Travelling with Rohin

The third leg of our New Zealand journey had us drive from Queenstown, over the mountains to the area rich with  Glaciers, national parks, adventure sports, rainforests, limestone cliffs, rivers and the wild ocean.  Part I of our NZ travel was the beautiful turquoise Lakes and Mt Cook trail  ( https://rohinarora.com/2024/02/08/new-zealand-south-island-twizel-mt-cook-and-the-lakes/ )  . Part II was the charming Queenstown and drives from there  ( https://rohinarora.com/2024/02/14/queenstown-what-a-lovely-city/ ).  I have already written about those in my earlier blogs, the links of which I have shared here. Drive to the Glacier Country As we drove towards  Wanaka , I didn’t realise that soon the car would be driving on the highest main road in New Zealand. It is known as the  Crown Range.  We kept going up and up and it certainly wasn’t a straightforward drive. It was all about hairpin bends and breathtaking views. As a driver I couldn’t enjoy...

Not a great start It’s a short international flight from Athens to Istanbul’s Ataturk airport. Turkish airlines managed to damage my new suitcase in this short duration, forcing me to spend some time at the airport. The damage report was filed and I was sent to the main office. Discussions were done; claim amount was negotiated and agreed upon. I was asked to sign the receipt but as I had received no money, I refused. I was told that money will be sent to me in 15 days time after it was received from insurance. Now, back in India, Turkish airlines has denied agreeing on any claim and has so far refused to pay me the money .My emails to them go unanswered. Istanbul can get very hot. It was a hot day when we arrived there. The taxi driver refused to put on the AC. In the next few days I learnt that this was a common thing as none of the Taxi drivers agreed to put on the AC in the 3 days we traveled by cabs in the city. The drive from airport would have been a pleasant experience had it ...

Santorini was our next destination. Santorini or Thira is an island located at the southermost end of Cyclade islands in Aegean Sea. Santorini is essentially what remains of an enormous volcanic explosion, destroying the earliest settlements on what was formerly a single island, and leading to the creation of the current geological caldera . Luckily I was teaching Sanya about tectonic plates and volcanoes before we left so I was one of the few who knew what Caldera actually meant. From what I read in the book, a caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption. As most of caldera is submerged under sea, we could just see the visible parts of islands and the volcano. A high speed catamaran got us from Mykonos to santorini. Due to the speed of the boat, we were not allowed on the deck. As catamaran was for passengers (and not vehicles), it was smaller than the bluestar ferry but moved at double the speed. The Hellenic se...

THE CYCLADES The islands in the Aegean Sea, south east of mainland Greece are known as Cyclades and the most popular amongst then are Mykonos and Santorini. There are 220 islands there and some of the other popular islands are Naxos, Delos, Paros, Amorgos etc. Though many people visit Rome, Venice, Athens etc, a very few from India actually manage to visit these islands. These islands are included in some of the Mediterranean cruises but in those trips you barely touch the islands. We decided to visit these islands as we wanted a few days of relaxation near the sea after hectic sightseeing. Nothing pleases the kids as much as the beach and swimming pool. A little more research told me that Mykonos and Santorini were the most popular islands and for totally different reasons from each other. The Blue Star Ferry starts for Mykonos at 7.30 AM from the port town of Piraeus, which falls near Athens. We had booked the hotel near the port in advance and reaching there was simple from Athens a...