A Beautiful Week in Europe

It was the last week of February of last year. This week was really a very long for me. Seven towns in Europe, six flights, six airports, five hotels and fourteen thousand miles of journey took me to Austria and Italy from Bangalore and finally plunged me in United States for next four weeks. I never ever travelled so much in my whole life but it was also an exciting moment in time of mine. From Bangalore, I started my journey for Austria and first landed in Paris airport. I believe this airport is as big as Paris itself. It has train connectivity to go from one terminal to another one. My next flight for Vienna was after four hours. I had the Schengen visa stamped there but due to a lot of confusion on immigration I could not thought of going out to get a glimpse of Paris. In stead I waited at Paris airport for four hours. Next flight took two more hours to reach to Vienna.

When I came out of the Vienna airport it was a frightening chilling weather. I started shivering due to ice-cold wind. Temperature was merely four Celsius. Here I had bus to go to the nearest railway station for getting train for the town St Polten. In Vienna city, there was no traffic like Bangalore, no chaos, and it was an easy drive. At station I found that all the information was in German only and ticket counter clerk can not understand English. After a confused look, I saw a Chinese there and checked if he knows English. Luckily he could help me in getting the ticket and directing me to correct platform. It was a local train which looks better then our best luxury trains. During the bus and train journey I got a feel of Austria. In simple words, it was simply beautiful. Train journey was very smooth. I could see the beautiful villages and pretty landscape from the train window. In next forty minutes I was in St Polten, had a taxi and reached hotel Metropol. After having a small rest, I came downstairs to the restaurant for dinner and met my colleagues Mr. Andrew and Mr. Bart who came from Schenectady and were my companions for next four days. Here I got a flavor of completely different food, but a fortunate surprise was to see the Basmati rice in their menu.

Next morning was freezing cold. It was minus four Celsius and massive for me. I realized that the jacket I had, was not good enough for this weather. The good thing is that all the offices, cars or buildings are warm enough to take care of you. We went to Traisen for our work. After a long meeting we went to a restaurant for lunch. I adopted the western food very quickly so it was trouble-free for me. Mostly lunch or dinner includes some meat but without any bread or rice items, which is very unusual for Indians. Also their salads are green and raw vegetables, a difficult for me. In evening we moved to Linz an hour-long drive from there. We stayed in Courtyard Marriot, which is a splurge and very comfortable. Next day was full of meetings again. Lunch was again very good and I was surprised to see that wine is part of lunch menu. In late evening we moved to the railway station to have a train to Vienna. From station we had a taxi to reach NH hotel in airport. The driver charged us forty-five Euros whereas bill was thirty Euros only and even he asked me if I need a bill of fifty. I was thinking if we should have bargained with him, something like India.

Next day we had a flight to Venice. At airport our host was there to receive us. We had a two-hour drive to reach Cividale. This was a very small town but very beautiful. It was the lunchtime when we reached and went to a restaurant in downtown. We walked through narrow streets, which were mostly void. Our host was a very funny person and a very good host too. He guided us in selecting the food for us. I had the best pasta ever in my life there. Waitresses were very friendly and it was a very delicious fish lunch served with white wine. After a heavy lunch, we had the similar meetings and visits before we moved to another town Maniago. I could see the snow peaked mountains range from car and can imagine deep and far ended Himalyan. I still had a picturesque drive of this in my mind. We reached to Euro Hotel after one and half hour but an untiring drive. This evening, we came out of hotel and had a walk on the streets. It was very cold but I was getting habituated of it. We had pizzas there in a European style Pizzeria before we went back to our room to retire for rest of the day.

Now it was the last day of my Europe trip. We were busy with our business but got free early and moved to Venice by car. It was two and half when we checked in to Courtyard Marriot in Venice and so had a time to go out for the first time in the week. We went to the great canal by the bus. A number of glimpses from Hollywood and Bollywood movies refloated when we got down from bus and saw it in front of us. It was an amazing and breathtaking beautiful moment. One of my best evenings I ever spent. We could roam around the streets of old Venice. It was very cold out there but the enthusiasm inside us kept us warm. Hot wine was on sell in every corner, which kept us warm too. The churches, the St Mark’s square, San Giorgo and number of important architecture; we could see the marvelous heritage and palpable culture of Venice in this old part of city. We had a glimpse of the great canal from Rialto Bridge. I had a picture on Rialto Bridge to capture this moment. An amazing experience I have for my lifetime and this made my Europe trip a truly beautiful in all sense. Next morning I took the flight to Atlanta but vowed to comeback very soon to see some more colors of the beautiful Europe.