Ohh yeah! We are headed out of Hong Kong for the next couple of weeks on a vacation to Iceland and Spain. Quite a quirky combination, you say? I agree whole-heartedly! The germ of the idea developed towards the end of 2010 when discussing Easter break with a couple of friends of ours. The plan was to do something slightly off the usual tourist beat and we cast our net out wide, starting with the Stans, the Silk Route, Mongolia and finally deciding on Iceland (I think I was slightly biased towards Europe.. :) I have only been to Italy so far, and I have a huge checklist to go through!). Since Gireesh and I wanted to make it a longer break, we teamed it up with Andalusia because of the weather, some very sangria-tinted but warm memories from Gireesh' first trip there as a broke student, and the food.. it is sacrilege to ignore the stomach on a vacation and where best to pamper it other than the land of tapas and paellas.. :)
So we are visiting Andalusia, starting off at Seville and then driving around the area. I was very keen not to plan this leg of the trip too much, just let our impulses decide what we wanted to do while we are there. Of course, it sounded criminal to head down south and not see Seville, which is why we have allocated a few days just for the much decorated home of flamenco. After that, we just leg it.. we have a couple of guide books, we will hopefully have a GPS, so we hit the road, letting our eyes, ears or even our stomachs decide when to stop and how long to stay. We have a lot of options, famous Cordoba and Granada, the rugged Mediterranean coast, hikes along Sierra Grazalema, the Pueblo Blancos (white towns hugging green brown hills), or even the relative hustle and bustle of Malaga (if we end up missing malls too much :)). I just don't want to know now what we will be doing in Spain.. this hint of the unknown has whetted my appetite even more for el viaje a Espanol!
Iceland in comparison is a very planned trip. It needs to be because we have such an amazing geographical diversity at our disposal that we have to do full justice to it. In fact, most of what we are doing would qualify as the usual tourist run in Iceland (so much for wanting to get away from it all!! :)), but the place seems so unsullied and remote, almost like one of Earth's last frontiers, that I am sure it will be everything we are looking for. We are also hoping to catch a glimpse of the Northern lights while we are there, though April is a tad too late for the main show and apparently, its raining the entire time we are there (I would do anything to prove wunderground wrong!!). But, like most natural phenomena, you can only hope to be at the right place at the right time, and I am sure even a slight sighting will awe and humble us for years to come.
I will be trying to blog each day, assuming we have access to the internet and assuming I find words to describe what we are about to see. Right now, I am in a state of suspended animation, or as Floyd would put it, 'comfortably numb', prepped and ready to take off and hoping, willing, praying that this turns out to be the trip of a lifetime!
So we are visiting Andalusia, starting off at Seville and then driving around the area. I was very keen not to plan this leg of the trip too much, just let our impulses decide what we wanted to do while we are there. Of course, it sounded criminal to head down south and not see Seville, which is why we have allocated a few days just for the much decorated home of flamenco. After that, we just leg it.. we have a couple of guide books, we will hopefully have a GPS, so we hit the road, letting our eyes, ears or even our stomachs decide when to stop and how long to stay. We have a lot of options, famous Cordoba and Granada, the rugged Mediterranean coast, hikes along Sierra Grazalema, the Pueblo Blancos (white towns hugging green brown hills), or even the relative hustle and bustle of Malaga (if we end up missing malls too much :)). I just don't want to know now what we will be doing in Spain.. this hint of the unknown has whetted my appetite even more for el viaje a Espanol!
Iceland in comparison is a very planned trip. It needs to be because we have such an amazing geographical diversity at our disposal that we have to do full justice to it. In fact, most of what we are doing would qualify as the usual tourist run in Iceland (so much for wanting to get away from it all!! :)), but the place seems so unsullied and remote, almost like one of Earth's last frontiers, that I am sure it will be everything we are looking for. We are also hoping to catch a glimpse of the Northern lights while we are there, though April is a tad too late for the main show and apparently, its raining the entire time we are there (I would do anything to prove wunderground wrong!!). But, like most natural phenomena, you can only hope to be at the right place at the right time, and I am sure even a slight sighting will awe and humble us for years to come.
I will be trying to blog each day, assuming we have access to the internet and assuming I find words to describe what we are about to see. Right now, I am in a state of suspended animation, or as Floyd would put it, 'comfortably numb', prepped and ready to take off and hoping, willing, praying that this turns out to be the trip of a lifetime!
2 comments:
Have fun swati :). I am sure it will be a trip of lifetime :)
Thanks Nimmi! We just got back after an awesome awesome trip.. starting to blog our experiences, just posted the first of the series.. :)
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