Happy Women’s Day!

Here’s wishing all the beautiful Women out there a very Pink Women’s Day !

Live Life Queen Size!

Cheers & Joy, Always!

The Amsterdam Pride!

Hello,

The National Coming Out Day (NCOD),an annual LGBT awareness day, was celebrated on 11 Oct in USA. It actually reminded me of a very colourful and unique event witnessed in Amsterdam in 2015, the Canal Parade – Amsterdam Gay Pride.

Celebrating love!

Amsterdam Pride or Amsterdam Gay Pride is a citywide gay-festival held annually during August, meant to celebrate equality, freedom and diversity. The festival attracts several hundred-thousand visitors each year and is one of the largest publicly held annual events in the Netherlands.The Canal Parade is the highlight of Amsterdam Pride and is a very happy and joyous event.

The Talk

Gym shark indeed

Beautiful

Bunny !

The Canal Parade is exciting to the core. People dressed in colourful & fun attires, some dressed to impress, some definitely dressed to kill! Boats with the craziest music and the most outrageous tricks. The spectators cheering the participants and enjoying everything to bits! Whoa… What an event!!! A most memorable one.

I grabbed this opportunity to click some beautiful portraits and street shots and I was glad to be there.

Cheers & Joy, Always!

Celebrating!

Kitty Catz

A view from the top

Spectators

Transportation!!!

Flying high in Life

In search of peace

So Much Fun!

Freedommmmm

Such a beauty

The BRUGGE I fell for…

Hello!!!

Every few weeks I bring to you stories from my European Swirl. Today it’s all about my Love Affair with Brugge. It’s about what I saw and what I felt, making me fall totally and completely in love with it.

The Market Square

Colour Coordinated

Sun Bathing

Brugge at first is a treat for your eyes. A trip here is like a walk through Medieval Europe. The Gothic structures all around in brick as well as multiple colours speak volumes of the architectural influences of Northern Europe & the Baltic here. The Cathedral, Belfry, Churches & Historical monuments are all worth seeing. Constructed as per the medieval street pattern where all lanes/streets lead you to the public squares, Brugge has a number of  crisscrossing lanes, confusing tourists as hell. The canals all around don’t make it easier either, but definitely beautify the town more.

Beauty Every where

Canals galore

As you meander the streets, you witness the culture, the local way of life and appreciate the simple living. I can easily proclaim that Waffles & Frittes define a wholesome Belgium meal, paired with some fine local beers and of course exotic Belgian Chocolates. You have plenty of options throughout Brugge to try all of the above. If this doesn’t fill you enough, a mug full of Belgian Hot Chocolate will surely do.

Begijnhof

All roads lead to BEERS

Lanes Bylanes and more

Architechtural wonder

Souvenirs

The Whole world on a Teapot

Chocolate Chocolate everywhere

Even though I’ve said enough, my enough ain’t even close to enough. So to conclude, I feel the local handicrafts(Ceramics & Embroidered goods) need at least an honourable mention here. I spent only close to 10 hrs exploring Brugge and it still managed to make a mark on me and now occupies a special place in my heart.

Ready to go

Eat Chocolate

Yummmm

Walk Walk Walk

Till we meet again Brugge!

Cheers & Joy, Always!

 

Happy Women’s Day!

Here’s to all the Special & truly Wonderful Women everywhere. Always be Awesome, just the way you are.

Cheers & Joy, Always!

Happy Women’s Day!

ALPHABET PLAY – WPC

Hello everyone,

I am back with another Weekly Photo Challenge-Alphabet. I was anyways about to share these images of my son playing with the huge “be.WELCOME” placed at the Atomium in Brussels. He wasn’t the only kid around having a ball on those alphabets.

Cheers & Joy, Always!

Jumping all about Brussels

Welcome

“O” Is it?

L for Love !

Magic of Black Forest

Hello,

HAPPY NEW YEAR my friends!

I have decided to begin the new year with my European Swirl stories. I am super excited about it. I could have done this series in chronological order of places we visited, but thought against it. I wanted to share what I loved most and then take it through the rest. But don’t worry there won’t be nothing that I didn’t like… Overall I loved it all, but this undoubtedly was the best of the lot.

So my favourite part were the 2 days spent in the Black Forest region of Germany. They were dreamy, exciting, beautiful and a list of all good things a place can be. My pictures are no justice to the breathtaking views we encountered on every twist n turn. You need to be there to actually feel it.

I ll let my pictures do the rest of the talking now. Enjoy!

Cheers & Joy, Always!

The Rising Sun

Sneak Peak into Paradise

Prettiest window ever

We inspired the legendary cake

Beauty in the smallest things

Yellow Yellow Pretty Fellow

Their Craft

Cuckooooooooo!!

Dazzling

Intoxicating Black Forest Cup

So Green

Trout Trout everywhere

Bridges of Black forest county

Pretty & Perfect …huh!

Purpleeee

Street art

German Beer

My world

The bell tower n cathedral

Perfect Sunset

 

 

The Toddler Travel Diary!

Hello all!

They say traveling broadens your horizon. But what does traveling with a toddler do?

I know, I know!! It doesn’t look good huh!

