Europe Diaries - Day 20 - Lisbon to Calgary

After taking a nap for a few hours, we woke up at 2 am, got ready, checked-out and took the waiting taxi to the Lisbon airport. We were at the airport by 3:10 am. Most things were closed and only KLM's counters were open. We dropped off our bags - both weighed exactly 23.0 kg and included all the souvenirs and fridge magnets of all the cities that we visited on the trip. We passed through security and just waited for boarding to start since there wasn't anything else to do. Boarding started at 4:30 am and the flight took off on time at 5 am Lisbon time or 10 pm of the previous day in Calgary. To get rid of jet lag, we started following Calgary's time after boarding this Lisbon to Amsterdam flight. Since it was bedtime in Calgary, we tried sleeping through most of the 3 hour flight.

Our layover at Amsterdam's Schiphol's airport was 3.5 hours so we window shopped at duty free stores and had breakfast/lunch - vegetable stromboli, cheese panini, orange juice and cappuccino. Then we walked from the domestic section D for about 15 minutes to our gate in the international section F. On our way, we passed through passport control and got the exit stamps to officially mark our farewell to Europe.

At Schiphol airport, for international flights, there are security checkpoints at every gate and there was a huge lineup outside our gate which meant that it was going to be a full flight. It took us about 40 minutes to wait for our turn to pass through security and then we were finally on board. The flight took off on time at 4:30 am Calgary time. I slept for half an hour and since waking up, both of us haven't slept and it's almost 8:30 pm as I write this. KLM takes great care of its passengers and once again, we had several snacks, one meal and several rounds of beverages. We made sure to choose something caffeinated each time so that we could remain awake. For passing time, we saw two movies - American Hustle and 12 Years A Slave. Both of them were short listed for the Oscar awards and both are good in their own right. After the movies, there was about 1 hour left in reaching Calgary so I watched sitcoms (Family Guy and The Big Bang Theory) while Samia watched a documentary of The Lourve Museum. The 9 hour flight passed by quite comfortably.

After a very smooth landing in Calgary at 1:20 pm, we walked to passport control and after a swift clearance, we collected our suitcases and headed out. Sohaib uncle was waiting for us and he gave us a ride. We reached home at 2:40 pm. At home, we continued talking to Sohaib uncle for a little while and during this time Sarim also dropped by. Samia printed lecture slides and case studies for her MBA Marketing course and started studying. Sohaib uncle left to pick up Hani from squash and Sarim also had to leave for his own squash match.

After dropping off Samia at her 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm Marketing class, I got stuck in the rush hour so the 15 minute drive back home took half an hour. I did unpacking and laundry for almost one and a half hours and then went to Samia's parents' place to pick up food that Samia's mummy has prepared for us :) I started writing this final update as I was parked outside Samia's university to pick her up and I'm finishing it at home. Now we'll have dinner and then go to bed. Back to the daily grind from tomorrow!

Till the next time we hit the road, adios! Take care and good night.

Europe Diaries - Day 19 - Sintra

We were up at 7:30 am and got ready for our guided tour. We had the Pasteis de Belem custard tarts from yesterday for breakfast with in-room coffee. When we went down to the lobby at 9 am, our guide Felipe (Portuguese version of Philip) was waiting.

He is an interesting guy. He worked at Accenture as an IT consultant for 9 years before starting his tourism company that is now ranked first in Portugal on the travel website TripAdvisor (the most widely used website around the world for travel reviews). He has recently opened a second business - a cooking school - since he loves cooking.

He told us about himself and the area while we drove for an hour to Sintra, a city neighboring Lisbon. We went straight to the top of the mountain to the Pena palace. It is truly a fairy tale castle and was built by the German prince Ferdinand when he became the King of Portugal through marriage. Ferdinand designed the palace himself and included in the design all things medieval and from fairy tales that he loved. There are walls and towers around the castle's various wings, there is the statue of a sea dragon protecting the entrance, there is a medieval Moorish fort that you can see in the distance and there are forest-like gardens around the palace. All this was built by Ferdinand over his lifetime in the 19th century at the location of a 16th century monastery that he bought when it was in ruins. He preserved the original structure of the monastery so the rooms of the palace are small for a royal residence although still quite grand. The palace was used by three generations of the Portuguese royal family as their summer residence since Sintra is cooler than Lisbon during summer. When the royal family's line discontinued in 1910 and Portugal became a republic, the palace was turned into a tourist attraction. It started raining as soon as we finished our tour of the palace so we boarded the hop on hop off golf cart that drove us through the gardens and showed us various landmarks. We were dropped off at the entrance where Felipe was waiting for us.

He took us to a bakery that has been run by the same family for 4 generations and is famous for their desserts so we tried two of their famous desserts on his recommendation and cappuccino. Then we stopped at a store where we tried different varieties of cheese, definitely the best we've ever had. The food in Portugal continues to amaze us with its high quality.

Our next stop was a maze of a palace called Quinta Da Regaleira that was built by a millionaire in the 20th century. The palace itself was relatively simple but the gardens are marvelous. They reminded us of the enchanted forest we saw in British Columbia, Canada. It had tunnels and grottoes (caves) and winding cobblestone pathways and all of this was in a thick forest. Secret passageways and shortcuts and towers and a well with a spiral staircase. We loved traversing the structure to the top and then went to see the palace on our way down.

Then we drove for a while and stopped for lunch at a restaurant that is another family owned venture for a few generations. We had fish there - grilled codfish for me and grilled sea bass for Samia - and keeping with the tradition of high quality food, the fish was fresh and delicious. Felipe also talked to us about with culture of football in Portugal and about arguably the world's best player Cristiano Ronaldo and the best coach Jose Mourinho both of whom are from Portugal. He also told us about his Lisbon based club SL Benfica that has a huge fan following in the country and is the 5th best club in the world, according to what he told us. Quite impressive football portfolio for a country of only 10 million. His club won the Portuguese championship last week and according to him around a million people gathered to celebrate it in Lisbon! We also tried an interesting dessert on Felipe's recommendation - something called a cloud dessert that actually looked like a cloud in shape and texture and had milk, sugar, egg and cinnamon as its main ingredients - quite tasty.

After lunch, we stopped at the Western most point in Europe, the Cabo da Roca. It was windy although Felipe told us that it wasn't as bad as it usually gets. We took some pictures and enjoyed the scenery for a few minutes before continuing on our drive.

We drove along the sea back towards Lisbon and stopped at the city of Cascais. Beautiful city full of character with a lovely coast and impressive houses. We drove through Estoril that was similar to Cascais and then headed back to our hotel. Felipe showed us the stadium of SL Benfica from the outside that was a giant structure that can hold 65,000 people and is usually full for all games.

We reached back our hotel around 6:30 pm. After freshening up, we walked in the neighborhood to sample some Pastel de Nata pastries along with a chicken patty. This was our dinner. Then we walked back and were back at our hotel at 8 pm. We asked our hotel to book us a taxi for 2:45 am since the drive from our hotel to the Lisbon airport is 15 minutes and we have to reach at 3 am (2 hours before our 5 am flight to Amsterdam). We had already checked-in online this morning. In fact, that was the first thing I did this morning after waking up. We'll have a 3.5 hours layover in Amsterdam followed by a 9 hour flight to Calgary.

We have packed our bags and are going to take a nap now for a few hours before waking up at 2 am. Thanks for reading all the updates! Hope you enjoyed the stories we shared. The final one will be from our home in Calgary tomorrow :)

Till then, take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 18 - Lisbon

We woke up at 9:30 am, got ready and checked-out of our hotel. There is a taxi stand right next to our hotel so we took a taxi to the airport for our flight to Lisbon. It was a 20 minute ride without much traffic that took us through modern highways of Madrid and we got a chance to see the newer areas of the city. We were at the airport at 10:45 am. After dropping off our suitcases, we proceeded through security to our gate, window shopping at the various duty free stores on our way. Once close to our gate, we had brunch - croissant, orange juice, cheese baguette sandwich and cappuccino. A quick note about European cappuccino and orange juice. Unlike North America, orange juice is fresh everywhere you go. Similarly, cappuccino is very high quality with just the right balance between milk and coffee. We haven't had bad cappuccino anywhere on our trip.

After that, we stood in line for boarding which formed around half an hour before the actual boarding. We had so much time that Samia kept standing in the line and I went to 100 Montaditos opposite the gate to get a bite-sized dessert sandwich - Oreos, cream and chocolate sauce in a chocolate cake bread. I joined her in the line and we had the delicious sandwich. Then I stood in the line while Samia went for a washroom break and when she came back, the line had just started moving. Once we boarded the flight, it was late and took off almost 50 minutes late. It's a short flight though - just about an hour. The time zone in Portugal is one hour behind so we reached there the same time as we left Madrid: 1 pm. After getting our bags, we had to wait for almost half an hour in the line for getting a taxi - that's how busy the airport was! We reached our hotel and checked-in around 2 pm. Then we made a walking plan using our guidebook, rested a little and headed out.

