I saw this Polish Pottery on display at a store in the old town of Krakow while visiting the old town square this weekend.
They are marked with the manufacturer logo, pattern, and 'Made in Poland' sign. The use of the Color Blue is evident in the white ceramicware, with floral or dotted patterns spread across, carrying a mix of other colors.
Since the design differs from the widely available English or Asian-style ceramicware, Polish Pottery carries some premium. The traditional pieces are stamped with 'UNIKAT.' At the bottom, it indicates it is a rare or better quality product that commands a higher price.
Sharing some edits of travel pictures from the 2018
Bhandardara Trip, people have started going out to undertake travel, defying the
fear of COVID. I took the last vacation outing in March 2020, just before the lock down
was implemented in India.
Personally, I am still not able to muster the courage to go
on a short break with the family as a new strain of the COVID virus is spreading
across the globe at a time when we are yet to recover from the initial aftermath
of the global pandemic.
Sharing link to video montage of my trip to Bhandardara hill station this year, a memorable road trip with family. We enjoyed our stay at Ananadvan Resort which is very well maintained and has courteous staff with lip smacking food at their in-house restaurant. When you are out exploring nearby attractions near Bhandardara dam do visit places like Umbrella fall at Wilson Dam, Amruteshwar temple, Randha Falls, Reverse Waterfall at Sandhan Valley and Agasthya Rishi Ashram.
We took Chakan - Rajgurunagar - Alephata - Brahmanwadi - Kotul - Bhandardara which is the shortest route however once you take the turn from Alephata it is a single lane road with some bad patches on the way so you need to drive slow while passing through small villages. Nevertheless this route is enjoyable in terms of soaking in all the natural scenery around. Make sure to have snacks/breakfast while you are on the highway.
On return we took the longer route back to Pune from Bhandardara - Ghoti - Bhatwadi - going along NH60 - Ghulewadi - connecting at Alephata which adds approx. 70kms to the journey however road condition is good and you would pass through farm areas all along with more options to stop for food on the highway.
Just when simmering summer heat started peaking in Pune this April, I was counting down days to my Munnar trip, as I could not plan a getaway last year on the occasion of my 10th wedding anniversary this vacation was overdue from quite some time. I had made up my mind to have a good break with my family this year and I am happy I choose Munnar as my destination for this trip.
TripAdvisor community proved helpful in planning this tour for booking my hotel stay, I was trying to avoid a drive down to Mumbai airport for travelling to Kochi and luckily I got a good deal on SpiceJet direct flight from Pune so all arrangements went well.
We landed on time at Kochi airport and our ride had arrived to drive us to Chinnakanal at Siena Village Resort, approx 119 Kms away from the airport. We had quick lunch at airport cafeteria and our journey began through streets of Kochi and as we left the city behind it took us almost 3 hrs 30 mins to reach Munnar town.
Kochi city or Munnar town has close to non existent political hoardings on road which I am accustomed to witnessing almost in all Indian tourist places I have visited and to top this I was amazed by the condition of the road, I wish Maharashtra government takes up such state highway road upgrade project, it would surely boost tourism prospect which is lacking in spite of having abundant tourist spots.
I must admit that this was the most exhilarating hill station trip I have ever experienced in my life. This uphill ride goes through a long series of narrow single lane road bends, best part is that this entire stretch of NH8 I hardly spotted any pothole or bumps. I was spellbound by the beauty of this place. Understood and felt for real as to why Kerala is called as God's own country as we passed through dense forest areas, hilly terrain graced by tea plantations, huge silver oak and nilgiri trees, witnessing nature in it's true grandeur is like a fresh breathe of air for your soul.
If you are travelling with adult or kids having motion sickness issue I would advise taking frequent breaks on the journey and be ready to put your belly to puke test. My kid had thrown up many number of times & thankfully our driver Mr. Saji he has experience ferrying passengers for quite some years in Munnar so he keeps a small bucket handy in his vehicle for passengers with motion sickness problem. Road condition is rarely bumpy or uncomfortable but route after Thalakode area has multiple and frequent turns.
