LUCERNE SWITZERLAND

I had heard so much about the amazing beauty of Switzerland, that I was secretly not wanting to see it. I did not want the imaginary picture of Switzerland that I had in my mind, destroyed.  My fears however were unfounded. As soon as we left Italy and moved into Switzerland, my eyes, my mind, my whole being was stupefied. This place was so unimaginably beautiful. It was more pristine, picturesque and pleasing to the eye than the picture that I had in my mind.

So much of beauty, calm, peace, colour, cows, in one place was simply amazing.

VIEW OF BEAUTY

The meadows, the hills, the lakes,the mountains were bewitching. I did not want to look anywhere except outside, and etch the entire place in my mind for ever.

Lucerne, our first stop, is near  a huge lake. There is a promenade around the lake. Beautiful houses on the other side of the lake are spread out all over the mountain. They are not cluttered up. There is a lot of green, lot of beautiful flowers on every window sill and the all pervading calmness of peace and serenity in the town.

One could see beautiful exclusive shops of famous watches. One was really tempted to buy the watches!However, window shopping is all that I did.

Shops are pretty, each one has a character, all its own. They are not like the usual departmental stores. There were little winding musical instruments playing old famous tunes, like Lara's Theme from Dr. Zhivago and Edelweiss from Sound of Music. There were lots of watches on display, and pleasing faces welcoming us even if one did not want to buy anything. They made one feel most welcome even to simply browse around.

Swiss chocolates, Swiss watches, Swiss dairy products, Swiss cheese, Swiss knives all were well stocked all over the place.

I could not get Dev Anand and his beautiful song "Phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se, tujhko likhi roz paati,"(with the colour of the flowers, with the pen of my heart,I write a letter to you everyday) out of my mind. If I remember correctly, it was sung in a train in Switzerland, in the movie Prem Pujari. The scene from that film, of those exquisite windows, full of flowers had been  permanently etched on my mind. I was delighted to see that very scene with my own eyes, after almost forty years of that film! Nothing seemed to have changed!
I couldn't believe that any place with so many tourists could still retain its old world charm.

A boat ride on the lake enabled us to see all the lovely places around the huge lake. There was a palace which Michael Jackson wanted to buy. Also the fabulous hotels where a whole lot of important and famous people had stayed.

LION MONUMENT

 We went to see the Lion Monument, which is the statue of an injured lion. It is located a little away from the city and is inside a secluded garden. It actually commemorates the sacrifice of more than 600 Swiss guards, who died while guarding the Tuileries in Paris during the French Revolution. The statue depicts a dying lion who is hit by a spear. He rests covering a shield engraved with the 'fleur de lis' which was the symbol of the French Kings. This monument is dedicated to the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss. The expression and the entire statue carved inside a rock, are very moving and brings tears to one's eyes.The Swiss are well known for their discretion, loyalty and bravery. Interestingly, the Vatican is also guarded by Swiss guards,who have a very colourful uniform.

THE COVERED CHAPEL BRIDGE

The Chapel bridge is one of the oldest wooden bridges in the country. It is across River Reuss. It was made in 1333, but got burnt down in 1993. It has since been restored to its past glory and beauty. The bridge is covered and the interiors are full of beautiful paintings throughout. The sides of the bridge are fully covered with colour coordinated flowers. Walking on the bridge is a beautiful experience.

ALPINE HORNS

We went to a show where the various facets of Swiss culture were shown. Audience participation was invited and appreciated. The Swiss are well known for yodelling, which is very melodious and catchy. They also have very- very long musical horns, called Alphorn or Alpine Horn, which are quite akin to musical horns still played in Ladakh and some other parts of India The Alpine horn is wooden and has a cup shaped mouthpiece, which was used since time immemorial for communication in the mountains.  One boy of our group,went on stage to try and blow the horn.Then, there was very beautiful music played on the bells which are placed around the necks of cows. There was a Swiss folk dance performance where O'Maira from our group joined in. In the end a big black and white cow came into the hall and moved close to the audience. It was really a beautiful experience. Since audience participation is invited, it becomes all the more exciting. Yours truly, could not let the chance go past, and I bravely went on stage with a few others to learn yodelling. The girl would yodel a  bit and ask each one of us novices to copy that bit. It was fun to be on stage, on the huge TV screens and make a complete fool of oneself! I loved every moment of it. After the yodelling,  they brought a pitcher of their local beer and asked each one of us on stage, to gulp the beer down at one go. I simply cannot drink beer and here I was  gulping it all down at one go! Never one to fail anywhere, I succeeded here too!!!Hick!!

