thecruisemaniac.com

This update must have been here a couple of weeks back… But then, other things have kept me away from my blog for quite sometime now… And when Himanshu Bhai left a comment on my blog, it spurred me to get up and post an update… So here goes…

Cinque Terre was 3 days of awesome holidaying on one of the most amazing coastlines I’ve ever seen in my life!  Awesome treks along the coast.  Again…  Some of gods best art executed in total true colour…  Enough of explaining… A small sneak preview of the photos that I’ve uploaded on Flickr! here.

A small sneak preview, if you could call it… is here:

So many colours in a single photograph

My Kodak camera can do this??? Whoa!!! :-0

Photo credits Optical Illusion

The Cinque Terre — five picturesque fishing villages perched on Mediterranean hillsides, splendidly brushed in sun-washed colors.

Or so say websites and it truly a paradise on earth…  Ever since I saw this place on the way back from Rome, I’ve been soo wanting to come here and spend a couple of days and trek along the cliffside.  And this petty dream has come true today… with my generous PM offerring to give tomorrow off!  Friends heading to Rome and I’m headed to the Liguria province where Cinque Terre is located.

For those that’re not really comfortable with Italian, heres what Cinque Terre means: Cinque (Chink - kweh) meaning 5, and Terre (Therre) meaning land.  And it is… the paradise consisting of 5 small villages from south of the coast to north namely: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Cornigilia, Vernazza, Monterosso al Mare.

I’ll be spending 3 days at Riomaggiore and covering as much of the rest of the coastline by foot and by train.  This is gonna be an awesome trip!!!  Expect some good photos when I get back.

’til then… Ciao!!!!

This trip I have to definitely blog about!  Innsbruck’s a place thats long been on my bucket list and finally it’s a strike!  Two lovely days at Innsbruck! The alps is just too lovely to look at!  And getting caught in the Euro 2008 football frenzy is just too incomparable!!!

A few snapshots:

The rest of the innsbruck story is here on my flickr stream.  Its a quick and small post, but then yeah, Pictures would be better in explaining the experience!!!  I’m at a complete loss of words!!!

The plans this weekend: Innsbruck, Austria!

Image Courtesy stetre76 on Flickr.

No Euro 2008 matches happening this weekend! Nevertheless, its gonna be a cool B-) weekend! Pics will be uploaded to Flickr after I get back!

Until then, Chao…

A quick update on the activities over the last 3 weeks!

Week 1: Rome, Pisa

Week 2: Basilica di Superga, Torino

Week 3: Venezia

That has been it! A lot of touring, some very interesting places, Some cities held back in time (Roma), Some interesting incidents, Some very lovely people for Company!  It has overall been 3 awesome, out of the world quality weekends!!!

Some of the photos are here.  The rest are at home… and I will upload them as I find time!!!

And oh! I’m visiting Innsbruck, Austria this weekend!!! B-)  And sadly, I dont have the tickets to any football match of the Euro 2008 cup!!!

The Colosseum, Pic courtesy tjsuresh

Off to Rome tonight! I will be spending 2 full days at rome and then visiting Pisa on Monday on the way back to turin.  Lucky us, Monday is a National Holiday for Italy on occassion of Foundation of the Italian Republic (I) .  So, advance wishes for a Happy Birthday, Italy!!

Thanks to colleagues at work, we got the Trenitalia tickets at dirt-cheap rates! 65€ per person for the entire Turin->Rome->Pisa->Turin trip! Thank you guys! Grazie!!!

Thejesh a.k.a. @thej pointed us to Youth hostels in Rome which was again a total boon! Dirt cheap rates for quite decent accomodation!  Thankyou dude…

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pic courtesy dgmfotos

Thanks to @Netra, who patched me up with @hanisha who stays in Pisa, we have a guided tour in the works!  This is going to be a good weekend!!!