Once we reached Munnar town we decided not to stop as our hotel was another 22 Kms away and finally we reached the resort at around 6 PM and we were received at hotel reception with a welcome drink and after checking in we headed to our duplex cottage style room which was very spacious and well maintained. Day 1 journey was spent travelling and savoring the long and scenic drive, we relaxed for rest of the evening to call it a day.
Waking up to chirping of birds in the morning and witnessing a thin layer of mist floating above the valley in front of our room terrace was serene, I took some snaps from the verandah and my kid was delighted to explore resort play area as we proceeded to have our breakfast, after returning we got ready to venture out for sightseeing.
We decided to visit a nearby tea factory first which is owned by Goenka group and they have a small educational tour on tea processing where a guide explains all major steps of how tea transforms from a leaf to powder, it was quite an informative session and the aroma of tea all around gets fixated in your senses. This factory has a sales outlet too allowing you to taste demo samples of different grade and quality of tea available, they do not process flavored and CTC quality tea at this plant so you can buy authentic organic quality tea from this factory.
After completing Tea Factory tour our next destination was Rose garden which had a huge variety of flowers spread across a well curated terrace landscape, this place has no guides with just flowers and plants well labelled for tourists to enhance their floriculture knowledge.
We decided to visit Mattupetty dam next which has boat rides. This dam had enough water around this time of the year and we strolled around dam area taking some pics, our boating plan was put off as the speed boat drivers were riding it dhoom style and the larger slow boat required 20 people for which you have to stay near docking area and let a big group assemble to share charges. My kid was in no mood to allow us to go boating so we departed from there back to Munnar town to have lunch and retire back to hotel for enjoying a relaxed evening.
Day 2 sightseeing began with a drive to a spice farm ahead of Munnar town, a local guide at this place gave us extensive and detailed information on how spices are grown and how to identify different variety of spices available in the market. we also learned about ayurvedic benefits of different medicinal plants grown at this farm. It was time for some spice shopping from their store, our next halt was a elephant ride attraction, it was growing very dark and windy outside and my kid was initially excited to ride an elephant but he got fidgety after looking at the elephant size, after failed attempts at pursuing me and my wife decided to ride elephant for him as he wanted to see our snaps but not ride along with us!
Just as we started our elephant ride, it started raining very heavily and the mahout handed us a big umbrella tucked on the side of saddle, my kid sat out with our driver happily watching him take our pics as we took a small round on a narrow forest trail with huge trees around, we returned back early as the elephant was getting scared due to thunder and lightning and it is never wise to force any animal in such conditions as they can run berserk due to fear in such weather.
We returned back to our hotel on day 2 early as it continued to rain and our driver was worried that there could be road block problem on our way back due to mud sliding or tree falling across road during stormy rains. Thankfully we reached without any issues so it was an evening well spent enjoying light drizzle while sipping tea and feasting on pakora's on the terrace verandah as the clouds cleared up a little late in the evening.
I woke up to a rainy and gloomy morning on our last day of touring hoping for rains to go away as we had planned to visit a tea plantation spot nearby. Rain gods granted our wish and the sunshine was out again which allowed us to move out and take some good pics at a tea plantation photo point which is nestled in a low lying valley with a backdrop of rocky mountains engulfed with clouds that descend quite low to offer scenic view, after having lunch at Munnar town we indulged in some local shopping for a while and later visited the annual flower show at Hydel blossom park which has great collection of a large variety of flowers luckily it was not a repeat of rose garden collection and from here we concluded our sightseeing schedule, reached back at the hotel just in time for a hot cuppa of tea.
Our stay at The Siena Village resort was like an icing on the cake, I chose this property for our stay because it has good open area and I read TripAdvisor reviews notifying that it was a kid friendly place. Hotel management and housekeeping staff were extremely courteous and prompt in their service and complimentary Wi-Fi service at the hotel also offers good browsing speed. I was impressed by their overall maintenance of the property, along with clean and hygienic rooms that offer lovely view outside.
