STRENGTH OF MARATHA ARMAR-VIJAYADURGA FORT

 

    Vijayadurga fort is situated on the mouth of river Vaghatone in Sindhudurga District of
Maharahtra. The fort is huge and has very strong water front. The fort was earlier known
as Gheria Fort.

   As per historians the Vijayadurga fort was constructed by Silhari Bhoja King in 1200 AD.
and later on in 1665 Shivaji Maharaj constructed new triple wall to further strenghten it to
make it stronghold of Maratha navy known as Armar of Marathas, as he believed that if you
have strong navy you can have control over sea. He also built other forts in water wherever
possible.

   If you are interested in History then Sindhudurga is a right place to visit as it has got a Sindhudurga fort,beautiful beach,Kunkeshwar temple and of course the famous fort of Vijayadurga. The fort is so idealy situated and so strongly built that all the possible invaders such as British, Dutch and Portuguese had to stay away from it.

Please do visit the place as you will enjoy for sure.

KOPESHWAR TEMPLE--KHIDRAPUR

   Kopeshwar Temple at Khidrapur is located in Shiroli district and situated on the bank of river Krishna.It's one and half hour journey from Kolhapur.It is the most magnificient and ancient temple for those who worship Lord Shiva.It is a huge stone structure,which depicts the best confluence of architectural and sculptural form.Even though the temple is dedicated to lord shiva,but as usual you cannot find the image of Nandi inside the towering gateways.This place is famous as an ancient battlefield.
  This temple is an attraction to those who are interested in stone sculpture forms.
   10km. from Khidrapur is Narsubawadi a pilgrimage centre on the bank of river Krishna-Panchaganga confluence.From Kolhapur this place is 35km.
   Both the places are worth to visit, specially for worshippers of Shiva and Dattaguru .It creates spiritual awareness among the devotees.We can see such temple at Tambdi Surla in Goa.Compared to Kopeshwar temple it is very small.

MANCHESTER OF MAHARASHTRA

As we have learnt India has a glorious tradition of producing good quality textile. Ichalkarangi,the place which is situated close to Goa,is a highly flourished handloom textile industry.Now they produce textile using modern machineries replacing the old methods.It is called the "Manchester of Maharashtra" and is one of the best place to visit which will give one the knowledge of cotton handloom in India.

I happened to visit there in the year 2014-15.It was a tour organised specially for school students in order to make them aware of, how the final cloth material is made.It was a great moment for everyone of us to see simple cotton (as a raw material) passing through different stages and getting converted into the final cloth.

It has the best wholesale market facilities, specially cotton sarees and dress material at a cheaper rate with good quality product.

weaving machine

RAJASTHANI WORLD

In Dec 2014, I happened to visit Rajasthan with my family and family friends by plane and enjoyed the site seeing over there.As you all know Rajasthan is one of the famous tourist visited state,it is one of the historical state ,it has many huge Forts worth seeing and when you know the stories and have some knowlegde of history of those times then its a great feeling to enter those forts.

So we started our site seeing journey from the City Palace -Jaipur.It has in it one of the oldest war weapons used by the people of those times.There is one special hall where on the wall various pictures are displayed of the Kings who ruled this state in the past.The present generation still resides in that palace.If one is lucky then one can even see them while passing.It is a wonderful place for those people who are interested in history.

Our next visit was Amber Fort which is 11km from Jaipur,it is the former capital of Kachhwaha Rajput.It is a classical fusion of Mughal and Hindu architecture.The massive Amber Fort has tall fortification and very fascinating gateways,gardens,halls,pillars,pavillions and temples.And one of the exciting and interesting place in this fort is Shish Mahal.It really looks like "Tare Jamin Par Utar Aaye Hai".Though i have not seen it at night i feel if it was allowed to visit there at night with a little light it will just look breathtaking.

Third place of our visit was Jantar Mantar,which incooperate  multiple buildings of unique form each with a specialised function for austronomical measurement.We feel that we are far more better in technology and studies than our ancestors but after visiting this place one will feel that they thought much more ahead than they had to during those times.On the way we saw Hawa Mahal,Jal Mahal etc.

Rajasthan is famous for marketing areas specially for women who are ethnic wear lovers.The market of Jaipur attracts tourists for their variaties of ethnic items of Rajasthani culture.I enjoyed travelling this place and hope you too will enjoy visiting such places.

