My three girls were either not amused or were embarrassed by the attention.
El Coyote has a separate "vegetarian menu" and they give it if you ask for it. It was good that our friends knew that and made ordering a breeze.
It was a memorable evening and we all slept well. On first we had the last stop on the trip. The San Diego Zoo!
First time visit for everyone in the family and there are still hundreds of photos from that day that have yet to be edited. Will take a break and post them next week. By far the best Zoo we have seen..