Our plan was to see an old castle in the Alfama area and visit the area of Belem. We walked to the closest metro station that is a little less than a km and bought an unlimited day pass. The castle and Alfama are on a hill - Lisbon's city center is built on seven hills - so we got off at the station at the base of the hill and took an old tram up the hill. This historic tram is over a 100 years old so the ride was quite different. It went through narrow winding cobblestone streets up the hill and the outer facades of the houses had colorful tiles on them. This was the Alfama area. Due to some confusion, we got off a couple of stations earlier but then asked for directions and walked the rest of the way up the hill. On our way, we saw a viewpoint square that overlooks the sea with a backdrop of colorful houses on hills. After reaching the castle, we took a few pictures and then headed back down to the square for a chicken wrap. Then we took the same tram for taking us down the hill to the downtown area called Baixa. We were enjoying the ride so much that we decided to get off a couple of stations after the station that would've taken us to the Belem area, the idea being that we could walk back and take in the atmosphere of the neighborhood. But the next station was too far from Baixa so we decided to take the tram back in the opposite direction but for some reason, 4 trams passed by without stopping so we started walking back following the tram line. This took us to the inner streets of the area and exploring the hilly cobblestone streets on foot turned out to be very enriching. We finally managed to get on a tram after a couple of stops. After getting on it, we recognized the driver and a passenger that was sitting in front of me on our last ride - in the time between us getting off at that wrong station and walking back to this station, the tram had circled back and we were on it again! This time we got off at Baixa and waited for the tram to the Belem area. The square where we waited was called Praca da Figueira and had a dance performance going on at a stage so we saw that for a little while and then boarded the tram. Unlike the historical tram earlier, this was a modern tram similar to what we had seen in Amsterdam last year. The Baixa area seemed a happening place so we decided that after exploring Belem, we would come back here for dinner.

The ride to Belem was almost 25 minutes long and passed by an imposing 18th century palace called Palacio Foz and then went parallel to the coast of the River Tagus. There is a famous dessert of Belem sold at a store that started in 1850s - the Pasteis de Belem. The dessert takes its name after the shop and is essentially a custard patty. We first tried it at a copycat store along with cappuccino and chicken patty (Pakistan style) and then set off for a walk along the coast. It was a very refreshing walk and the river is calm and the area clean. We also saw yachts docked there. The best thing about the coast was that there were no tourists so it was very peaceful. It's not a beach and we were walking at the side of the river on a cobblestone path. We walked all the way to the Monument to the Discoveries that's a huge memorial for various important personalities in Portugal's history. Among them is Vasco de Gama, the explorer who sailed to India successfully (unlike Columbus) and is the reason why there was a Portuguese colony in the Goa area of India. The monument must be 100 meters tall and has a huge cross/sword in front and statues of about ten men on its side and they are all looking towards the sea. Then we crossed the road to walk in the park of the San Jeronimo monastery, a grand yet serene building. We didn't have time to go inside so we just saw it from the outside and headed back. We stopped at the original Pasteis de Belem store and got two dessert pastries packed. We'll have them tomorrow. Then we boarded the bus back to Praca da Figueira and passed through some more inner streets in a different part of the city but equally full of character.

We had dinner at a really nice restaurant in Praca da Figueira - Peri Peri chicken and cod fried rice - two typical Portuguese dishes. Yes, this is the same Peri Peri chicken that's sold at the Nando's chain throughout the world. Actually, Nando's also sells custard tarts which we are guessing are inspired from the Pasteis de Belem. The food was great and we realized that Nando's serves quite authentic Portuguese cuisine.

After that we took a few photos in the nearby square called Rossio that has the national theater and a couple of fountains and statues in the square. Lisbon is a city full of character, colorful houses and rich history. We are a little surprised that it doesn't have more tourists.

Then we took the subway back to the station closest to our hotel and walked back. Lots of walking again today at just shy of 11 km. On our way, quite close to our hotel, we saw Pakistan style houses with outer walls and a gate - thanks to Mohsin for telling us to look out for them otherwise we might not have noticed.

Time to go to bed now since our guide will pick us up at 9 am tomorrow for an 8 hour tour of Sintra and Cascais areas, within driving distance of Lisbon. It will be in a car with a guide since it will the last bit of sightseeing in our trip and we don't want it to be too taxing on our legs.

Till tomorrow, take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 17 - Madrid

We woke up at 9 am and left our hotel around 10:30 am. After grabbing a sandwich from the shop next to our hotel, we took a taxi to Plaza Mayor. Our guided walking tour of Madrid was to start there.

When the tour started, our American guide gave us a brief history of Madrid. Whenever he referred to the history of Spain, it was a repetition of what we had learnt from our guide in Barcelona. The most interesting thing about Madrid's history is that unlike most other major cities of the world, neither was Madrid near a significant water source nor was it along a trading route. It used to be a small town at the border of the kingdoms of Leon & Castile to the north under the rule of Christians and the kingdom of Al Andalusia to the south under the rule of Muslim Moors. In the 9th century, the Muslims built a fortress here to keep a check on Christian invaders from the north. When the Christians started reconquering the area ruled by the Muslims, the town of Madrid was conquered in 1085. Till 1561, it remained a small town of about 30,000 people when Philip the second decided to move his court to Madrid and that sparked an evolution of the city. Later kings built many new buildings in the city and strengthened Madrid's status as the capital of the kingdom of Spain.

We saw the hiding place of the Robin Hood of Spain, next to Plaza Mayor. This Robin Hood stole from the rich but instead of giving to the poor, he just spent it partying. We also saw the world's oldest restaurant that is still open. The restaurant displays a Guinness book of world records' certificate in its window to confirm that fact. Then we saw the original statue of the symbol of Madrid which is a bear standing and picking fruit from a tree. In the Middle Ages, Madrid city used a bear as their emblem. When they had a dispute with the Catholic Church over who controlled the land of Madrid and won the dispute, they created this statue as a symbol of the bear of Madrid having right over the land and the right to consume whatever fruits the land bore. Now it has become the symbol of Madrid and can be seen everywhere in the city. Then we saw an old palace built by the Moors and also remnants of an old city wall from that time. After that, it was time for a break in the tour and we had a quick snack (of patata bravas and orange juice) at a restaurant.

When the tour resumed, we saw the old city hall of Madrid followed by the Cathedral of Al Mudena. The city hall is an example of the Spanish attitude of "tomorrow tomorrow" and was built 140 years after Madrid had officially become a city. The Cathedral of Al Mudena is unique since it was built very recently in 1993 and if someone is looking to see a modern cathedral, it's one option. They have used different architectural styles in its construction that can be seen at different places. After that we saw the memorial to honor the people who died when an anarchist attacked the wedding procession of Alfonso the 8th in 1906. It was the largest terrorist attack on Madrid's soil till the subway bombings of 2004. Then we walked towards the end of our tour to the Royal Palace. It's no longer used by the royal family and instead functions as a museum. It was styled on the model of the Palace of Versailles. As you can tell, Madrid's history is not that long - there isn't much to speak of before the 16th century and even after that, it has been a relatively uneventful period and whatever was worth mentioning had already been covered in Barcelona. There is no single monument like an Eiffel Tower or a Sagrada Familia that is the symbol of the city. It's a modern city and a huge financial metro area with a population of 6.5 million.

Once the tour ended, we headed back to our hotel to get some rest after lots of walking in the blazing sun.

We left our hotel again around 5 pm after resting for almost 3 hours. We had tapas at a new place we found online. It's a chain called 100 Montaditos and they serve bite-sized sandwiches. We later found out that they have some restaurants on the East Coast of the US too. Excellent food, the best we've had in Madrid.

After that we took the subway to the starting point of our personal walking route that included some other things we wanted to see. We walked for almost 5 km in the Retiro Park that's like Madrid's Central Park. The park is huge and used to be the royal gardens. As it was a Saturday, we saw lots of people in the park enjoying the weather that had become cooler as the sun had gone down a bit. A crystal palace and a monument building in front of a man-made rectangular water body were the highlights of this walk. There were people rowing boats in the water.

We exited the park to arrive at the Plaza of Independence that has a giant gate that used to be the entrance of the city and was built in the 18th century. We continued walking on the trendy Gran Via and then turned to walk through a street connecting Gran Via to Plaza del Sol, the so-called Times Square of Madrid. Let's just say that its a poor man's Times Square. The plaza itself had lots of people shopping, walking or just taking in the atmosphere and in that sense, there is definite resemblance with Times Sqaure. We sat at a cafe for a little while to have a snack.

Then we took the subway back to the station closest to our hotel. As soon as we got on the train, we saw hundreds of Atletico Madrid fans singing and clapping as their team had just been crowned the 2014 champions of the Spanish Football League or the La Liga. A correction to yesterday's update: today's match was between FC Barcelona and Ateltico Madrid (not Real Madrid as I incorrectly mentioned yesterday). Atletico Madrid is the second team of Madrid. That's what happens when the driver is saying half the things in Spanish and all you pick up is that the match is between Barcelona and Madrid, not realizing that there are two teams in Madrid!

It doesn't end here. Whenever Atletico Madrid wins, its fans celebrate the victory in the Neptuno Plaza (or the square of Neptune) and guess where this plaza is? It's where our hotel is located! So as we were walking back to our hotel, there were thousands of fans pouring in to the plaza to sing and dance to celebrate the victory. There were fireworks, there was music, there were drums and everybody seemed to be dressed in the red and white vertical striped uniform of Atletico. We went to the top floor of the hotel to see the celebrations. When we were back in the room, I wanted to call it a day after walking over 15 km but Samia wanted to take in some more of the festive atmosphere so we walked to the 100 Montaditos place again for some more snacks and people watching. It's about a 300 meters walk from our hotel and all we could see everywhere were merry fans. It's a big coincidence that we were in Madrid the same day their team won and a bigger coincidence that our hotel is right in the plaza where Ateltico fans always come to celebrate. Memorable scenes indeed. We didn't get a chance to see a live football match but this comes quite close. I can still hear the fireworks as I type this.

