Believe it or not, although we had been married for 16 years, we did not have a real holiday all these days.
In India, our trips mostly meant attending family functions or meeting relatives. After shifting to Malaysia, we had short family holidays nearby within Malaysia and a few in Singapore and once in Thailand. But no quality time spent for just the two of us.
When my vacation was coming up, we decided that we will spend three weeks in Europe.
The time was not really not ideal to think of an extended vacation. The company I was responsible for was facing problems and it really needed watching. Finally after a long struggle in my mind, we decided to go ahead with the vacation.
We opted for a group tour by Globe Tours and this was London-London covering two weeks in Europe.
On reaching India, the first stop is Bangalore. Then Nagpur, where Ashwini came to meet us after travelling from Pune. After the Nagpur function we left for Mumbai for our onward flight. This was a tricky point. Abhi was then 9 and had not stayed away from us, and he did not like the idea at all of spending time with his grandparents. Anyway, that over, putting him temporarily out of our minds, we prepared for our adventure.
The flight to London (Air India) was routine.
We had planned to spend a few days in London sightseeing. This was the first trip to Europe for Sujata. I had chosen the hotel which I had stopped at before, The Posthouse Hotel on Bayswater Road, bang opposite the Kensington Gardens/Hydepark. It was a small, moderate hotel, but comfortable and very conveniently located.
After freshening up, we took a ride on the famous London bus. We had a bite of lunch somewhere and then went to visit a planetarium. Not a wise decision, as was proved later. With the jet lag, after-lunch laziness, and the darkness of the planetarium, combined with the cool air, we both fell asleep and were only awakened when the lights came on at the end. We crossed over to the Kensington Gardens and had a walk around the lovely park, going up to the Serpentine and then the Speakers' Corner. Then a walk about the busy Queensway and bed. The next day, we had booked ourselves on the open-top London sightseeing bus. This was quite an experience for Sujata. The weather was kind and mostly sunny. We visited all the famous sites, and the walk around the Westminster Abbey was particularly memorable. We tried the famous Fish and chips for lunch, with the fish wrapped in a newspaper as it used to be in old times.
We collected our tour documents, tags and handbags from the organisers, Global Tours.
We were to leave the next morning for a 14-day tour of Europe. We were both excited about the prospect of seeing some new countries, and for Sujata, each country was going to be a new experience.
Our last night in London, we wandered along the Bayswater road, visiting their famous Sunday art market by the road side. We did not buy anything this time, but I had bought some curios here in the past. It is more than a mile long and really absorbing. We ate in one of the Queensway restaurants.
