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Seville

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SEVILLE Sevilla After living up to some wonderful moments at Granada, the birthplace of the renowned Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, we decided to further our coadventure through the heartland of the southern Iberian Peninsula, composed of lowlands, mountains and valleys. You’ve got it right. To arrive at Seville, we traversed the fascinating Spanish heartland. The landscape presented some vistas composed of rustic plains, lowlands, winding roads through the Sierra and then vast stretches of olive orchards. About 200 years back, a couple of decades after Napoleon’s army plundered and destroyed parts of Alhambra, an American diplomat and writer, Washington Irving and his Russian counterpart traversed the path from Seville to Granada. It was highly adventurous then, because of the fact that the transport system at that time was horse-drawn carriages and muleteers. It was such that they could ‘wander among the romantic mountains of Andalusia’ (Tales of Alhamb...

BUDAPEST - 2

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  BRATISLAVA- HUNGARY TO SLOVAKIA BY TRAIN The idea of visiting Hungary's nearest neighbor was firmly woven into my wanderer's mind, long before stepping into Budapest. There are quite a few trains from Budapest to the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. So, while in Budapest, we opted for the early morning train from Nyugati railway station for a day trip to Bratislava. The train's scheduled departure was 7.40 am. So we started early at around 6.30 am when it was still slightly dark outside in October. It was quite cold also, and on our way sighted some homeless people huddled up on benches that line up the entire stretch of pavement along the avenue leading to the station. It took about 10/15 minutes’ to walk down to Nyugati from our apartment in District 7. Traveling by train in Europe has always been a cherishable experience for me. Almost all trains are high speed (200 to 220 km/hour on average), smooth and noiseless, very comfortable seats and inte...

BUDAPEST ( 1 )

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Bu Buda & Pest- the charming twins on the banks of Danube The international airport was going through refurbishing when we flew into Budapest in October 2019. We had to directly walk across to the terminal after deboarding our flight - rather literally rush in the face of soft sprays of drizzles and cold wind on our way. Strange it may seem, but on our left, a long chain of passengers was moving towards their boarding gate housed in a small temporary cubicle. They were separated from us by a barricade made of wire mesh. A scene identical to images of European Jews being herded by the Nazis for deportation by holocaust trains. Outside, Mr. Gabor (one of the partners of Lichtenstein Apartments) was waiting to pick us up as our apartment was about 15 km away from the airport. Lichtenstein Apartment complex is centrally located, on a lane leading to the hub of Jewish Quarters in District 7. The apartments are cut out from century-old building interiors with very high ceilings a...