An Autumn, the British way !

Europe is always a charm. It's something that s on every body 's bucket list & obviously on mine too. My first tryst with Europe was a trip to the Great Britain. It was a fairly cold November and starkingly different from the summer I had spent in wilsonville. For starters the sun sets moved from 8 pm to an early 5 pm.

The places we covered were Manchester, the Lake District & London.

Manchester- there is only one thing that comes to everybody 's mind .. The old Trafford! - the Mecca for both football and cricket lovers! Just a glimpse of the place and we were on our way to the other experiences that the city had to offer . The city centre still holds the old world charm with the cobbled streets, small shops and since Christmas was just a stone s throw away , the special Christmas markets were also in full bloom. Manchester also hosts one of the biggest malls in the whole of Europe and boy! Is it big! Walk , walk , walk.. And it does not get over at all! There were huge Santa clauses perched on the roof top, huge ( read scary) singing teddy bears, colourful carrousel, 4D Christmas grotto ( we were the only adults there who did not accompany a small kid ;) ) and after an evening visit to the mall it was time to head back to the hotel but not before we got a flavour of Manchester!

Lake District-- this is a drive that should be on every body s must see list just because it is so so beautiful. The drive on the winding roads through the beautiful lakes of Keswick, Buttermere, Grasmere, Windermere, the giggling goose of Ambleside , the slate mines of honister , oh it's dreamy! It's like a story book that you suddenly fell into while reading it! It's so beautiful that you don't want the road or the day to end! Well, it's not just the sights, it's also the company & the long anthakshari of old Hindi songs was just the right mood setter!

What is a trip to England if London is not part of it ! And that is why we squeezed in London right in the middle of a train journey from Altrincham to Newbury.

With just about 24 hrs in London , we went all in to make the most of this time. When you are short of time , the best way to explore a city is with a hop-on hop -off city tour bus. It takes you to all the key places in the city and you get to choose what you want to explore more . We already had studied the map through and decided on what places to see from the bus and what on foot. The good part about London is that most of the places in central London are pretty close to each other and can be covered on foot . We first got down at St. Paul 's cathedral. The mysticism of the stained glass windows, large central domes, beautiful paintings on the ceilings and the stories depicted in

each wall, the cathedral looked grander than anything that I had seen.

Best time to be at an observation deck is the twilight . Why you ask? Well coz you get to see the city in day light, see the sun set and see the city all nice and lit up a little while later. Using this as a strategy we chose the evening time to take a ride in the London eye. As the glass capsule rose slowly against the setting sun, the views of the mighty city of London became more apparent. The historic buildings & the modern skyline beautifully coexisting, that's what gives character to this beautiful city. One building stands out in the 360 degree view and that's the Big Ben when lit up . I don't know what it was but I was transfixed.. I could not take my eyes off of the Big Ben ! Overall, London eye for some reason felt like the "the" romantic place !

We then walked down to the Trafalgar Square, passing the Big Ben ( yes! Again! ) & the tower bridge . After seeing the place where the kabootar scene from the movie ddlj was shot we headed back to our hotel to catch up on some sleep. We had an early start to take in as much as possible in the short time that we had in London.

Next day started early since we had quite a few places to cover. First stop, Madame Tussaud wax museum. This is probably the closest one can get to clicking pictures with the celebrities. After being the paparazzi, we headed towards the other sights of London.

The home to the royalty, the Buckingham palace, the Hyde park , a ride in the world famous underground metro of London were the other things we saw before we boarded the hop-on hop-off bus to go back to the hotel, but as fate would have it, we got into the bus going the opposite way! The outcome? We got to see every other attraction like Harrods mall ( where the queen shops) , baker st, kennsington palace etc which we had skipped due to time constraints atleast from the bus .

And thus , ended my tryst with the British lands!