Now we're off to bed. We have a flight to Lisbon tomorrow that'll take off at 12:10 pm. We've already checked-in online with the airlines so hopefully it should all go smoothly. Our next update will be from Lisbon, our last stop of this trip. Till then, take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 16 - Madrid

We woke up with our 5:30 am alarm and quickly got ready in 20 minutes. Our bags were already packed so the hotel check-out was swift. Our taxi to the train station was waiting for us. We didn't encounter any traffic and were at the station around 6:15 am. Since our 7:05 am train's boarding wasn't to start till 6:40 am, we sat in the waiting area and had a quick breakfast - chocolate croissant, cream croissant and orange juice. We stayed away from coffee to be able to sleep on the train.

On this trip, we have taken hi-speed trains for three different segments - round trip between Paris and Amsterdam, round trip between Rome and Venice and today's Barcelona to Madrid train. Today's journey between Barcelona and Madrid was the fastest with a top speed of 300 km/h although the other segments were also quick with speeds exceeding 250 km/h. This route between Barcelona and Madrid is relatively new and was started in 2008. We had a very comfortable ride that was helped by the fact that we had bought upgraded seats with the intention of making the tail end of our Euro trip more comfortable.

During the almost 3 hour ride, we must've slept for about 2 hours. Most of the ride was through plains - both green and dry - and some hilly areas where it slowed down. Our only stop was at Toledo and we were in Madrid at exactly 9:50 am.

Our hotel isn't too far from the train station so we took a cab that got us to the hotel in less than 10 minutes. It was an entertaining ride as the driver tried his best to tell us about the major attractions on our way with limited English vocabulary. He also told us that there is an "El Clasico" tomorrow - a football match between fierce rivals FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Too bad that the match is in Barcelona otherwise we could've seen it live. He told us that if Real Madrid wins, there will be celebrations and fireworks in the Neptuno square next to our hotel so we should look out for that. If we have time, we might catch some of the action on TV in a club to experience the atmosphere. Our hotel's location is across the road from Madrid's world-class Prado Museum.

After checking-in our hotel and freshening up, we grabbed a focaccia bread sandwich with coffee at the next door Starbucks. Then we crossed the road to enter the Prado Museum. There were no lines at the entrance but even if there had been lines, our advance-purchased ticket would've saved us the wait. No photos were allowed so our complete focus was on just appreciating the art.

The Prado Museum has one of the biggest collections of paintings in the world and our audio guide included narrations for over 300 selected works. We ended up seeing about 50 masterpieces that we picked from the museum's recommendations and our guidebook. Art is subjective and for us, the historical context is as important as the painting technique on display. Through that lens, we loved about half of the 50 pieces that we saw. It took us almost 5 hours of mostly standing, some walking and lots of commentary-listening to get to this conclusion. Overall, The Lourve in Paris has more paintings of the highest quality but the Prado isn't far behind. We are finally beginning to understand what it means when an art connoisseur talks about Venetian colors or Michelangelo's influence. We saw paintings that you can only appreciate when you stand at an angle and paintings that give a 3D effect. We saw the stylistic differences between painters such as Velazquez, Goya, Rubens, Titian, Greco and Murillo.

After 5 hours of sensory overload of art, we walked back to our hotel with aching feet and decided to rest. Samia worked on making a collage for Sohaib uncle's birthday while I took a nap or as the Spanish call it, a siesta. Around 7 pm, we went down and had tapas at our hotel's restaurant. We tried a fancy looking Spanish omelette in a cup (egg foam and fried onions), Russian salad (more like a dip with crackers) and of course, our favorite patatas. This time we tries two different varieties of patatas, the regular mayo/garlic version and a spicy version with hot sauce. We finished off dinner with some tiramisu for dessert and then started walking to our next big attraction of the day - live Flamenco dancing performance at the best tablao restaurant of Madrid called Cardamomo.

In short, the performance was excellent. The first half when people were eating (and we were sipping on our free juices) was not as engaging but the second half was exceptional. The stage was small and made of wooden floor so when the dancers wearing shoes with heels tapped their feet on it, it gave off a significant audible sound. The walls were lined with two singers, one drummer and two guitarists. There were 4 dancers in total - 2 women and 2 men. Each of the dancers took turns to perform and there was only one little performance where more than one person was dancing at the same time. The dance is so intense and so taxing on the performers' feet that each performance cannot exceed more than 2 minutes. The Flamenco is a traditional dance of Spain and Madrid has some of its most acclaimed performers. The first half performances were by one man and two women but then we saw the 4th dancer in the second half. His hair was completely gray and he was their star performer, perhaps the director for the other three dancers too but we are not sure since announcements were only in Spanish. His mastery of his feet can be judged from the fact that he was the only dancer who performed without music as well and you could hear every single tap distinctly. Amazing performance!

After a day of appreciating audio visual arts, we are back at our hotel and off to bed now. Till tomorrow, take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 15 - Barcelona

Today was another unhurried start to the day - we slept in and woke up without any alarm. I was up around 9:30 am and decided to upload the diaries of the previous 14 days to this online blog. Samia has given me the idea to also add to this blog the diaries that I had written for Turkey and Peru last year. I'll get to that when we are back in Calgary in a few days.

We got ready and left around 1 pm for a day of exploring Barcelona's Montjuic mountain and La Barceloneta beach. Since we had a late dinner last night, we didn't feel like having breakfast and just had lunch around 1:30 pm. We asked our hotel's helpful reception desk for another tapas restaurant recommendation and were given precise directions to a new and trendy place a few blocks away from our hotel. We decided to walk to soak up the sun. No tapas meal is complete for us without patata bravas (potatoes with garlic and mayo) so of course, we ordered that and also tried Spanish omelette (they call it tortilla), eggplant tempura with honey and calamari. Everything was decent and you could tell that there was thought put into the presentation of the food. It wasn't an overly fancy place but was quite popular and by the time we left around 2 pm, it was completely full with every table taken.

We then took the subway to the station closest to Montjuic and from there, we got on the Funicular train up the mountain to roughly its middle.  Montjuic is not a huge mountain but is rather a gently inclining hill and its name translates to "Jew Mountain". Then we took a short scenic cable car further up the mountain to the Castle of Montjuic. This fort was built around the 17th century and is primarily a military fortress with numerous cannons still on display all around the fort. It was also used by General Franco's regime as a prison and for executions. The Catalan leader Lluis Companys was executed there in 1940 after he was handed over to Franco's government by Nazi Germany. We went to the top of the fort to get a nice view of Barcelona's skyline and the harbor. Sagrada Familia stands out since there aren't any towering skyscrapers close to it - they are mostly near the coast.

After taking in this bird's eye view of Barcelona and sitting in the sun for a while, we started making our way back to the middle of the mountain and took the return cable car. The plan was to walk to another cable car that would've taken us to the heart of the La Barceloneta beach district. When we reached there, we found out that they did not accept credit cards. As fate would have it, we were out of cash and the nearest ATM was at the base of Montjuic! So we took a bus and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. On the bus ride, we saw an abandoned Bullring that is now a tourist attraction. Catalonia has banned bull fighting so bullrings are no longer in use. The last stop of the bus was Plaća Espanya and we are glad we got a chance to see it. It is the largest square in Barcelona and is more like a roundabout with an elaborate statue fountain in the middle. It also has two giant towers known as the Venetian Towers. There are a couple of impressive buildings that were built for the International Expo of 1929 that was held in Barcelona. But perhaps the most imposing structure in Plaća Espanya is the Les Arenes bullring that used to be a grand bull fighting ring but has has now been converted into a shopping mall. We then took the subway to the Barceloneta station.

By this time, it was 7 pm and we were hungry so we walked to a restaurant that was recommended by our hotel's reception desk as the best place to have Paella in Barcelona. It had a view of the harbor and the weather was excellent so we decided to sit outside. Paella is a dish that originated in the region of Valencia and is somewhat of a Spanish specialty. The most famous variant has rice or noodles with seafood. Samia had the vegetarian version of Paella while I had it with cod fish and vegetables. It tasted unique since the rice are baked and are then cooked in gravy. Definitely something to try once but probably it's an acquired taste and we couldn't acquire it in our first attempt.

Then we strolled along the broad boardwalk and observed the people. We saw many people running and jogging. Others were walking their dogs, playing beach volleyball or just chilling near the water. We walked for almost 2 km enjoying the sea breeze and the relaxed atmosphere. The La Barceloneta beach was given a facelift for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and is in great condition. It's a very clean beach and not smelly at all. During our walk, we saw a garbage truck and cleaning staff picking metal objects from the sand so perhaps regular maintenance is the reason that the beach is in such great condition. We walked to the edge of Vila Olimpica or the Olympic Village and saw a giant modern-looking metallic artwork structure. We have an early morning 7 am train to Madrid tomorrow so we didn't have time to go explore the Olympic Village. We boarded a bus back to the Barceloneta subway station and then took a train back to our hotel.

Now it's time to pack our bags and go to bed. Barcelona has been the most relaxed part of our trip so far and it was intentionally planned this way. Having said that, we still ended up walking more than 10 km today (as we did yesterday). In total, we have walked 160 km so far in the last 15 days!

Our next update will be from Madrid, the capital and the largest city of Spain. Till then, take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 14 - Barcelona

We woke up around 9:30 am but decided to relax today so stayed in our room. We left for our touristy day at 1 pm.

On our way to the 2 pm guided walking tour (by the same company whose walking tours we did in Berlin and Potsdam - called Sandeman), we stopped at the French chain Paul to have a baguette sandwich with cappuccino. Then we took the subway and joined our guided walking tour group at 1:50 pm.

