Saturday, March 29, 2014

Santorini, Greece

Santorini is one amongst a group of islands to the south of mainland Greece. The archipelago used to be one big island until a major volcanic eruption around 1500 BC shattered it to pieces and formed a volcanic caldera (a large crater caused by the violent explosion of a volcano that collapses into a depression). The eruption and the ensuing earthquake and tsunami also destroyed the ancient Minoan settlements, and is one of the theories behind the legend of Atlantis.


Friday, March 7, 2014

Paris, One Day Window Tourism

I think I'm creating a new phrase here so first and foremost, let me define it  -

Window tourism: noun, going to all the regular tourist attractions but not going inside any of them, only seeing them from outside and moving on. Analogous to shopping and window shopping.
Usage: "The queues in Paris are so long, that I only had time for some window tourism."

Now that that's out of the way -

I had a day in Paris.

I really wanted to go through the Louvre and had pretty much decided that I'm going to spend the entire day inside but then I chose otherwise at the last minute. Firstly, the Louvre is huge and one day is not enough to go through the entire thing. Secondly, even though I enjoy a museum, I cannot differentiate between a Michaelangelo and a Raphael so a hectic day inside a museum might not be as rewarding as it might seem like. Moreover, I like to get a feel of a city and inside the Louvre would be the culture snobs and schoolchildren, but the rest of the city would be outside.

Raphael, bottom. Michaelangelo, left.