God bless Social Networking!!! Roma, I cometh!!! Let the Race begin!!! B-)

Yeah, I know, my twitter page has been updating things like this for a long time (9 days exactly) and yeah, I’m in Torino, Italy!!!! My first ever Foreign destination!!! W0000000000t!!!!!

After 2 failed and futile and lossy attempts to get here, I finally got to Turin last friday (16-May-2008) after a 10 hr flight to paris, 6 hours of wait and another 2 hours by air to the Casselle International Airport, Torino.

I’m here for the next 2.5 months and am gonna definitely enjoy every single moment of it…  Oh, but the language is a serious PITA issue… Its very very very rare to find an italian that speaks english!  This goes for situations in the office too…  With your manager saying “I go take dump and mail you!“, ROFL’s and LOL’s are always around

And then there’s italian women!  Ooh! Mama!!! Whoa!!! w0000000000t!!! Bling!!!  There… that says it all!!!

Oh! Oh!!! There’s pizza vegetariana… 10 inch radius of awesome goodness!!! Shmmmmmack!!! I just luuuuuuuuuurvvvve it!!!  Oh yeah!!! The best part, getting up in the morning, and having a fight with your roomies on what to make for breakfast and lunch and then deciding that we’ll cook only for lunch and have conflakes for breakfast. Everyday! Thats’s definite fun!!!

And… a truckload of sight-seeing, no… not the women part! the historical monuments, churches, architectures part!!! Sheeesh!!! you dirty people!!! ;-)  We’re already done with the women part!

Had the chance to attend a rock-concert by a local band from Torino called Supsonica… And they played some of the best electro-rock that I’ve heard!!! Loads of electronic, Loads of Guitar and Awesome percussion!

Yeah, its turning out to be a whale of a trip! Plans are on to go to Rome this weekend… Probably to venice the next and the to Hokkenheim for the F1 race thats scheduled next month. And then come back and attend 3 continuous nights of rock-music! This is gonna be loaded.

As far as work goes, the “thing” that I was sent here to do… we’ll I cant work if I cant login to the servers can I???  So that pretty much sums up my stay so far in Torino, Italy.

For quick updates as I feel them, check them out on my twitter page here.  For photos, check out my flickr page here.

And till then, Grazié, and Chao!

Kumaraparvatha or KP as its fondly called by a lot of trekkers is one of the most beautiful peaks in Karnataka. Situated in the Coorg district, this place is awesome and is as amazing as nature can get. And for this reason, it’s frequented by a huge number of people… And for this reason, this place is sh*# screwed up…

Nisarga is organizing a backpacking program called “Trek to Clean” to Kumaraparvatha with the intent of enjoying nature in the best way possible and also cleaning up the place enroute…

This is happening on 15-16 December, 2007. Participants will leave from bangalore on 14th night and be back in bangalore on the morning of the 17th so that they can get back to work…

As I mentioned previously, the trek is a complete backpacking trek, so, everything is taken care of by the participants… From Cooking, to cleaning up the vessels to cleaning up the route and dumping the garbage collected. We will be providing the the tents and carrymats for you to rest yourselves during the night… So, rest assured, you will sleep with a satisfaction of having done something good… Oh! And, Nisarga will also provide you with the ration, vessels, the stove, gas and the likes for you to get your hands into the cooking department…

We expect each participant to pick up approx. 2kg of garbage in bags provided and we will ensure the safe disposal and cleanup of garbage once we touch the town limits… The collection of garbage is on you, the cleanup and disposal is on us…

The total cost of the trek inclusive of travel will be Rs. 1600 /-.

Those interested in the trek call me at 99453 94216 / Rajendra at 94480 38220 / karthik at 99800 17105 or mail us at info (at) nisargaindia (dot) com for more details.

The post is a bit late on the page as I’ve been quite caught with a lot of stuff to organize and lot of camps to take care of… But then, here it goes, Trek to clean!!! Keep your environment clean. And as we say at Nisarga, we have one planet! Lets not dig graves for our own future…