COWS GRAZING

The cows of Switzerland are pretty, healthy,and graze all over the hills. The music of their bells is beautiful.  Reminded me of the cow bells of India, and the sound of bells when the cows are returning home at dusk. In Switzerland one can buy beautiful souvenirs of these bells. Going to the top of Mount Titlis in a cable car with the green plain below and music of the cow bells coming through, is delightful. It is the most  splendid view, which fills one with a feeling of peace and serenity. Nature has gifted beauty to this place in abundance. 

One goes up almost 3000 metres to the top of Mount Titlis. There are three stages to go up.First one goes up in a gondola where 6 people can sit, then up a huge gondola, and finally a gondola which rotates and can take up to 80 people in it. When one reaches up there is a flood of Indians that you can see!  Right at the tip there is a big platform and lo and behold what do I find? A huuuuuge cut out of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol in the film DDLJ(Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge). I was simply amazed.What a lot Yash Chopra has done for Swiss tourism!!

I also came to know that there is a special tour operated from India which takes people to all the spots where Yash Chopra's films have been shot!! AMAZING!!

MOVIE CUT OUT

I also found to my amusement that in the restaurant there were two buffets. One had the usual European stuff and the other provided typical Indian food. Speaks volumes about the number of Indian tourists visiting Switzerland.
Instructions in the rest rooms were also provided in Hindi.
There are a lot of tunnels and trains in Switzerland.
The colours in Switzerland are breath takingly beautiful. The blue of the lakes, the green of the meadows, the red roofs of the cottages and a riot of colours of the myriad of flowers, were never better.
There was an all pervading feeling of peace, tranquillity, cleanliness, beauty and the bounties of nature, which I have never felt anywhere else. The place exudes serenity, calm and is extremely beautiful. One feels peace from within. Actually, I think that Switzerland is the most beautiful place that I have seen on earth! 

I have spent a lot of time in Kashmir too. The beauty there also is out of the world. Yet, to my mind the sheer calmness, quiet, and tranquil feeling that I felt in Switzerland made it feel like heaven on earth!

SEVENTH WONDER??

I wonder why so many things are associated with the number SEVEN. 
The heavens are supposed to be seven-Seventh Heaven.


The rainbow has seven colours.
The notes of music are seven.


In Indian marriages we take seven circambulations around the fire. 
There is another ceremony called Saptapadi or seven steps.


The children's game of Seven Tiles.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!!Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Doc.

There are seven continents.

There are seven wonders of the world.

There are seven days in a week.
The seven year itch.


The atomic number Seven- Nitrogen, is a constituent of all living tissues.
I wonder,yes I wonder....

CHATEAU DE VERSAILLES

PALACE OF VERSAILLES

PALACE OF VERSAIILES

A visit to Paris is incomplete without a visit to the Palace of Versailles. Yes indeed, you do not read the "lles" in the name. It is pronounced as "Versaii". It started off as the hunting lodge of  Louis XIII in 1631. His son Louis XIV transformed it into a palace. His successors further transformed it into the most beautiful and luxurious palace of all times. This palace was the venue for the “Versailles Treaty” after the First World War. It was also the venue for the wedding of the daughter of Laxmi Mittal-the richest man in UK, an Indian by birth. I personally think that this Palace was also one of the reasons for the French Revolution. 

I need to get enough Adjectives to describe the beauty and grandeur of this Chateau. It is large, beautiful, grand and gilded with gold.  The palace dimensions are gargantuan and the gardens are exquisite. They spread out over acres. In spite of its huge size, the gardens are meticulously maintained and are almost perfect in its beauty. The Schonbrunn palace of Vienna was largely based on the Versailles palace. The Holkar Palace of Indore, India, was also designed on the Versailles palace.

The gold paint used on the walls was real gold. The splendor of the palace has to be seen to understand what grandeur really means.

The palace has been maintained as it was, during the reign of the Bourbons. Furniture, chandeliers, drapes are all there. Originally the furniture was mostly made of silver, but silver was melted to meet war expenditure by the Bourbons themselves, and wood came in its place.The rooms are large, airy and most of the windows open to the beautiful view of the fabulous gardens. 

GARDEN

The gardens are planned and very well laid out. One could look out at a riot of colours, where the flowers have been planted meticulously and are colour co coordinated. There is a lake, beautiful statues, fountains, an orangerie and, huge trees lining the garden, again very planned and beautifully laid out. There is a separate garden which belonged to Marie Antoinette.