TOUR OF EUROPE

  We decided to make our Europe tour on our own without going with conducted tour which are not only costly but show limited places for limited time.Me and Aaie was really excited as it was our First time..Papa had visited Portugal,Holland and Germany on account of Table Tennis when the Lusofonia games(2009)were going on.

 
   We booked hotels on Internet obtained Euro rail Passes and started our Journey on 12th May(2016) early in the morning from Dambolim to Doha to Zurich in Switzerland.Switzerland is One of the richest country in Europe.We were in Zurich in the afternoon on 12th May.From Zurich we took train to Basel another major city in Switzerland where we had booked our hotels.As we were new to the place we had to ask local people for help some of whom although not knowing English were very helpful and kind enough to show us the directions.

     It was 5 o'clock till we reached hotel and since it was drizzling and cold we decided to take rest that day.
 
    The next day we started for Mount Titlis-Famous Tourist spot in Switzerland.We were taken up to 3500mtr.height in 3 phases first by electromagnatic train climbing almost vertically to height of 1800mtr.From there to 2500mtr.height of cable car and in third place by revolving cable car upto 3500mtr.landing on snow peak of mountain.The view was breathtaking and since it was snowing we had a lot of fun in snow,playing ,touching the snow we were almost freezed.Suprisingly we got vadapav-bhajipav at the foot of the Mount Titlis.
 
  On the way back from Titlis we stopped at Luzern another beautiful city in Switzerland situated on Lake where plenty of Swans were swimming.There were lots of boats but since it was raining we preffered to do window shopping of products of almost all Top Brands in the World.We reached late at night in hotel.
 
  The only problem in Switzerland was food, we had to depend on breadbutter,jam,fruits and lovely breakfast in the hotel.The city is so clean that not even a piece of paper was found on the road and with greenary everywhere.The country has the best Transport system with tram on the roads.

  The next day we went to see Rhinefall that is 150mtr.wide waterfall flowing down from 30mtr.height.It was beautiful site as nice descending steps are made which take you right near the water guashing down furiously.There are restaurants,shops on the top where we managed to get Indian Food.We came back in the evening stopping in between at Zurich again window shopping as things are very costly in Europe.Next day we visited some museum in the city and procceded to see Europe's oldest and largest zoo-Basel Zoo.It was fantastic as the animals are kept healthy and in their natural habitat.We spent almost full day there and in the evening returned back.
 
   On 15th morning we travelled to Paris from Basel a 3 and half hours comforable journey in Eurorail turning over 320km.per hour.

   Paris was beautiful with its old building with beautifully carved pillar and french windows,broad road, lovely shopping places.Here we could get Indian Food.There are so many places to be seen in Paris that you require atleast 15days.We saw Eiffel Tower illuminated with lovely fountains in front.Opera House with its carvings,paintings,chandeliars is out of the world place to see.Next day we went to Disneyland.You require more than 4 days to see or visit all 30 studious in Disneyland.We tried our best to see maximum in a day but each place is so beautiful and amazing,you dont feel like moving ahead.Its is very huge with 2 parks.We waited till end i.e at 10.30 in the night when it closes.
 
    Since there are so many places to see we decided to take Hop-in Hop-Off city ride so atleast we can see many places from outside.We saw Luvre museum,Notredom Cathdral war museum and so many beautiful places of which I dont remember names.

     On 20th morning we left for Barcelona from Paris again in Eurorail with services of airoplane.What a lovely countryside all green fields well cultivated without wasting single piece of land.Barcelona and Paris look very alike with structure of buildings .It looked like we are visiting Paris ones again.We saw Egyptian museum, than a view of beach there and a garden called Rock Garden.The next day visited valencia,a beach side view again but very clean,with shackes and a proper walking path with sand around.
 
   The last place we visited was Dubai.Dubai is a city of UAE.When we visited Dubai the temperature there was 38-40 degree.Dubai the most brightful city, like the city of lights at night.It is worth seeing at night.The view of lights around drives you crazy,looks very beautiful.We visited BurjKhalifa-the famous shopping malls in Dubai with a view of dancing fountains in front,the best view to capture specially at night just awesome and beautiful.And many more ......
 
   India is far more behind than this countries we visited in cleanliness,technology,facilities,transport system etc.and will take years to improve and compete with foreign countries.

   This was our tour to Europe which was a very good experience and is unforgettable....enjoyed a lot had fun and now i can say i have visited a foreign country..... !This is one of my best memory....