The first stop was a square where there is an old royal castle where the Spanish King was staying when Christopher Columbus brought back slaves from America in 1492 after he had accidentally discovered America when he had originally set sail for India. At the time, Spain was ruled by King Ferdinand whose wife was Queen Isabel. A brief history tour of Barcelona is in order to give some context to this royal couple.

Barcelona today is a metro area comprising 5 million people and is the second largest city of Spain, after Madrid. However, historically, Barcelona has always maintained its separate Catalan identity because it is part of the region of Catalonia (still an autonomous region of Spain) that speaks the distinct Catalan language and has its own culture and traditions. This is quite similar to the French-speaking province Quebec of Canada. Like Quebec, Catalonia wants to secede from Spain and form a separate country and this separatist sentiment has a very long tradition dating back centuries. Spain has various nationalities living in one country (much like Pakistan) that have their own languages and culture. Of the 19 regions of Spain, Catalonia and Basque Country are two that want to secede from Spain.

Barcelona was founded in the 3rd century BC by the Barca family and they named the city Barcino. Then it became a part of the Roman Empire around 15 BC and the oldest neighborhood of Barcelona, called the Gothic Quarter (or Barri Gotic) still has remnants of the old Roman gates to the city of Barcino. The grid-like street structure of this quarter is also very Roman in its design. When the Roman Empire was in decline in the 5th century AD, the inhabitants of Barcino invited the Visigoths from North to come and live with them so that these militarily superior giants could protect the city against other barbarians who were pillaging the Roman Empire during its decline. Then the Arab Moors of North Africa conquered this city in the 8th century and Barcelona remained a part of their Al Andulus empire for 90 years before being conquered by the French. [Side note - the Al Andulus empire did not end however and stayed in power in the Southern part of Spain (in Cordoba, Granada, Seville) for 8 centuries.] The French installed a Count of Barcelona to rule the city as their representative. The Counts of Barcelona started becoming independent and expanded their territory over time to include all of Catalonia. In 1137, the Count of Barcelona and the Count of the neighboring Aragon were combined by marriage that became the Crown of Aragon when their son got the throne in 1162. Barcelona is a coastal city adjoining the Mediterranean Sea and it became a financial and trading hub of sea trade. However, Barcelona's importance diminished when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile married to combine their territories and the political power shifted to present-day Madrid and to this day, the city of Madrid is the capital of Spain. Columbus was sent by Isabel and Ferdinand in to find India but when he discovered America in 1492, Spain's trade focused more on the Atlantic coast than on the Mediterranean coast, thereby reducing Barcelona's financial value relative to Madrid. From 1640 to 1652, Catalonia revolted against Spain trying to gain independence and Barcelona was at the forefront. However, plague hit Barcelona towards the end of this revolt that halved Barcelona's population and also finished off the resistance movement. In the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century, the city suffered major damage but after the war, a period of industrialization started. In 1936, a general of the Spanish army General Francisco Franco led a coup that started the Spanish Civil War. He was supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that wanted a united Spain. The war went on for 3 years and in 1939, General Franco emerged victorious and ruled Spain for the next 36 years till his death in 1975. Catalonia sided with General Franco's opposition (Soviet Union and Mexico who wanted the regions to have to right to self-determination) hoping that if the opposition was successful, they might gain independence. When Franco won, as retaliation, he banned the Catalan language and generally suppressed Catalonia and its people. Three years after his death, democracy returned to Spain in 1978 that saw general progress for Barcelona. Hosting the 1992 Olympics accelerated Barcelona's revival and now it has emerged as Europe's 4th most popular tourist destination (after London, Paris and Rome). Okay, back to the walking tour.

Our second stop was the Barcelona Cathedral which had its building constructed from the 13th to 15th century but the outer facade was done quite recently in the 19th century. It is dedicated to the lady patron saint of Barcelona, Saint Eulalia who was martyred by the Romans when Barcelona was a part of the Roman Empire. This church is the seat of the Bishop of Barcelona. The next stop was a square that has the remnants of the gates to the city of Barcino and an aqua duct from the Roman times. This square also had a public work by Picasso in which he has portrayed Barcelona's festivities. After that, we saw another peaceful square that has a church, a school, a shoe museum and a cafe. A couple of Hollywood movies have used this square in their scenes and it was also the site of a bomb that was dropped by Mussolini's Italian troops that were helping Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Bomb damage is still visible on the outer wall of the church. Then we walked to a big square where the city council of Barcelona and the government of Catalonia have their buildings. Our British guide Ruby told us that there are a lot of protests in this square since Barcelonans love to protest.

Then came time for a short break in our walking tour. As it was a very hot and sunny day, we rehydrated ourselves and rested in the shade during the break. Everything that we saw before the break was in the Gothic Quarter but now we moved on to another section of the city, El Born district. Our guide pointed out a few good Tapas restaurants in the area and then we saw the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar. The unique thing about this cathedral is that when some restoration work was being done here after Franco's death, the renovators put the FC Barcelona emblem on a stained glass inside the cathedral. The significance is that when General Franco had banned the Catalan language and the Catalonia flag, people could only speak the language at FC Barcelona's football matches (since it wasn't possible to arrest that many people) and used FC Barcelona's club flag as a symbol of their identity. Even the club's motto "more than a club" hints at this. Therefore, the football club's emblem finds a place inside this cathedral to recognize the role played by the club in Catalonian history. Then we walked a long way to our last stop that was a huge park close to the La Barceloneta beach. There used to be a military base at the site of this park that was meant to keep a check on Barcelona and was installed by General Franco. After the tour was over, we walked towards the statue of Columbus that was built at the coastal location from where Columbus left to find India and came back when he had discovered America. Perhaps to hint at that irony, the statue of Columbus points incorrectly away from America!

By this time, we had been walking for almost 5 hours so we turned towards the touristy avenue of La Rambla and stopped at a Burger King for a quick snack. Then we continued walking on the two km stretch of La Rambla towards our hotel. On the way, we stopped at Plaća Reial for some pictures. We also got waffles from a stall on La Rambla to savor during our walk. When we reached Plaća de Catalunya, we took the subway and then came back to our hotel.

We unwound in our hotel's sauna and then rested for an hour before going out for a very late dinner. The great thing about the location of our hotel and the neighborhood is that it has excellent Tapas places that are open late and it is safe to walk around. We walked three block down from our hotel to a Tapas bar where we had patata bravas (fries potatoes with garlic and mayo), green peppers and cod fritters. We finished off with Creme Catalonia, a local take on the French dessert creme brûlée.

Off to bed now to recharge our batteries for our last day in this beautiful city. We have loved everything so far about the city and will definitely like to visit again. But before that, we have a few things on our list for tomorrow. Till then, take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 13 - Gaudi's Barcelona

We woke up at 9:30 am today and got ready for a day of exploring Barcelona's famous architect Antoni Gaudi's buildings.

We skipped breakfast and headed straight for our first stop - Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece La Sagrada Familia (literally meaning "The Sacred Family" since this church is dedicated to the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph). It is unlike any other church we've seen and its construction started in 1882 and is still going on, even after Gaudi died in 1926. To say that it's a complicated building design is to understate the scale of this monumental project. The finished church will contain 18 spires: in order of increasing height, they are 

• the Twelve Apostles (4 apostles each on the three sides of the building excluding the entrance)
• the four Evangelists
• Mary and 
• the tallest of them all for Jesus.

Excluding the entrance, the remaining 3 sides will have important biblical phases (called scenes) from the life of Jesus narrated through stone sculptures. Each scene's facade will have 4 spires dedicated to Apostles. So far, only 8 spires have been built - 4 Apostles at the Nativity facade and 4 Apostles at the Passion facade. The third scene of Glory's facade including the 4 spires for the remaining Apostles, the spire for Mary and the spire for Jesus all remain to be constructed. When completed, the height of Jesus' spire will be one meter short of the height of Montjuic since Gaudi believed that his creation cannot be taller than God's creation. When completed, Sagrada Familia will be the tallest church in the world. 

On the two facades that we saw (Nativity and Passion), there are a dozen plus mini-scenes portrayed by statues that narrate the series of events of that scene. The detail of the statues is amazing and then there is the signature style of Gaudi: inspiration from nature. His other trademarks include special attention to light distribution, ventilation and acoustics of the building. All his buildings and designs are inspired by patterns found in nature. From the inside, the church seems bigger than it seems from the outside. The towering columns that hold the structure are like trees and branch out at the top with trunk-like wider bases at the bottom. The shortest column is 60 meters and the tallest is 75 meters long. Once inside, it feels like you're in a gigantic and spacious forest. The stained glasses on the sides have different colored themes like water, fire, life and corresponding colors. Gaudi's designs emphasize on light and air regulation of his buildings to make best use of nature's elements. It is estimated that the remaining construction might take at least two more decades. Even so, it is an exceptional work of art and unlike any other building one can come across. We can only imagine how magnificent it will be upon completion.

Then we had lunch at a nearby Turkish restaurant that had excellent kababs. We strolled in the parks around Sagrada Familia to get different views of the two completed outer facades.

After that, we came back to our hotel to freshen up since our next two stops were close to our hotel. Both of them are Gaudi's buildings that he finished during his lifetime. We took audio guides at both of them (and had gotten one earlier at Sagrada Familia too). On our way to our hotel, we stopped at the French chain Paul to have cappuccino and dessert.