We returned back to Pune after a splendid 4 day excursion, you can also combine backwaters with Munnar if you plan to visit Kerala for more than 3 nights. More pics from my trip here
Many resorts have come up around Pune over past few years offering good excursion options for travellers, Mulshi is no exception to this trend however Mulshi is more of a one day picnic destination and more popular during monsoon season due to scenic beauty that descends on Tamhini Ghat.
Jalsrushti Island Resort is a hidden gem waiting to be explored for travelers visiting Mulshi, TripAdvisor community is really helpful in discovering places like this. Reaching this resort is easy from Pune city taking Mulshi Paud route via Chandni Chowk and in an hour you reach in a different world altogether away from city buzz.
There is a huge advertisement board just ahead of Jamgaon village showing direction to Jalsrushti leading to parking area. An attendant confirmed our reservation and guided us to a stairway, a small ferry operates on a pulley rope transferring guests across the river stream to resort.
Checking in at reception was fast and easy, greeted with a welcome drink on arrival. I was impressed by the well curated landscape with beautiful walkway winding across the resort real estate. We got a pond facing room Jalaka which was really beautiful and I liked the way it was themed like a tropical getaway wooden cabin equipped with retro light and switch fittings.
We knew that this resort did not have AC making us feel little doubtful if cooler would suffice for the crazy summer heat we are experiencing in Pune this year, surprisingly our stay was pleasant and with so much greenery around with constant flow of soothing breeze we did not even need the AC. Resort management has got most cabins covered with dry grass on roof with water sprinklers running during the day to keep ceiling cool. There is not much to do at the resort so be prepared to get your lazy self out and savor the beauty of nature, it's pure bliss having tea and snacks during evening at the seating area outside cabin facing pond, keep your camera handy as exotic birds may just pay a visit as this resort is built on Mula river Biopark premise.
Kids may get bored with limited rides in the garden area so TV comes in handy to keep them entertained. In the evening I took my son to the pool which is also clean and well maintained. One can buy swimming costume also from the resort. Room service is swift and food is also good with enough variety. You can ask for anything specific kids like to have for breakfast or lunch/dinner. Staff is very courteous to oblige to your food request in best possible way they can. Evening dinner has barbecue option accompanied with live Karaoke session by Lotus Shine event group from Pune, there are Ghazal nights also arranged at the resort. As a resort promoting agri tourism I found variety of trees and different fruit plantations in their premises along with poultry birds like Hen and Turkeys roaming around in the resort.
It is really commendable to manage this property almost bug free for a land mass surrounded by water body, we were expecting some company from natures friends post sunset with so many incests that get attracted to light, they were present as anticipated however we did not experience any nuisance on this front at all.
Our visit to Jalsrushti resort was a memorable one and I would surely recommend it for couples, families and friends who would love to take a break worth enjoying here and leave recharged back to the grind.
Pros: Professionally managed property Excellent location Staff Service is also good Great potential to develop as an excellent luxury resort.
Suggestion for improvement: Organize a guided tour for guests explaining flora and fauna at the resort with little info on birds that are found around the premise. Food quality needs attention at least for the breakfast, some items on the menu tasted very bland. Main course items also are tad oily which can be improved.
There is scope to introduce boat ride across the river stream if they get permission from authorities to do so, also resort needs some additional entertainment activities going forward which can attract corporate outing events.
If you fancy yourselves as a traveller this one should interest you, we all like to visit places of our interest in different ways depending on the type of travel we undertake. Whether travelling with friends or family we like to do some planning on how to reach the venue, which route to take, what's the best time to move, which dhaba or food joint to stop on the way etc etc.
Once your trip was over we used to share our experience among friends earlier, then came the era of blogging and social media which allowed us to open up our experience to like minded travellers who could benefit from our experience and have a smooth journey. There are many internet blogs and forums abundant with such information. At times reading so much material on the internet and leaves you more confused.
This is where a service like JoGuru comes handy when you want to filter out the right info related to your travel plans in the form of an itinerary, check out an article featured on this portal which explains in detail what this start up from Pune aims to do in making lives easier for globetrotters.