Before this vacation, I had my doubts about it too, and I read my share of “How to”, “To Do” and of course “Dos & Don’ts” on vacationing with a toddler. My 2.5 yr old boy ain’t a fussy traveller, but he still is a toddler with his share of tantrums, mood swings, emotional outbursts etc. I got a lot of articles on how traveling / vacationing with a toddler is no vacation at all. Or on how to make it easy and all that jazz. I also found some great content on being prepared for everyday and for a rainy day. There was a lot more but I had run out of patience & time too.

Anyhow, we are back now & when I sit back and reminisce about our travels, I can only smile and say, “It ain’t that bad people!”. In fact, it can be a lot of fun. He/she can be the perfect travel-minder, making our vacation amazingly enjoyable. All we need to do is, shuffle between our needs to Travel & Explore and our child’s need to Explore & Play.

So, other than all we had read & absorbed and of course experienced from earlier trips, we also did all this to make it special for our sonny bunny.

To start with, whenever possible, we would indulge our little one with a trip to a nearby park/play area. He loves his swings/slides & looking at him play just made us happy. The Brussels Park, Amsterdam Vondel park, Cologne Zoo, Munich English Gardens all worked perfectly for us.

Sand Play @ Brussels park

Happiness in a Swing – Vondel park, Amsterdam

Well, both hubby & me do enjoy our bit of sightseeing and we did all we could to make it enjoyable for him too. Each day our itinerary would have one or more kid friendly attractions. Informing him about the places he would see, and what they were about, a day in advance kept him excited all along. The Atomium, Mini Europe & of course Auto World worked perfectly for all 3 of us in Brussels, & the BMW museum took the cake in Munich.

At times we selected sites preferable to each of us and visit those on our own.

Learning his Alphabets -Atomium, Brussels

The dream machine- Auto world, Brussels

Yey- I can Drive- Olympic Stadium, Munich

We let him binge on ICE-CREAMs & WAFFLEs & CHIPs & CHOCOLATES whatever kind of food, whenever he wanted! Slurp!!!  It kept him happy & satisfied on the food front. No fuss about how many fruits or veggies or nutrients or blah blah blah. Just Eat what you like kinda thing.

Ice-cream Love!

We went along and did his thing, like he did ours. Swinging in the park in Amsterdam, cooking Pizza in a playhouse in Munich, riding a toy train in Cologne & Climbing the staircase of the church a million times, we’ve done it all.  We went wild and crazy with him and I wouldn’t be lying if I say, ” WE LOVED EVERY BIT OF IT”.

Father & Son- Joy in Brussels!

Crazy Mama & Sonny- Amsterdam

We helped him make a lot of new friends. He had a ton of fun interacting with them and learning from them.

New Girlfriend & Miffy – Amsterdam

Hello Mr Goat- Zanse Schans

And most important of all, we just let him be. He was happy, just playing with his car or running about the streets.

Driving a matador on the streets of Brugges

Standing Tall

20 days travelling with him was a breeze. There were momentary ups & downs, but I wouldn’t count them against the billion smiles we shared. All in all, it was about striking a balance between all our needs and demands on a day to day basis. Our plans changed everyday, but we kept going on and on.

Here’s all I have to say on this topic. Hope this will in someway be useful to you. Enjoy!

Cheers & Joy, Always!

VIVID indeed {WCP}

Ola,

I spent a lot of my time travelling with my family last month, mostly road trips in Madhya Pradesh, India. One of these trips was to my maternal uncle’s place & that’s when I discovered these treasures. While on our way to Chinddwara from Bhopal, we were crossing the village Semri when I noticed a few very colourful houses on both sides of the road. At that moment all I wanted to do was to stop the car, grab my camera & start clicking. But with the sleeping beauty in my lap, of course my sunny boy, I just couldn’t. So I decided that their charm wouldn’t go waste, & I would satiate my photographic senses on my way back home.

The very rustic & brightly coloured houses, although a bit worn down by the weather, captivated my attention a bit too much. I just couldn’t get them off my head till I captured them through my view finder. And my contribution to the Weekly Photo Challenge – Vivid is me paying homage to those wonders of this world.

Enjoy!

Cheers & Joy, Always!

Adding Colour …

Lucky owners

Grand remains

Afloat- Weekly Photo Challenge

Hello! When I think Afloat, I think Venice, the city that floats . 117 islands separated by canals and linked by bridges on the Venetian Lagoon… Wow… Ain’t that just awesome! I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days in this ever floating wonderland a few years back and I am using this Weekly Photo Challenge – Afloat, to share my clicks of Venice with you. No picture can ever do justice to it, but I am still going to try. Enjoy! Cheers & joy, Always!

Busy Grand Canal

Gondola’s Galore

Rialto!!

Dusk!!!

Living -Boating

Night time wonder

Mumbai Affairs -On a Fishy Trail..

There’s a busy fish market close to my place and it’s been on my click list for sometime now. So, a couple of days back I grabbed my camera and headed there. To my disappointment I didn’t find much crowd selling or buying fish. But some dead fish were sitting pretty, ready to be clicked. I just did what I went there for… I clicked and clicked and clicked! And here’s what I found on my fishy trail…

Beautifully Set for sale

Don’t look at me like that

Wash them well to sell them well..

Sold!!!

A fine stall

The fish lady

Take this … its the best

A bunch of dead beauties

Tails of a few fishes

Perfection

Awaiting a midday snacker!

What beauty

Of all shapes and sizes

Cheers & Joy, Always!