Next up was Casa Mila that was an apartment building constructed on the behest of a prominent Barcelona family. First up, we got a chance to see the roof where the chimneys and water tank are made into modern and interesting structures and the floor is of varying heights. Then we saw the attic that has catenary arches (an architectural invention of Gaudi) of varying heights upon which the roof is laid giving the roof its unconventional floor. The attic houses a tour of Gaudi's life, his innovative techniques, his inspiration from nature's designs and models of his most famous buildings - Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Casa Batllo, Park Guell and others. The last floor that we saw was an example of an apartment of the building. Very unique design with excellent use of sunlight and fresh air in addition to use of spacious areas that are extremely functional as well.

After that, we walked to Casa Batllo. This was the residence of the Batllo family and Gaudi was commissioned to remodel the house after it had been standing for 25 years. Gaudi completely changed the look of the residence and the resulting product is again a work of genius - an interplay of art and engineering, of design and functionally and of creativity and science - signature Gaudi.

Then we walked to the restaurant where we had made a dinner reservation a night earlier. It's name is La Dama and it is a Michelin starred restaurant. Michelin rates restaurants and only the best of the best are able to get on the list. This was our first time dining at a restaurant from this list and in short, the most grand meal of our lives! It was a 10-course meal where none of the courses were too heavy and everything was cooked to perfection. Chicken croquet, Melon with mint, Tuna and sashimi, brûlée with cream, scallop, sea bass, morals, lemon sorbet, roasted goat with vegetables and finally dessert. The service was excellent and the decor and timing impeccable. Pricey but an experience of a lifetime and totally worth it.

After this royal dinner, we walked back to our hotel and are going to bed now.

We hope everyone is enjoying the updates! :)

Take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 12 - Barcelona

We woke up in Rome with our alarm at 6 am, got ready, checked-out of our hotel and had a quick breakfast before leaving.

We caught the 7:30 am bus to the main Termini station and then an express train to Leonardo da Vinci airport. We were at the airport at 8:22 am, well in time for our 9:50 am flight. It left a little late and we took off around 10:20 am. The flight was a short one and we reached Barcelona airport around noon.

The airport is very impressive or maybe that's because we landed at Terminal 1 which was recently built in 2009. Super clean, very modern and extremely spacious - exactly what we were hoping for after dirty and crowded Rome.

We had originally planned on taking Barcelona's transit (bus and then subway) to our hotel but after doing a cost-benefit analysis, we decided that a taxi would be better. We were at our hotel a little before 1 pm and thoroughly impressed by the modern and innovative architecture. It's called "The Mirror" and is full of mirrors everywhere - our room, the lobby, the elevator and even the soap in our washroom is transparent. We're quite relieved that our hotel for the next 4 days is comfortable and clean and that the staff is very helpful.

After resting for a couple of hours, although we didn't want to leave but decided to finally venture out around 5 pm to eat something. We asked our hotel reception desk for a recommendation and they gave us a map and exact directions for a Tapas place not too far away from our hotel.

We walked around our hotel's surrounding area (L'Eixample district) for a little while. It's a relatively newer neighborhood of Barcelona at only 100-150 years old. We got to the Tapas restaurant and ordered 4 dishes. Spain is famous for tapas which are essentially small plates of tiny portions. The idea is to be able to try different varieties of food without filling up on just one thing. We loved three of our four dishes - fried potatoes with garlic mayo (called patata bravas), red pepper with cod filling and Barcelona's famous cuttlefish (like calamari). We didn't like the anchovies (a type of fish) and olives served on bread. We had enough room for dessert and ordered hot chocolate cake that was delicious - it was a small brown cupcake sized cake filled with room-temperature chocolate inside and floating in molten hot chocolate outside. Then we continued walking around a little more but it started getting chilly so we headed back to our hotel to get our jackets.

After reading up a little from our guidebook about the history of Barcelona and Spain, we left around 8:30 pm for exploring the Plaća de Catalunya and La Rambla, two famous tourist attractions. We took the subway to the Plaća de Catalunya and strolled around the La Rambla strip of road to take in the ambiance. Lots of stalls on both sides of the walking strip (that was almost twice as big as the actual road on the side) and scores of tourists and street vendors. The street vendors in Barcelona are all Pakistani, exactly as Mohsin told us. We didn't mention this about Rome but it was full of Bangladeshis and they were the street vendors and they were everywhere in Rome and the Vatican City! Similarly, we saw a lot of Turkish people in Berlin. But we knew about how they came to Berlin in our history walk-through of Berlin. When the Berlin Wall was erected, all the builders went to the East Berlin side since that's where the construction jobs were. When the construction workers couldn't come back, West Germany opened immigration to get skilled labourers and that's when a huge number of Turkish poured into Berlin. We haven't been able to find out yet why there are so many Bangladeshis in Rome and so many Pakistanis in Barcelona. We had no idea about this phenomenon before Mohsin told us. One of those quirks that you only find out when you visit a place (or when your brother tells you about it).

We took the subway back after our walk and got lost trying to find our hotel after coming out of the subway. But we liked the experience since our trendy neighborhood is fun to walk through and explore. We finally found our way back and are going to bed now.

Till tomorrow, take care and good night.

Europe Diaries - Day 11 - Venice

The day started with a bang - we missed our 7:25 am train to Venice! I woke up to realize that it was 7:32 am and that our train to Venice had left 7 minutes earlier! I woke up Samia and we realized that before going to bed last night, I had activated my pre-set weekdays-only alarm that I use for work. Since today is Sunday, the alarm never went off.

We quickly dressed and grabbed a croissant and coffee from our hotel and headed to the train station. We bought new tickets and left for Venice 90 minutes later than originally planned. We left at 8:55 pm. The train ride was peaceful and the scenery outside was serene and lush green. We slept for an hour before waking up to enjoy the train ride and to discuss the various cities that we saw on our way. The two major ones that deserve a mention are Florence and Bologna. Florence is the area of the leaning tower of Pisa and the birthplace of the European Renaissance. Bologna is famous for its food and baloney and the bolognese sauce of meat and tomatoes originated here.

We reached Venice at 12:35 pm and bought tickets to the water boat bus called Vaparetto. While waiting for the water bus, we took in the scene. Venice is a world of its own and seeing canals and waterways in place of roads is unique. The weather was great with the sun out and a slight cool breeze blowing. Our first impression of Venice was a great one and we decided to not do the gondola ride which was in our original plan to both save time and stay away from getting too close to the water and avoid the smelly canals from ruining our memories.

We boarded the Vaparetto around 1 pm for the 45 minute ride to the Saint Mark's square. We listened to the Rick Steves' audio guide to give us a history of the various buildings we saw. Venice has 3 major canals and the one on which our Vaparetto was traveling is called the Grand Canal. It used to be a natural river that the city was built around. When the Roman Empire was declining, some of the wealthy merchants decided to move away to the marshy islands that Venice was built over. Venice was the Las Vegas of its time with a reputation for its casinos and nightlife. It was a city of decadence and the palaces we saw lining the Grand Canal are a testament to the grandeur that this city must've seen in its heyday. The parties of Venice with the colorful and elaborate Venetian masks formed the core of the nightlife of this wealthy city. The engineering achievements of building such magnificent buildings over marshy islands by themselves are remarkable and when you think of the commercial success of this coastal city (just like Singapore today), it makes this city one of its kind in history. Venice was at the center of the trade and the merchants of Venice facilitated an exchange of goods between the Muslims Turks and Christian Byzantines to its East and the Western powerhouses (France, England, Germany, Spain) to its West.

We got off near the Rialto bridge to explore some inner streets of Venice and take in the atmosphere. Then we boarded the Vaparetto again to continue our Grand Canal cruise. The palaces on both sides have exquisite and grand outer facades announcing the wealth of their owners.

We got off our Vaparetto at the stop of Saint Mark's square. We went through the square into the back streets and explored different shops that sold Venetian masks, Murano glass items, jewelery and designer clothes. We found a restaurant and had lunch. The Alfredo pasta was a hit but the Risotto rice-like pasta was a miss. We then walked back closer to Saint Mark's square and got gelato - coffee flavor for Samia and tiramisu flavor for me. We then continued the audio guide with an explanation of the square.

Saint Mark's square is a product of the melting pot that was the commercial hub of Venice. The 4 buildings on the 4 sides all have different architectures from different eras. A good case study is the Saint Mark's Basilica. The basilica has Greek columns, Roman arches, Byzantine golden mosaics, French gothic pinnacles lining the rooftop and Islamic onion-domes. There is a clock tower next to the basilica that was the world's first digital watch and changes time every 5 minutes. Opposite the clock tower is the 300 meter high bell tower. The atmosphere is a memorable one and various famous people from history have sat here to enjoy the same atmosphere that we did (minus so many tourists). Among them are Hemingway, Casanova, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens and Woody Allen.

We continued walking around and exploring the area. Then around 5 pm, we decided the take an express Vaparetto back to the train station. Again, a memorable ride since this time we got the best seats at the front of the boat and enjoyed the sun, the breeze and the peaceful waters of the Grand Canal. We said about Rome that we don't think we'll go there again but we will definitely come back to Venice one day to stay overnight and experience a gondola boat ride in the canals during night time under the stars. It's a city where more than its history, the unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime experiences will be fondly remembered.

We reached the train station around 6 pm. Since there was almost an hour to go before our 6:55 pm train back to Rome, we walked around some more and took pictures over a bridge. We also had a quick lunch at Burger King - our first fast food meal since leaving Calgary.

We boarded our train and are now headed back for Rome. I decided to type today's update during the ride before reaching Rome. We are scheduled to reach Rome at 10:30 pm. After getting there, we'll just take the tram to our hotel, pack our bags and go to bed.