Another site which caught my attention this week is ChangeBhai, this portal allows you to report civic issues along with pictures, was surprised to see some issues reported from Pune already fixed. If such help is available for citizens on internet we should make use of it for overall betterment of our community. Lot of arm chair activists give up when it comes to taking a civic problem heads on and what remains is a diarrhoea of tweets and posts on social media.
Hats off to people who have created this portal and taking issues that concern the common man to the right authorities which may go unnoticed due to social apathy and lack of awareness on methods to deal with such problems.
If you thought Social Media and technology is to blame for
this stuff, think again and go back to times when all this stuff did not exist
to really understand why we feel the need to share our whereabouts, you would
start acknowledging this behavior as just one part of the human psyche we live
with anyways.
Location based services are emerging as a potential driving
force to support commercial prospects of social media tools, e-commerce and
sales in general for a small businessman to large firms. People create a
pattern of their consumption habits and interests while using such services
making it easier for offering customized sales offers, deals and discounts
which in turn benefits consumers actively using such services to an extent,
however a lot of us view this kind of “Big Data” study by social networking
firms as an invasion of our privacy and even as a consumer no one really likes
to get tracked as a potential sales prospect on the move.
If you would have happened to visit popular tourist places
across any part in India, you may find carvings of people’s names on
structures, walls, any other object at tourist attraction premises, memories of
smitten lovers that may not interest you but all they can do is spoil the
beauty of the overall place.
if you go back further in time during ancient period when
human civilization was busy drawing animal figures in caves, inscription found
on clay tablets,painting stories on
pyramid walls in Egypt and many other monuments in the past which symbolize
presence of a ruler, civilization and their influence during that period, People
had places named after them and so on, however I can assure you that the
significance of me checking in a washroom of a 5 star hotel would just vanish
in a fart, no one’s going to narrate my poop chronicle any time in the future.
Everyone on planet earth with a population of more than
seven billion is busy trying to leave a mark of their footsteps to places they
have visited, and social medial platforms are a medium of creating that digital
footprint for the world to see, so there’s a set of people who use location
based check in services for any damn reason, believe me I had a colleague in
office who used his Smartphone to check in at home and office everydayto track how much time he was spending at
both places, I was actually baffled with his logic to do such weird stuff but
then these kind of people feel the need to get their presence validated by
their friends, family etc as social media has definitely groomed the celebrity
complex in all of us, still no one is going to give us a chance to feature our
hand or foot print at Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.
Airport and Railway terminal check-ins are also very
popular, which also go into the footfall analysis passed on to companies and
advertisers, Los Angeles airport was crowned most popular airport in terms of
check-ins in 2011. If you happen to land at a airport in some foreign country
and try looking for a popular joint at the airport to have food, these location
based services come to your rescue by showing you most popular joints at the
venue where you can head to directly rather than roaming all across or asking
random people, airport staff etc for suggestion.
If you go by numbers, having 100 friends on your list even
if 10 people check-in to a place, this check-in is viewed by 1000 people, so
you can imagine the kind of cascading effect location based services play in
building indirect branding for a local business, if check in services were just
going to be a fad why do you think services like TripAdvisor, Zomato, FoodPanda
etc. continue mushrooming and sometimes we discover less known joints with
quality food and leisure outlets due to member recommendation on such
applications, reading through blog reviews and more.
I personally feel this type of services can be used in
balanced way, according to one’s preference for privacy which varies for all of
us. Be alert of pre-defined settings on your gadgets which probably could be
revealing a lot more about you and your habits from what you actually want to
reveal and when you sign up on many sites these days which have Facebook or Twitter
sign in enables make sure to keep a watch if they are posting on your behalf to
your wall, you can edit posting preferences to be visible only to you or your
friends if you do not want to make it public, You recommendation is not just a
blip on the map today, there’s more to it and next time you think what’s the
need for this whole check in game, remember the historical image of Neil
Armstrong’s footprint on the moon from Apollo mission and you may understand.
