No we are not going to Paris!

Why? Is Paris Hilton, who was our tour guide, not well?

Nonsense. Don’t crack PJs, there’s no decent accommodation available out there, as this is peak time..

So..??

So what? Let me think…

Dude don’t think but act. I don’t want to spend entire three day long weekend in Office…

Ok, how about Venice…

Not a bad idea… Let’s book tickets…

No, we are going by car…

Car?

??

Car…

Yes Car…

Hell no, it will be hectic…

Are you in senses…? It will be fun filled with adventure…

Adventure? Are you going to do bungee jumping while driving..

STFU…#%@$.

Well this is how we PLAN our trips well in ‘advance’…almost a day before the day we start. And after quite a healthy debate on car vs train, we finally decided to add adventure to our trip by opting out of travelling by train. (Bahn managers, checkout. You are losing out customers. There’s no fun travelling by train 🙂

We decided, we are leaving Munich by 4 AM in the morning (Yes, we are indeed realistic planners) in our 4 cars, hired from our carefully selected esteemed travel agents of the city. We scared a couple of our friends; by letting them know that we are going to follow strict timelines and will definitely leave by 4 AM in the morning. After all its more than 500 kms to Venice, and we have to reach there before Gondola hitting the waters of Venetian Lagoon, Adriatic Sea.

Siva and Sam were worried how will they reach so early to our Hotel, as suburban trains won’t not be running so early.

Train? Man! These guys certainly lack spirit of adventure. 🙂

Any way, it was later decided lets not burden them much, and we postponed our trip by an hour.

I, myself have never done anything adventurous as Parasailing, Rappling, Trekking etc are no longer in list of adventures. Hence I never wanted to miss this great chance of trying out something so adventurous. So despite the fact that trip was postponed by an hour, I managed to get up early and got ready. In the morning, I came to know that few of us are dropping out. Some have kids issue, while others refused to drive car without a navigation system. And I was not sure, how many of us are finally going for the trip. In midst of all these , as a tradition, we started the day off with our National Anthem, Jana Gana Mana, as it was 15th August, our Independence day today. It was indeed a nice moment and after all the initial uncertainties, we finally left for Venice at around 8:30 AM.

It was raining all the way, from Munich, through Austria, till the time we entered Italy. Picturesque Alps were hidden behind clouds, but despite that, it was looking extremely beautiful. We had a couple of Coffee/snacks breaks in between. The best thing about this part of the world is, you enter any shop and you are guaranteed to have the best of coffee. Indeed, I was enjoying the trip to the core. But still, I was missing the adventure part of it. Well, you were not going to be disappointed Aminur. We took our final pit-stop around 100kms before Venice and decided we will stay at Verona, Lago di Garda.

Must be because James Bond came down to the lake for his latest stint?

No, because we don’t have hotel accommodation in Venice.

What?But we didn’t go to Paris, because there were no accommodations. Right?

Right…

And we came to Venice, even though there are no accommodations….

Well thats adventure man…

%$%$@^…

We decided to stay at Verona, checked-in, in Hotel Ibis, and after an hour left for Lago di Garda. It was indeed beautiful. We planned to have dinner there itself, by the side of lake. But then, the restaurants were so crowded, and Bhatakti Aaatmas of our group kept on roaming from one place to other, that it was hard to get a table. Somehow we managed to book a table for us, although not on lake side.

So do you have cheesy crust pizza?

NO.

Do you have tomota tama tam Pizza?

??

What about Paneer Patakha?

#*&@

Ok, please get us some Pizzas and Pastas and local delicacies. I will take up the matter Sonia Madamme when I will go back to India to have some localised Pizza in Italy as well. Wink

We left for hotel rooms early so that, we can leave for Venice, early in the morning (6 AM to be precise) to avoid traffic. But then, navigation system of only one of the car was working, and we had to follow that car. But then, when driving in Italy, you have to believe you are driving in Italian grand prix and we drove so fast, that we covered the distance of 30km in around 2 and half hours (Off course, getting lost and finding landmarks are no longer part of game called Treasure hunt, but part of Adventure trips 🙂 )

Finally we were in Hotel. But felt that 6 AM will be too early to leave, as it’s already 1:30AM and we needed proper rest to drive again. So we decided we will take 1 extra hour of sleep and will leave at around 7 AM. Finally time to hit the bed.

6 O Clock, I heard someone knocking at the door. It was Siva and Sam again, ready to leave for Venice. Then I realised, no one informed them, last night (as they went to sleep before our late night meeting) that we are leaving a bit late. I ‘envied’ them a lot that they are having real fun.

But it seems, 7:00 AM was also too early for couple of us. After hearing a couple of times “Can you give me 15 mins?” Siva, was irritated enough to react “From where shall I get those 15 minutes… I don’t have it in my pocket...”

A movie dialogue that goes like “Itni Shiddat Se Maine Tujhe Paane Ki Koshish Ki hai,. Ki Har Zarre Ne Mujhe Tujhse Milane ki Saazish Ki Hai” went so well, when we got stuck up in toll tax traffic queue for almost an hour. We were so keen on spoiling our tour, that now we were being helped by others as well :).

But once we reached Venice, the picturesque and beautiful city, left us spellbound. It’s an amazingly beautiful city, and unique in itself. We roamed around in public transport boats, through different canals. Had a brief but excellent stay in the city and decided to return back. We could have stayed back a day more, but then few of us had commitments, back in Munich on Sunday. So we had to comeback. But adventure was still not over for us as it’s hard to make Bhatakti Aaatmas, stand at one place. A couple of them were left behind, and we would have left them behind in Venice itself, had it not been his gracious Mr Nagappan who stayed behind for them. Unconfirmed sources say that, Nagappan had to take help of local police to find those Bhatakti Aaatmas, who had this uncanny knack of suddenly creeping away from the group, leaving everyone clueless about where they are.

Overall the trip was good, but it could have been better. I will remember the trip for picturesque land route from Munich to Venice, for Venice and for idiocy of few who prefer to call mismanagement and foolishness as adventure J