Tomorrow, we have our flight to Barcelona quite early in the morning at 9:50 am. We've already checked-in online so it should go smoothly - as long as we wake up on time!

Our next update will be from Barcelona, Spain. The way we've planned our trip, the pace of our exploration will start slowing down now and we will be in Barcelona for 4 days.

Take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 10 - Christian Rome

We had an alarm set for 7:45 am but after sleeping around 1 am last night, we didn't get up until 8:30 am. After quickly getting ready and having breakfast at our hotel, we left for our day of exploring Christian history of Rome.

As soon as we got to the subway station, we realized the volume of lines we would be facing through the day since the station was jam packed and must've had over 500 people just at the platform of the subway train! We had to wait for a couple of trains to pass by before we could get on it, barely. We finally got off at the station closest to Vatican City and walked to the Vatican Museums. We had purchased our tickets online so we skipped the ticket purchasing line that must've otherwise meant waiting for over an hour. A very hot day under a blazing sun wouldn't have been great for waiting outside so kudos to planning in advance. After passing through security, storing our backpack in storage and collecting our audio guides, we started our exploration. The Vatican Museums are actually several connected museums that were built on the orders of different popes through the ages. The best collections are probably from the Egyptian times, Greek and Roman statues and then of course the different styles of paintings from Italy. We liked the Egyptian exhibits (featuring an actual mummified pharaoh), Roman sculptures, the Gallery of Maps (it has maps of Italy from past eras painted on both the walls of a long hallway) and Raphael's rooms (rooms that were painted by the famous painter Raphael and that were used by various popes as their residences).

Then came the highlight of the day - the Sistine Chapel. It's the church where the election of the Pope is held but that's the lesser reason for its fame. The 5700 square meters of ceilings and the wall behind the altar were painted personally by Michelangelo. Pope Julius the second asked Michelangelo if he would paint the ceiling with the twelve apostles of Jesus. Michelangelo was 33 and primarily a sculptor at the time and had very little experience with painting, let alone fresco painting where you have a short time window to paint over a special material before it dries out. On the insistence of the pushy pope, Michelangelo started the project in 1508 and finished painting the ceiling in 4 years in 1512. Instead of painting just the twelve apostles as asked, he went a few steps further and painted the entire history of mankind according to the Bible starting from man's creation all the way down to that day. Just the sheer physical effort required to paint the huge area is awe inspiring. Essentially, he had his neck craned for 4 years while working on this masterpiece! The detail in the paintings is remarkable and these paintings are not just visual depictions of the biblical stories but are instead Michelangelo's personal interpretations of those stories - he was a theologian too. The stories range from creation of man to creation of light and dark to creation of the heaven, hell and earth to the original sin to the banishment of man to Noah's flood to other stories from the bible and portraits of prophets - the complete Bible essentially.

A few years passed and then another pope asked Michelangelo in 1535 to come back and paint the wall behind the altar with a scene depicting the Day of Judgement (to complete the cycle of life from creation of the universe to the Day of Judgement). This scene covers the entire wall and perhaps surpasses the quality achieved in painting the ceiling (by this time, Michelangelo was in his 60s and at the peak of his painting powers). It took 8 years to complete and when the Pope saw it, he started crying by the impact of the scene. There is a stark shift in the mood of both works (ceiling versus the Day of Judgement). The paintings on the ceiling have an upbeat Renaissance optimistic outlook on man's exit from heaven and into this world whereas by the time Michelangelo painted the Day of Judgement, he had started questioning whether mankind had actually been better off and so the Day of Judgement is painted in a very stern mood and ends up being a very grim and terrifying depiction of the end of times with Jesus bringing swift justice to everyone rather being Jesus the redeemer, as he is usually painted. In fact, this painting laid the foundations for the post-Renaissance style of art - the Baroque style. As a piece of art, it is the most impressive we've seen: the sheer physical effort required, the challenge with the short time windows and above all, the subjective narration through a fixed medium, all of that makes it the best painted work we've ever laid eyes on.

After that, we stopped for lunch at a nearby cafe and had a delicious pizza. Our next stop was supposed to be the Saint Peter's square (and the adjoining Saint Peter's Basilica, the most famous church in Christianity) but after walking for about three kilometers and being incorrectly guided by various guards to the "detour", we found out that Saint Peter's square and the church were closed to general public since Pope Francis was addressing school children. We later found out that 300,000 children (along with their parents and teachers) attended this address. So sadly, we won't be able to see the magnificent dome of Saint Peter's basilica. With reference to yesterday's update, Saint Peter's basilica combines two of the most magnificent architectural designs of the Ancient Romans - the dome of the Pantheon and the basilica design of Constantine's Basilica. The aim in combining the two was to demonstrate that Christianity was superior to the pagan religion of the Romans.

Then we took the train to Piazza del Popolo (Plaza of the People) where we took a break for having gelato. After that we walked to the Spanish Steps again, hoping that they might be better during the day and they appeared only slightly better because there were actually more people gathered there and it looked more alive. We climbed half way up and sat there for a few minutes to rest.

Then we took transit to the neighborhood of Trastevere. The word literally means "on the other side of Tiber" and that's where we went. We followed the walking tour audio guide of Rick Steves and saw this neighborhood that has been preserved from its Roman times. As part of the walking tour, we visited a couple of lively squares and two churches - one being the very first church that was dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus. After the tour of Trastevere, we went to the Trevi Fountain area for dinner. Getting there by a combination of walking and transit took an hour and then we had to stand in line for another hour to get a table! To be honest, the food wasn't worth the wait. It was good but not outstanding. We had ravioli, bruschetta, bread with Gorgonzola cheese and honey (probably the best item of this meal) and tiramisu. After that we walked to get gelato from a highly recommended shop that was actually worth the recommendation. Then we took some pictures at the Trevi Fountain to capture its night time ambiance and finally headed back, first taking a bus and then a tram. The day was extremely hot and we walked a lot - 17.6 km to be precise! Reiterating what we remarked yesterday, Rome's history is amazing but their present is not worth a second visit. Too bad that we missed out on Saint Peter's Basilica but oh well, maybe it wasn't meant to be.

Tomorrow, we'll be doing a day trip to Venice, the city that has no cars and the streets are actually rivers! Excited about that although we have been warned that it's quite smelly. Well, since experts think that Venice will sink in less than half a century, we want to see it while it still exists. We sure hope that having no streets means less walking!

Take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 9 - Ancient Rome

We woke up at 8:30 am and had coffee in our room. Then we headed downstairs for complimentary hotel breakfast. It was a good breakfast with croissants, cereal, American coffee, orange juice and yogurt. Then we got ready and left for our Ancient Rome exploration day. We asked our hotel reception and they guided us to a tram that runs right outside our hotel. We got a transit pass for unlimited rides.

The tram took us directly to our first stop, the Colosseum. We had bought our tickets online so we skipped the ticket purchasing line that would've meant waiting in line for at least an hour. Once inside, we saved some more time since we didn't have to stand in the audio guide line as we were using our downloaded audio guide by the world famous Rick Steves. The Colosseum was essentially a gigantic stadium where gladiators fought in front of crowds of up to 50,000 people. The Roman Empire spanned a 1000 years in history starting in 500 BC and ending around 500 AD. During the first 500 years, the empire was rising and expanding, in the next 200 years, it was at its peak and then the last 300 years were in decline. The Colosseum was built during the peak years and took 10 years to build after construction was started around 72 AD by the Flavian family. Booty and loot from suppressing the uprising of Jews in Palestine in 70 AD was used for the construction. Romans were excellent engineers but weren't too artistic so the aesthetic design of the Colosseum is borrowed from the more sophisticated Greeks. Combining Greek classical design with Roman engineering and slave labour and riches of the Jews, this grand amphitheater was created as the biggest of the 250 amphitheaters in the Roman Empire. Gladiator games had three acts: first, animals from all over the kingdom would be paraded after letting them through in the main arena through the 80 doors and they would fight with and kill each other. Act two was the execution of prisoners of war and criminals, often in creative ways like dressing them up as heroes and killing them as the heroes had died or throwing them to lions without clothes. The final and third act was the main draw of the games: the gladiator fights. Gladiators were professional "athletes" and would use their weapon of choice to fight. If a gladiator fell down and was at the mercy of the standing rival, the Roman Emperor would be asked if he wanted the fallen killed or not and the Emperor would give his decision with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Sometimes an Emperor would leave the decision to the spectators who would vote using thumbs up or down.  As Rome was a hierarchical society, seating in this ancient stadium was also based on your class in the society - the Emperor had his own throne, the senators and dignitaries had the front row seats, the other nobles and army officials had middle tier seats and the back rows were open to general public. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the official state religion, the games became politically incorrect and were finally banned in 435 AD and the Colosseum's use diminished. For the next thousand years, it was used sporadically as makeshift apartments/shops, a church, cemetery and a place of refuge during civil unrest. A big earthquake in 1349 AD caused the south side to be damaged but the north side has all three floors intact. Thankfully, in the 16th Century, a series of Christian popes took pity towards the crumbling pagan structure and asked the site to be preserved in memory of the Christians who had been executed in the arena while the Roman Empire was officially still Pagan and worshipped its some 30,000 gods.

Next, we saw the Arch of Constantine that is a huge gate right next to the Colosseum. It was dedicated to Emperor Constantine who is very popular in history since his decision to adopt Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire around 312 AD sowed the seeds for Christianity to spread far and wide throughout the world. The decision married church and state so strongly that toward the decline of the Roman Empire, the Senators became the bishops, orators became priests, basilicas became churches and the Roman Emperor became the Pope.

