Kronborg Castle Tour : On way to the castle A short train journey Northwards from Copenhagen brought us to Helsingør Station. The town was small but its standing was big, thanks to William Shakespeare and one of his most acclaimed play “Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark”.
The tall structure in front of us, kissing the clouds, looked like a state of the art office building. Its design was far removed from the buildings of ancient Corinthia in Greece. Maybe even the present day Corinthia for that matter. It looked as if the Corinthia Prague luxury hotel, had set a new benchmark for the city’s premium hotels. It was a surprise for us since we were looking for a “Hotel” kind of building. 🙂
Panorama of Salzburg city from the top of Mönchsberg. On the right is the Salzburg fortress and on the hill on the left is the Capuchin Monastery
This post has been updated with latest content in July, 2023
Only the night before we watched the epic movie The Sound of Music one more time. There were two reasons. One was to get into the mood of the movie & remember the lyrics and the second was to get an answer to my age-old question “where was The Sound of Music filmed?” and make note of various movie locations and try to track them in real life during our Sound of Music Tour.
It was several decades back when it was first released in India and it left a lasting impression, not the story but the music. (The other musical that impressed me was My Fair Lady, around the same time). Soon after, an LP record was duly acquired and played endlessly till it became scratchy.
At that age (I was just a small kid), Nazis and WW2 did not mean a thing. It was only later while reading history I could connect the dots. That was the time I promised myself that someday in my life I would go to those very places where the movie was shot.
We boarded tram #12 fromHolešovice station in Prague. Before coming to Europe we had already decided to use only public transport as one of the ways of experiencing the life as locals do. We were super excited at the prospect of staying in a 14th Century Monastery, now converted into the luxurious Hotel Mandarin Oriental Prague.
Story of Meissen(Meißen) Porcelain, the White Gold of Dresden
Augustus II the Strong, the Elector Prince of Saxony and the King of Poland was an avid patron of arts and decided that Dresden would be the cultural center. He also had a great liking for gold, real yellow ones. His great love, bordering on avarice, resulted in him recruiting a young alchemist work on the Goldmacher Tinktur or the Gold making formula to convert base metals to gold.
This post has been updated with latest content in July, 2023
You may say, oh not another of those stories but hold your horses. .
In Finland, I stayed in three towns, namely Helsinki where we touched down; and Saimaa and Saariselka. Two nights in Helsinki and I had started getting restless. I was excitedly looking forward to go up north and explore the other towns of Finland. Also, to enjoy the hospitality of Holiday Club resorts in Finland, one of the best Finland resorts.
I love to visit smaller places that are not very far from a city yet far enough to have its own calm and charm. Ideally located to suit all tastes in holidays Lebrija is one such pretty town only 75 KMs from Seville in the lower basin of the Guadalquivir River. Just relax and take in the traditional Spanish way of life or pay a day’s visit, you’ll remember it for long.