This is about the time when my friends (Surabha and Anubha) and I travelled to England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland in 2016. The trip took about a year in planning because we wanted to go everywhere and see everything! :P We managed some of it, mainly through short halts helped by the long days of the summer.
It helped that I worked in the same space as the National Geographic team. So, their many meet-ups where they discussed helpful travel tips and my colleague, Sean D'mello's suggestions allowed us to find such sites as: rome2rio, hostelbookers, hostelworld, etc.
So, on a morning in June we landed at Heathrow. The English countryside reminded me of Lonavla in Maharashtra and Munnar in Kerala. Green everywhere. The houses are so pretty, in architecture, in their landscaped gardens and their tiny porches. We reached London where we bunked with the gracious and warm Aarti and Akshay. Happily, my sister, Sappu was down for the holidays as well with her husband, Vilas (Akshay's brother).
That first day, we headed to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square to gawp at paintings from masters down the ages. Turner's surreal steam engine emerging from a fog, Constable's stag startled inside the thick foliage of some woods, Monet's cypress trees, Da Vinci's second painting of the Virgin of the Rocks, Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Seurat's pointillism, Degas, Pontormo and works based on Greek myths and biblical legends. The light, the colour, the perspective, the textures... Aah!
Rain, Steam and Speed. Image Courtesy: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
We came out and walked past Nelson's towering column. Then watched busy, fashionable Londoners and tourists throng the place to enjoy the sunny day. From there we walked to Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square and took the tube back from Piccadilly Circus (circle).
Back home, Aarti and Akshay treated us to fried seaweed, nasi goreng and yummy vanilla and strawberry ice cream with prawn chips! At the time, they had lived at a flat in Woolwich (Woolich) Arsenal where the football club was founded, now marked by a cannon. By the time our trip was over they'd moved to their new house. :)
Erm... why Orange Squash Party? We earned that moniker in Ireland... but more on that later. :D
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