Then we entered the Roman Forum. These are ruins of the large Capitol area of Ancient Rome that had the Senate building, Temple of Julius Caesar, an impressive temple with 50 meter long columns dedicated to another notable Emperor Antonius Pius and his wife Faustina, the residence of the Vestal Virgins (more about them below), the Temple of Vesta, the Temple of Saturn and the basilica of Constantine (more on that below).

During the first half of the Roman Empire, Rome was a "Republic" - ruled by the aristocracy via an elected Senate and in the second half, Rome was ruled by a dictator. Julius Caesar was the first Roman dictator and perhaps the most famous of all ancient Roman Emperors. As mentioned earlier, the Romans were pagans and had over 30,000 gods that they worshipped. It wasn't uncommon for a successful Emperor (and their wife) to be added to this ever-increasing list of gods after they died. Antonius Pius, his wife Faustina and Julius Caesar are such examples, therefore they have temples dedicated to them in the Roman Forum.

Their pagan beliefs were extremely superstitious and one of their superstitions was that the flame in the Temple of Vesta should always stay burning. The Temple of Vesta was perhaps the most sacred spot in the entire Roman Forum. To keep the flames burning, they would choose six Vestal virgins - girls of age 10 from the noble Roman families - who would then serve this role for 30 years before being allowed to marry.

The basilica of Constantine was a gigantic structure that was dedicated to Emperor Constantine. Its architecture lay the foundation of the typical church design - an altar opposite the entrance, flanked by side niches with a lot of space in the middle. The same design was copied in Saint Peter's basilica and to this day forms the basis of most church designs.

In many ways, Rome continued the Greek traditions of emphasis on law and logic that formed the basis of the modern day Western democracies.

After this extensive tour of the Roman Forum area, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant near by and the food was decent. We then decided to go to the Pantheon but took the wrong bus and ended up taking two hours to get to it but finally got there.

On our way, we stopped at the Trevi Fountain where tourists throw a coin in it which is believed to bring good luck. It has marvelous sculptures of Neptune and the two tritons that depict the different moods of the sea and is quite grand. The place was packed and must've had over a thousand people there!

Then we reached the Pantheon and before going inside, we bought Italy's famous gelato (ice cream). I got mango and pistachio. Samia chose cappuccino and lemon. Excellent ice cream that was just perfect on a hot day after we had been riding the bus and walking for over two hours.

The Colosseum is very grand but it becomes hard to imagine its grandeur since most of it is now a ruin. The Pantheon, on the other hand, is extremely well preserved and in pretty much the same condition (barring routine maintenance renovation) as it was almost two millennia ago in 120 AD. It is a marvel of engineering and the precise mathematical ratios used in its construction still have experts at a loss of explaining how they achieved that. Again, inspired by Greek architecture, it looks like a Greek temple from the front with towering columns and a triangular pediment on top. But that's just the beginning of the wonder. The true glory of this ancient building is in its dome and you realize it only after you go inside. The dome is a hemisphere that is on top of a cubic structure. The diameter of the hemisphere and the length of one side of the cube are exactly the same at 140 meters. Appreciation of mathematics tells us how hard it would be to build such a structure today, let alone in a time when there was no electricity, no cranes or other construction equipment. And with such enormous dimensions - truly mind boggling. The crowning jewel however is the oculus or the 30 meters wide hole at the top of the dome, the only source of light for the building. So why was such an impressive building built? The Pantheon was built as a temple for all (pan) of the gods (thoes). The only reason it is so well preserved (unlike the Colosseum and other structures in the Roman Forum) is that early on in Christianity, it was converted to a church and still serves that function today. Now there are no statues of pagan gods however; what you see are statues paying tribute to famous Italians like Raphael and tombs of some Italian kings that ruled Italy after it became united as one country in 1861 (instead of the various city-states like Rome, Venice and Florence that existed till then). Our favorite ancient site after Machu Picchu of Peru.

After that, we went to a famous hangout place - the Piazza Navona. We had coffee and tiramisu while people watching in this ancient square that used to be a site of chariot racing. Then we walked around for a little while before taking a bus to the main Termini station. From there, we walked to a restaurant that Sarim recommended for Alfredo pasta with white sauce. Easily the best food we've had in Rome so far! We're sure that we will gain weight after Rome despite walking 10 km on average each day. Today, we actually walked 13.6 km.

It was a busy day but the grandeur of the impressive ancient sites make us like Rome a little more. Still, this will probably be our only trip here - the history may be impressive but the present is not that great.

Tomorrow, we'll see the Christian history of Rome at the Vatican. Till then, good night and take care.

Europe Diaries - Day 8 - Berlin to Rome

We woke up at our hotel in Berlin around 9:30 am and had coffee. Then we got ready and started packing for checking out before noon. After checking out, we stored our suitcases with the hotel and went to Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which is the next building from our hotel. It is a church that was created as a memorial for Kaiser Wilhelm the first who was the King of Prussia in 1871 when it became Germany and that's when King Wilhelm the first became Kaiser Wilhelm the first. The church was heavily damaged in the Second World War and is still undergoing restoration. Only one small chapel is open while construction continues. We saw the chapel and then stopped at Starbucks for a quick breakfast. Then we came back to our hotel to get our suitcases.

We took an express bus to the airport at 1:20 pm and were at the airport in 20 minutes. We dropped off our bags, passed through security and waited for boarding. Boarding started around 3 pm and we took off on time at 3:20 pm. We did some research about our plan for Rome using our guide book and the downloaded Rick Steves' audio guide. The flight landed at 5:15 pm, 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. We collected our bags and then bought tickets for an express direct train from the airport to the main transit station of Rome (called Termini Station).

Our first impressions of Rome so far are not great. There were several booths selling tickets and all of them advertised themselves as being official so it was a challenge to find out the official tickets (which we found at a kiosk and not a booth). The train was dirtier than any we've seen in Europe (including Turkey) or North America or even Peru.

Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport is near the coast whereas the city of Rome is a good 25 km away from the coast so even the express train took 30 minutes to reach Termini. Getting a taxi from Termini was again a challenge since all taxi drivers were trying to charge too much (probably after guessing from our suitcases that we are tourists). The taxi we finally hired, its driver agreed upon 15 euros as the fixed fare (didn't bother to turn the meter on) and by this time, we didn't argue and agreed to go with him. He didn't know the directions and what he entered in the GPS was inaccurate (not entirely his fault since the hotel was to blame as well and hadn't advertised the correct address either). We finally reached the hotel after asking several pedestrians for directions and each of them giving contradictory directions. It was funny and frustrating at the same time.

The hotel is too expensive for its quality. It isn't bad but it's not the same quality that we got in Paris and Berlin and the rates in all these cities were comparable for the hotels we booked. It is clean but has no AC and we can tell that it's going to get hot during the day. We left for dinner around 8:15 pm and got lost on our way to the closest Metro station. It's not that close and is about one km from our hotel. There are only two Metro lines in Rome and the only point where they both meet is the Termini station. After boarding the train, we decided to stop at the station where they have the Spanish Steps. Again, they underwhelmed and all we saw were some stairs with tourists taking pictures.

We took the train back to our hotel's closest Metro station and saw a halal Italian restaurant. We ordered lasagna and a pizza and both were decent. The appetizer bruschetta (bread with tomatoes and cheese on it) was actually quite good. We walked back to our hotel and will go to sleep now since tomorrow is going to be a pretty busy day.

The saving grace of Rome is that although the taxi drivers are dishonest and the transit system not the best, the people that we asked for directions, all tried earnestly to help despite a significant language barrier. We are hoping that the food and the historical sites will be great. But so far, as Mohsin warned us, Rome has only been the dirty and unsophisticated side of Europe.

Rome's history can broadly be categorized into two categories - Ancient Rome from the times of the Roman Empire and the Christian Rome since the first and second century. Tomorrow, we will be exploring ruins from the Ancient Roman times (Colosseum, Roman Forum and the Pantheon) and the day after tomorrow will be reserved for the Christian history in Vatican (Saint Peter's Basilica which is the Pope's church, the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel).

Till tomorrow, good night and take care.

Europe Diaries - Day 7 - Berlin

We woke up around 9:30 am but decided to relax on the 7th day of our 3 week long trip. We had coffee in bed and checked the news.

We left our hotel around 1 pm for exploring the second biggest departmental store in Europe - the KaDeWe. The biggest is Harrod's in London. The idea was to see the modern side of Berlin and Germany. We reached there by subway and window shopped the high-end brand shops and different floors before stopping at the 6th floor. The entire floor is a food court where you can get various varieties of cuisines - German, French, Italian etc. We ordered a vegetarian ratatouille crepe that was delicious and we also had a German dish with potatoes and asparagus that was also decent. German asparagus is lighter in color and is as thick as a carrot. It tasted different but in a nice way.

