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Sabbatical travel series – Spain

Based on what I had seen and heard, I felt that Spain would be an idyllic vacation place. I was going to visit 2 cities – Barcelona and Madrid. I had heard a lot about Gaudi’s  architecture and influence in Barcelona and was looking forward to seeing his creations firsthand and forming my own opinion.   At the Munich airport, there was a piano near the departure gate and a couple of talented kids treated travellers to some soulful classical music. The flight from Munich to Barcelona was slightly bumpy but I landed in one piece. My cell phone roaming plan was going to expire the next day and I had a tough time renewing it. I got the airport shuttle to the city centre and while on the bus, I called customer care who renewed the plan for another month. Although the roaming plan now reflected the new expiry date, data roaming wasn’t working. I had to call customer care nearly 15 times before it got resolved. The solution, given by the tech team, to wait for 4 hours for the new plan to beco
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Sabbatical travel series - Germany

  The next stop were the cities of Berlin and Munich in Germany. I went to the Warsaw train station 45 minutes early to give myself enough time to figure out the platform for the train going to Berlin and it turned out to be quite easy. The stop at the station was going to be 10 minutes long and I figured that it would be enough time to get to the coach and my seat. The train arrived on the dot. I walked to my coach and tried to get my suitcase up the narrow and high steps, but for the life of me, I couldn’t lift the suitcase and go up the steps at the same time. A kind gentleman, seeing me struggle, lent a hand with the suitcase. I managed to locate my seat and lo behold, there was only overhead luggage space. Another passenger helped put my heavy suitcase up. I met a couple with their young kid, going back home after holidaying in Warsaw, on the train. We struck a conversation and it felt nice to talk to someone who spoke fluent English. When we reached Berlin, the husband helped get

Sabbatical travel series - Poland

It was a week into my solo trip, and I was enjoying exploring places at my pace and schedule. As I moved from one city to another, I realized that they were all pretty much similar in terms of sights to see – old town, churches, castles with most of them having a water body in the form of a sea, river or lake. Further, just when I was getting the hang of things in one place, it was time to move to another. However, with a limited budget and a desire to see as much of Europe as possible, it was the best itinerary.   Poland was my next stop and included three cities, Wroclaw, Krakow and Warsaw. A friend suggested halting for a day at Wroclaw from Prague before heading to Krakow and to check out the gnomes spread all over the city. I reached Wroclaw in the afternoon and after checking in, I picked up a map of gnomes at the reception and hurriedly went to the market square. It was a slightly cold day and the brisk pace helped. The first building that I came across in the old town area is t