Bonjour

After a long time I changed the theme of my web site; hope the color combination looks good. The two templates are 'new' and 'zen'.

There are now more than 1300 pictures to checkout in the Photo Album section. Most of them come from last 3 years as that is how old my digital camera is. And a big section comes from Europe. After moving to Paris, we used this opportunity to visit maximum countries possible which are part of Schengen visa.

This year we went to Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal till far.

Though, each countries and places have own attractions. But now, it looks all alike .. Chateau, Bateau, Gateau (Castle, Boat Ride, Dessert) along with Museums and Cathedrals. May be this is due to too many places we have visited in last 2 years.

I recently played with Ming a cool system to play with PHP for creating Flash movies. Here is sample Ming, PHP slideshow . Also created a simple banner with typewriter (ticker) effect

New PC

After months of checking web sites for prices reading forums for review and always thinking about moving out Paris I got my new PC. It was not an easy choice as all these years I wanted a Mac from Apple. And Mini-Mac was a real contender for long time.

But at the end I went for mini-PC because of the money and choice of flexibility I have with the same. There has been a tremendous change in computer hardware in terms of speed, functionality and size in last 4 years when I made last PC. This is the configuration I got for my new PC.

• Shuttle SB83G5
• INTEL Pentium 4 530J 3.0 GHz
• Samsung PC3200 512Mo DDR
• Hitachi 160Go 7200 RPM S-ATA 7K250
• LiteOn 48/24/48(CD) & 16x (DVD)

It coasted me around 650 Euros when I got these parts from different small computer stores in Rue-Montgallet in Paris. Well I have to admit the whole setup process was quite easy but it requited a good amount reading the manual. It worth the RTFM as the CPU and heat sink connection is the most vital and tricky for a success.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays!!!

Well year 2004 is almost over; wish you all the best for the year 2005 and next. This year we did not traveled like last year. But we did traveled to Italy and Greece for one week each, other than some of few short trips. You will find them in pictures for 2004.

In the month of November we framed few pictures and cross-stitch work of Pamela. Here are the pictures of the same. The two flower pictures are from Keukenhof trip. This is the first time we enlarged our pictures for framing.

Loire Valley

River Loire is one of the four major rivers of France. It had always major importance to France. In the Medieval time or the best time of French civilization French Rules and noble men of that time had built lot of Chateau (castles) along this river. It is very close to Paris, which is one of the reasons to built their weekend home for hunting and relaxation here.

We only visited three castles that Sunday. We started with Blois, this castle was built by four generation in four different style. It started with Gothic style but later the Renaissance and other part were added. This castle is not very big compared to other castles witch was lived by the kings. But it always had special importance in terms of the power.

From Blois we went to Chenonceau, this one is famous for its garden. It is also known as ladies castle as it was construction works were supervised by ladies. It was build by Briaonnet family but later used by Catherine de Medici widow of King Henry II. This castle is built on the top of river Cher. The history about this chateau is very long and interesting. If you get some time please read the same at www.chenonceau.com

For that day, the last castle was Chambord. It was built by the young king Francois-I. He really loved this one for his hunting pleasure. But out of his 32 years as king, he just stayed 42 days in this place. It has more than 300 chimneys. The double spiral staircase is at the center of the Greek crossed Chateau. The plan was designed and supervised by Leonardo de Vinci.

Chateau de Versailles

I have a fascination for the colour of autumn, mat be the reason is I never experienced them before while in India and California. You can enjoy the same in Paris where trees along the big boulevards changes it colour. Around Paris particularly the Bois de Boulogne is very nice that time. We went to Versailles just to take pictures. It was not a very sunny day that Sunday, sun was playing around clouds. But it was nice for a Sunday afternoon.

Greece

After coming back from Italy we were looking for a week long vacation and the obvious choice was Greece but waited till Olympics 2004 to finish. We figured out from all the guidebooks and Internet that all the major historical sites are quite far from each others. As we had no plan for renting and driving we opted a guided tour for the main attractions. We were very skeptical initially but at the end it turned to be very good meeting new people and quality of service was very good. After finishing our 5-day trip we went back to Athens and from there we went to Santorini. The most famous Cycladic island in the Aegean Sea where I realized I got one more year older. We started from Paris Friday evening and reached at midnight.

Day-1

We started our day early as the tour bus picked us at 7:20AM. After getting transferred to another bus we headed out of Athens on Saturday morning. The first we made was at Corinth Canal 80 KM south of Athens.

This is a manmade canal 6 kilometer long which connects Gulf of Corinth in northwest and Sardonic Gulf in the southeast. Ancient Greeks knew the importance of this location. Journey between Aegean and Adriatic was other wise longer around Peloponnese. The canal was built in 1890.

Before the canal was build the old Greeks started using a unique technique in the years of 600 BC. They made a stone road and then transferred the ships from one side to the other over a wheeled platform known as `diolkos`.