After lunch, we felt the need for coffee and since our hotel was not too far away, we stopped at our hotel to have coffee and then took the bus to our next stop - the Berlinerdom or the Berlin Cathedral. It was rush hour so it took a very long time to get to the Museum Island area where the Berlin Cathedral is located. Oh and by the way, we had also taken the bus yesterday back to our hotel at the end of the day. The buses in Berlin are double-decker and very modern like all German transportation. Both times we sat in the front seats of the upper deck to get a great view of the city. When we finally reached the cathedral, we bought tickets and went inside. The interior is extremely majestic. It is a Protestant church that went through various construction, destruction and restoration phases. The present building was inaugurated in 1905 and since there was no separation of Protestant church and the Prussian state, the entire cost of 11.5 million Marks was paid by Kaiser Wilhelm the second. It was considered the Protestant counterpart of the Roman Catholic Saint Peter's Basilica of Vatican. During the Second World War, bombing damaged the cathedral and restoration finished a couple of decades ago. Unlike Roman Catholic churches, this Cathedral has statues of the four Protestant reformers as well, in addition to the more commonplace Jesus paintings, statues/murals featuring angels and a crypt under the church containing the bodies of deceased nobility (including a few members of the Prussian royal family). Then we climbed 260 stairs to the top of the cathedral to see a view of the city from the top of the cathedral's dome. The stairs got quite narrow and steep towards the top. It was a good view of the city and gave us an idea of how much construction is going on in the city with construction cranes to be seen in every direction.

After that we decided to change our plan and skipped Charlottenburg palace and decided to visit the Berlin Museum. The idea was that we had seen enough of the Prussian history and wanted to get a better idea of the more recent history of Berlin. We boarded the double-decker bus to the Berlin Museum.

The earliest mention of Berlin in history is around the year 1200 when there used to be a swamp and a fishing village here. By 1451, it become the capital of the Prussian empire - an empire of the House of Hohenzollern that ruled Prussia for close to five centuries. It remained a Prussian stronghold even after all German states (all the various states around Prussia that shared the common German language) decided to unite as Germany in 1871 under Prussian leadership. Berlin became the capital of this united German Empire (officially German Reich) and remained so till the abolishment of the kingdom in 1918 when the German Kaiser Wilhelm the second fled the country after defeat in the First World War. In post-War 1918, Berlin became a part of the Weimar Republic (officially still called the German Reich but it's capital was moved from Berlin to Weimar) and when the republic started going into hyper inflation (a loaf of bread cost millions of marks by 1923), the US came to its rescue. But when the Great Depression of 1930 hit the world, aid from the US dried up. President Hindenburg of Germany assumed emergency dictatorial powers in 1930 and appointed one chancellor after the other to try and save the country. In 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany. The official name still remained the German Reich but to differentiate it from the earlier two Reichs (the German Empire from 1871-1918 and the Weimar Republic from 1919-1932, historians refer to it as the Third Reich). From 1933 till the end of the Second World War in 1945, Berlin remained the capital of Hitler's Third Reich and it was during this time that the very first concentration camp (to systematically murder the Jews using gas chambers) was trialled outside Berlin. After this dark period of history, when Hitler was defeated in the Second World War, Germany was split into four zones. Berlin was a unique case since it was situated completely in the Soviet-controlled Eastern zone but the city itself was still divided in Eastern and Western parts. These four zones of Germany evolved into the countries of West Germany and East Germany in 1949. West Germany had western capitalist leanings whereas East Germany had a communist government. By 1961, the Berlin Wall started going up. Berlin remained divided into East and West Berlin till the fall of the wall in 1989. After Germany's reunification and reconstruction efforts in the last couple of decades, Berlin has once again become the center of German progress as was the case in the early 20th century.

After a history lesson of Berlin, we went for dinner at a Thai restaurant that Sarim had recommended. The food was great and the presentation even better. We had Tom Yum soup, Thai curry and spicy fish.

After dinner, we took the train to Potsdamer Platz. This was a square that has had varying fortunes in different eras. It was a happening place in the 1920s but it became a wasteland when it became part of the death strip of the Berlin Wall under the socialist East German regime. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, it is back to being a happening place with tall modern buildings and an equally modern transit station.

Then we walked to the Brandenburg gate to enjoy the weather and digest our delicious Thai dinner. We took a few pictures at the gate during the night time and then boarded our double-decker bus back to our hotel's station. We are going to bed now.

Tomorrow, we will make a quick trip to Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church that is immediately adjacent to our hotel. Then we will check out and head for the airport to catch our flight to Rome.

Goodbye for now and we'll send you our next update from the historical city of Rome that is probably the oldest ancient city that still exists with flavors of its long history intact.

Take care and good night!

Europe Diaries - Day 6 - Potsdam and Berlin

We woke up at 9:30 am with our alarm and got ready for a busy day - we ended up walking another 14.6 km today. The first thing on our list was a guided tour of Potsdam. We joined our guide at the Starbucks near Brandenburg Gate and took the train to the town of Potsdam that is about 15 miles out of Berlin.

The walking tour was 5.5 hours long and started at the new palace in the city along with the old city hall and an ugly building from the communist era that is now a school. During the Second World War, there were no bombs dropped over Potsdam but just after the war had been declared over, in a spate of revenge bombing, a British pilot unloaded a 2000 kg payload of explosives over the site of the new palace destroying the building. The palace has now been reconstructed and now houses the parliament of the state of Brandenburg (of which Potsdam is the capital city). Then we took a tram and got off in the town of Potsdam.

Our next stop was the so-called bridge of spies that connected East and West Germany during the Cold War era with both sides having half the bridge. Apart from Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, this bridge of spies was another famous point along the Berlin Wall where the US and the Soviet Union shared the border. It's name comes from the fact that this bridge was used to trade spies that each side had caught in return for their own men.

Then we walked under the bridge to the huge gardens surrounding the palaces of Potsdam and arrived at the first palace called the Cecilienhof (literally meaning Cecilia's place - a member of the Prussian royal family). This palace was used for the Potsdam Conference that was essentially a series of negotiations between the allied forces to determine who would govern which area of Germany after it had been defeated in World War 2. The US was represented by President Truman, Britain was represented by Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union was represented by Josef Stalin. Stalin specially asked the gardeners to carve out a Marxist star with red pansies in the center of the palace to play mind games with other conference participants to know that the negotiations were happening on his home turf.

Then we walked to the old city center of Potsdam where we took a short break and then saw the Brandenburg gate of Potsdam which is smaller than the one in Berlin but it has more elaborate sculptures and designs on the gate.

Our next stop was the Church of Peace that has the graves of Frederick Wilhelm the first (the soldier king) and some other Prussian kings.

Then the final stop of our guided tour was the Sanssouci Palace which was built by Frederick the Great. It is the grandest palace in Germany and was designed by Frederick the Great himself. Now he is buried next to the palace (after his body was moved around different sites for 200 years).

Frederick the Great was by far the most popular and successful of the Prussian kings. He was the opposite of his father Frederick Wilhelm the first (the soldier king). Frederick Wilhelm the first was called the soldier king since his favorite pastime was creating a disciplined and superior army. The ironic thing is that he never got a chance to use his army. He had a special division in the army which consisted solely of tall men and these men were then forced to marry tall women, in an attempt to create a line of superior soldiers. His son Frederick the Great had no interest in armies and wars and instead loved literature, music and philosophy. He spoke six languages and played the flute and composed over 120 flute compositions in his lifetime. The famous French philosopher Voltaire was a friend of Frederick the Great's and used to spend a lot of time with him at the Potsdam's Sanssouci Palace. Frederick the Great had a chance to use his father's army in the seven year war when he defeated the three mightiest armies of Europe at the time - French, Austrians and Russians - to put Prussia on the map of Europe as a powerful kingdom. Frederick the Great introduced a general civil code, abolished torture and established the principle that the Crown would not interfere in matters of justice. He also promoted an advanced secondary education. The Prussian education system was later emulated in various countries, including the United States. After Frederick the Great, the Prussian kingdom never saw the same expansion and started weakening internally for the next 100 years that saw 5 more kings but none of them ruled for longer than Frederick the Great's 46 years in power. The dynasty finally culminated in the rule of Wilhelm 2 (also known as Kaiser Wilhelm) who started World War 1 and then fled from the country after defeat, resulting in the abolishment of the dynasty.

We bought tickets to see the Sanssouci palace from the inside and unlike other palaces, this was royally grand but still simple. Simple in the sense that it "only" has 13 rooms since this was strictly a residential palace and Frederick the Great never conducted any stately affairs here. It was grand but you could feel the stark difference from the French Palace of Versailles which is luxurious at a whole different level.

After that, we took first a bus and then a train back to Berlin. We had made an online reservation to see the Reichstag (the German parliament) but we found out when we reached there that the tour for our slot had been canceled because of a state dinner for dignitaries from the US.

After that we continued walking down Unter den Linden from where our walking tour had ended yesterday. We started at the Museum Island and saw the Berlinerdom (Berlin Cathedral) and Altus Museum. We will be doing a complete tour of Berlinerdom tomorrow so details on that will be in tomorrow's email.

We continued walking to the TV tower that is perhaps the only lasting structure of significance from the Eastern German times. It was constructed in 1969 to celebrate 20 years of the creation of East Germany.

After that, we finished our walk at Alexandarplatz and then took a bus back to our hotel. We then walked to an Italian restaurant where we had delicious vegetarian fresh pasta and equally yummy tiramisu for dessert. Now we are back at our hotel and will be going to bed.

Tomorrow's plan includes exploring the Berlinerdom (Berlin Cathedral), Charlottenburg Palace and Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. We think that we've covered Berlin and it's history in great detail in the last two days so we'll keep tomorrow a relatively relaxed day with possibly some exploration of contemporary modern Berlin too.

On that note, just a quick word on Germany. We're thoroughly impressed by the country and its people. They are efficient, punctual, supremely organized and technologically way more advanced than any country we've seen (including the US and Canada) and extremely helpful. Sarim kept telling us that Berlin was his favorite city of Europe in his month-long euro trip but we (read Samia) didn't get convinced. Well, Samia is a convert and is loving Berlin and its people! Alright then, it's goodbye till tomorrow.

Take care and good night.