HALL OF MIRRORS

There is a Hall of mirrors in the palace. There are seventeen mirror clad arches which reflect the seventeen windows overlooking the magnificent gardens. Each arch contains twenty one mirrors. Mirrors were very expensive in the seventeenth century and Venice held monopoly for manufacturing mirrors. Several workers from Venice were brought to France, by Jean Baptiste Colbert who was the French minister of finance, so that the mirrors could be made locally in the Gobelins factory, to maintain the integrity of "philosophy of mercantilism". This hall has been the venue for signing of many treaties, including the famous Versailles Treaty  signed after World War I.

In the times of the Bourbons, Royalty was considered divine. They were called The Sun King. Reminds me of the Suryavanshi(Descendants of the Sun God) Rajas that we had in India! The French Kings had to actually live infront of the eyes of the public. The King had to sleep in view of courtiers. He also had to wake up in the presence of his chosen courtiers. In the Royal bed chamber there was place for all those courtiers to stand and await the waking up of the King. The Queen had to deliver her babies in full view of courtiers. I wonder what life really must have been for them!

GARDEN

Louis XIII, up to Louis XVI all lived here. The Dauphin or the Crown Prince also lived in these palaces. Louis XV, lived so long that his own sons died before him and his grandson became the next King.

The Kings and Queens living away from Paris were totally lost to the needs of the country and the public. They lived in splendour and spent their time in pursuit of fashion, soirees, and balls. The powdered wigs, jeweled shoes, high heeled shoes, huge bouffant, coiffures, heavily and richly embroidered gowns were all the contribution of these rulers of France.

BED CHAMBER

There is therefore no wonder that the French Revolution happened. When oppression gets beyond endurance, then a revolution is bound to happen. When most of the French population was suffering from lack of food and other essentials of life, the Rulers were happily enjoying their life without a care for their people.

It is said that when Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI, who was the daughter of  Marie Theresa, the Empress of Austria, was told that the people of France did not have bread to eat, her reply was, “then let them eat cake”. I don’t know how true this episode is, but seeing the kind of life the King and Queens of France lived, it does not seem improbable.

France is well known for its sweet sounding language and also the romantic nature of its men. It was almost traditional for men of nobility to have a mistress. One has heard of Madame de Pompadour, as well as Madame du Barry,  who were both mistresses of Louis XV. Both these ladies were very powerful people.

Travelling to Versailles  for me was another great adventure. We went upto the station to catch a train. We had to enter the station after swiping our tickets. Strangely, there was no passage for a wheelchair to go through. The station was unmanned, and we were totally foxed about how to go through. After many permutations and combinations, we had to lift the wheelchair over the quite high gates, where one of us was standing on the other side to grip it. It was quite an ordeal, and had we not had 2 people besides the wheel chair occupant, it would have been impossible to go through. The train journey itself was good. The train was a double decker and there were two people who entertained us with music, of course for a consideration.
Versailles - grand, magnificent, beautiful, Versailles, made me remember the saying "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"! All the riches, glamour and magnificence of the palace could not ensure fairy tale endings for the Bourbons! How happily the people of Paris must have watched the chopping off of the head of their King Louis XVI! How the beautiful, fashionable, royal Queen Marie Antoinette must have felt, when she had to make her escape from Versailles. She was accused of a number of charges and was found guilty. How must she have felt when  her hair was chopped off, and she was taken in an ordinary open cart to her place of guillotine, in full public view. How pitiful it must have been.

THE DOOR OF ESCAPE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

The magnificent, rich, guilded with gold palace of Versailles, left me with thoughts, about the vagaries of time. It also brought to my mind the immortal words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
"Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,and, 
Departing leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time."


      

PARIS

Paris is a city which has beautiful wide roads, gorgeous buildings with white facades and streets called Rue, Avenue or Boulevard. All signs are written in French, which are, oh so very difficult to pronounce. If only Dupleix had won and Robert Clive had lost India, in the 18th century, we Indians could have pronounced all those French words with ease!

Champs de Elysée

Why does one have to say Shwanze leeze for Champs de Elysée? Speaking or rather reading the names is very difficult. The French are proud of their language and do not normally like to speak English, even if they understand it. Reading a menu fare is even worse. I resort to simply pointing out what I wish to eat.