From there we went to visit the remains of Mycenae civilization. This site is one of oldest site in Greek civilization. The first was around 4000BC but the peak was around 1200 BC late Bronze Age. Next to it is Mycenaean tholos tomb, it consists of circular burial chamber with a long passage. The keystone is at the center of dome. And it used to place very delicately fearing the structure will collapse in itself if the pressure was too much.

After lunch we vised Epidaurus. Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus has the best natural accosting where the sound is heard all over the theater with same volume and clarity. The factors are the oval shape, the stones that are used and most of the air that is blowing from stage to audience.

From there we went to Nafplion we spent the evening and night there. Nafplion was the capital for Greece when it was getting out of Ottoman rules before capital was moved to Athens.

Opera - Alcina

Going to opera for the first time was a very eye-opening experience. It was really fabulous and all the thanks goes to Francois for the same. He gave us the recording in CD and printed storyline before. That really helped us to enjoy and understand the musical drama. We went to the Opera Garnier the old one in Paris. He got us one of the best seats in the beautiful opera house as the TV camera was in our next box. We got a very good view and sound. Although, the tickets were the most expensive one but for the same price you might not get the best unless you know the floor plan well. The architecture of this building is really very beautiful and it is so decorative that it is very hard to explain in my words. The break rooms for refreshments were so nicely designed and that too with appropriate themes. The staging was very modern of Handle's one of the best work ALCINA. If you get opportunity to experience this form of art and music please do so. Now looking forward to visit to Opera Bastille (the modern one) sometime soon with Francois.

Paris in night mode

I wanted to take pictures of Paris famous landmarks in the twilight with a tripod. We started with Sacre-coeur Basilica. And the picture we got from there was really great as we were there on the right time. The sky color was perfect for the camera and it was just lighted.

From there we went to Moulin-Rouge; the famous cabaret of Paris then to Assembly National the French Parliament. We crossed Seine and came to Concord. From there we went to Invalids, the military museum and resting place for Napoleon.

The night ended after 5 hours when we took the picture of Eiffel tower from the Pont de Garigliano the nearest bridge on Seine from our place.

We went to Arc-de-Triomph another evening soon to finish this series of pictures. It is always beautiful to capture the lights in city of lights

DisneyLand - Paris

This place which is most visited by tourist in Paris. I really didnot wanted to visit this one as I have been to Disney land twice in California. Pamela wanted to visit this place last summer but some how I was able to save myself from that trip. This year I could not escape. OK, enough of cursing and all. At end I have to say, that I did enjoyed my time there like every other time at Disneyland. We went with Asha, she was studying French for 3 months that time in Paris at Alliance Francais. As usual, she beat us on time, we were only 5 minutes late this time at the Metro Station before starting for Disneyland. The day was over-cast so it was not that warm as we expected in the morning. Our day started with one of the roller coaster, which was not bad for me, not enough for Pamela and it was first roller coaster for Asha. She was doing OK after few minutes after that we waited long to see the Loin King Show. It was nice. At evening, Asha left after few other rides of roller coasters and late afternoon parade. We continued with dinner and evening Parade and fireworks. This evening Parade was new for me. It was very nicely done with lights and all. At the end Pamela agreed not to visit this place soon so next might be -- Astrix Park

Musee Guimet

This Museum is an extension of Louvre Museum-collection of objects from Asia. Mostly the objects are from south Asia and far east Asia, if you been to London British Museum and visited Asian sections you will feel deja vu. It is located in 16th arrondissement of Paris next to Metro Station of Iena.

We visited the same with Francois; it was only Francois who told us about this museum. He had been here before few times. This place not very big but takes half day at least or more depending your likes or dislikes. As you can see from our pictures that there are Buddha which comes from Pakistan to China. There are lots of collections from Japan,China and Tibet which is very beautiful and hard to explain for me. The porcelain pieces from far-east is also very beautiful and they are quite big.

Itlay revisited

We have been to Rome for 4 days in 2003 but we wanted to visit the other parts of Italy but could not do that due to time constrain. We were planning for trip to Florence, Venice etc old classic route for long time.

Krovi and Vidya went to Italy on their paper honeymoon which was 3 weeks earlier than us and they did provided us with lots of good tips. Then we too spent a lot of time on Internet especially on Rick Steve's site and talking to other friends about the same.

We found a very good deal on train via SNCF to Milan for to and fro in 1st class which we opted. We booked almost all our hotels via venere after planning our itinerary.

Our itinerary was:
Day1 : Arrive Milan, after check-in leave for Pleasure day-trip to Lake Como and back to Milan.
Day2: Train to Cinque Terre (hiking to an extraordinary old villages set in rugged coastal mountains )
Day3: Pisa (Picture stop at the Leaning Tower) and continue further for Florence
Day4: Day trip to Sienna and back to Florence
Day5: Explore renaissance city Florence
Day6: Half day at Florence and leave for Venice
Day7: Venice at leisure
Day8: Back to Milan and at same night journey to home via rail.