Posts

Showing posts from October, 2012

Featured Post

Florence

Image
FLORENCE     Florence –  the capital of the Tuscany region and the cradle of Renaissance   We opted for Flix Bus while traveling from Venice to Florence. The road journey takes about three and a half-hour. In Florence, it terminates at the rear end of Santa Maria Novella (SMN) train station. One of Italy’s busiest stations, it got its name from Santa Maria Novella Church just across the plaza from the main entrance. We debarked at the station and refreshed ourselves at McDonald's before hiring a cab for our hotel. Florence, popularly known as ‘Firenze’ by the Italians, is located in central Italy. This dreamy city with a romantic name is the regional capital of the lovely Tuscany region.   Columbus Hotel, where we stayed, is located in Lugarno District. We always prefer to book our hotels through Booking.com as we always land up getting good hotels at good locations. Despite being a little away from the heart of the city and Santa Maria Novella station

Where the Cranes fly -----Sultanpur

Image
SULTANPUR BIRD Sanctuary About 15 km from my house in Gurgaon lays the famous Sultanpur bird sanctuary. Before it attained the status of National Wildlife Sanctuary it was known as Sultanpur Jheel. Peter Jackson, a famous ornithologist stumbled upon it in the seventies and decided to pursue the Indian government to convert it into an exclusive reserve for birds. Finally in the eighties the jheel attained the national status of bird sanctuary. The sanctuary is situated on the way to Farruknagar in Haryana. From Gurgaon it is the road which runs almost parallel to the road leading to Pataudi, the princely estate of late Mansoor Ali Khan -- ‘Tiger Pat’ to cricket lovers all over the world. The sanctuary used to be a favorite haunt for late Dr Salim Ali, the greatest ornithologist of all times. Haryana is a state where one gets the chance to see the rarest of birds,compared to all other states in India . Haryana Tourist Lodges  are all  named after birds , like ‘Jungle Babbler’ i