We had a bitter experience the day we landed at Paris. We were a group of seven people, with one person on a wheel chair.  Before starting our trip we bought a book of 20 tickets for the metro and bus travel. Then for entering the train station, we asked that the exit for the wheel chair be opened, which was done. We boarded the train and, on arrival at the destination were met by ticket checkers. The lady in charge asked us from where we had arrived and as soon as we told her that we had come from London, war was declared! The Lady started telling us about her trip to London, when she was stopped and fined. She accused us of travelling without validating two tickets. These two tickets were of the wheel chair passenger as well as her attendant. They had gone through the special passage and as there were no slots to swipe the tickets, these were inadvertently not swiped. The war that took place then was like a personal attack, with all of us surrounded by four checkers, looking on as though we were some criminals and not tourists, who had come to visit their city and spend money! We were fined 50 Euros for this lapse.

We had set out to see the Eiffel Tower. There was a huge line of people buying the entrance tickets and then to go up in the lift. Here we saw a different approach  of the French people. One of the officials escorted us to the ticket window and allowed us to by pass the queue, and go in on priority into the lift, as we had a wheel chair person.

The view from the top was amazing. Well laid out gardens, the river Seine meandering around, the beautiful bridges and the gorgeous Churches, Pantheon, Les Invalides which has Napolean's Tomb, Basilique du Sacre Coeur, Place de la Concorde,  and all the other beautiful spots of this great City were visible.

We walked along the River Seine and crossed over to the Champs Elysée, which has clipped horse chestnut trees lining the Avenue.These trees look like wine glasses when lit up during Christmas. The tops of the trees are shaped like cubes. Beautiful buildings, very wide roads, and the towering Arc de Triomphe stood majestically before us.

Illy coffee house

The food was divine! It had to be!What else could one expect in France?

Next day, like typical tourists we took the Hop on Hop off bus. The metro in Paris was disgusting. The stations are quite unfriendly for wheel chair users. There are steps and more steps and no ramp! Buses and trams are good. Service too is good, all that one needs to remember is to carefully validate your ticket. Tickets can be bought in lots and have to be validated on entry.

Paris is full of well laid out gardens and the place was a riot of colours.

Les Invalids was a home for aged, injured, incapacitated and unwell soldiers of France. It is said to have been created at the suggestion of Madame Pompadour the mistress of Louis XIV. Napoleon's tomb is in these premises. The dome is made of gold and Napoleon's remains are interred in 6 coffins made of lead, iron, mahogany, ebony, and  red porphyry.

Louvre is well laid out and easy to manoeuvre. The unforgettable Mona Lisa, the most beautiful Venus De Milo, from Greece of circa 130 BC,The code of Hammurabi, circa 1790 BC from Babylon,  are some of the things that one simply cannot miss. They are mind blowing! 

Place de la Concorde

A trip to Paris cannot be complete until one sees the wonderful cabaret of the city. Who has not heard of Moulin Rouge, Lido, Paradis Latin? We saw Paradise Latin. The show was fantastic. It was artistic, graceful, dignified and extremely racy. A glass of champagne went down very well as an accompaniment. 

Mont Martre is the artists corner situated on top of a hill. One takes the funicular to travel up. Once in this area, one can see artists working with charcoal, pencil, paints and drawing sketches or caricatures in minutes. The place was quite bohemian, artistic, simplistic and  charged with energy and beauty. We quickly got portraits made, as keepsakes.

The "Hunch back" of Notre dame was not visible, but the Cathedral was fantastic. The stained glass windows were amazing. The story of Christ is very nicely etched inside, so that illiterate people could also know the story of Christ. The Cathedral has interesting statues of saints on the outside. The most amazing was of a headless Priest holding his head in his hand!

REPLICA OF FLAME OF STATUE OF LIBERTY

Paris and France gave us the concept of Freedom- Liberty, equality, and fraternity. The French revolution was the first movement of people against Divine rule! The Bastille which was a symbol of the tyranny of the bourgeois was totally razed to the ground, on 14th July 1789, and thus started the French revolution. My salaam to the French, for this great gift to the people of the world!!

Do not miss the famous patisserie or boulangerie and cheese of France. 

Paris is beautiful, spacious, open. It is the city which gave to the world the coiffure, wigs, powdered hair, high heels, jewelled shoes, as well as the guillotine! Unforgettable Paris and freedom loving, inspiring people of Paris were friendly, helpful, patient and seemed happy to hear our efforts to pronounce the extremely sweet French language. I loved Paris and will return again and again and again!