Beyond Here

View of the cathedral from the south-east end, across the Sienne When Sunit and I were planning our trip to Paris in the summer of 2003, he asked me what I wanted to particularly see in the city. Much to his astonishment, I replied - Notre Dame. He had half expected me to vote for Eiffel Tower, I guess. So it is befitting I think that my first of the many memoirs of our trip to Paris start off with an ode to this ancient Gothic Cathedral. The West side, or the front My interest in this monument was sparked by one of Victor Hugo's famous novels - The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Who can forget the disfigured Quasimodo and his love for Esmeralda. Much to my delight, Sunit actually booked our place to stay in the Latin Quarter of Paris - we were just 5-10 minutes of walking distance from this Cathedral and I had my fill of it because we saw it every single day we were in Paris. Notre Dame at twilight Notre Dame is built on an island on top of Sienne, the river around which most of Paris i...

Its been a while since I last posted. A couple of out-of-town travels, Diwali and then some things back home kept me occupied. But I am back and hope to catch up from where I left off. First weekend of October I travelled to Ann Arbor again to spend some time with Sunit. I also hoped to catch some fall colors which are supposed to be wonderful in Ann Arbor. But as luck would have it, it was still pretty warm in Ann Arbor and Sunit was too busy so we could not travel to the upper peninsula to catch some colors. Hence we compromised for some local gardens itself. We decided to visit the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. We researched on the internet and from what we saw it seemed interesting. It also seemed to have a waterfall and I was very eager to see it. The gardens were beautiful and well kept in their natural splendor. There was a waterfall all right - the problem was it fell just 1-2 feet. Photography can do wonders indeed and the picture we had seen on the internet seemed to be of a go...