Lucky Juice Center is located in Paithan Gate in Aurangabad. It is arguably the most famous refreshment corner in all of the city. It has been standing in the area for over 30 years now. The quality and consistency of juice served at Lucky Juice center is different from any other you will ever drink anywhere in the world. The mango pulp is my personal favorite. The price for juices vary between INR 20-30. It proves yet again that great taste and good quality do not necessarily come expensive. The Lucky Juice center is so famous that now many look alike of the original shop have sprung up in different corners of the city. They may or may not be equally good. But definitely give the original one a try to taste the soul quencher of this historic city. If you are in the area, it is a must drink. If not you are missing a big part of being a local in Aurangabad.  

Located within Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University Campus, Soneri Mahal lies on foothills of Satara mountain range. It is close to the Hanuman Tekri, Aurangabad Caves and Bibi ka Maqbara. Now converted into museum, the mahal is a small building which is said to have been constructed by the Bundelkhand Chief of Aurangzeb, Paharh Singh between 1651 and 1653. Pahar Singh and his family resided in the building but now it houses a variety of ancient Indian pottery, dresses, statues excavated from nearby sites and remains of local palaces and antiques of daily use. As you enter the main building, you will see a number of 18th century paintings on wooden planks on display. Inside the building, the walls were once painted with frescoes made from natural colors with a heavy usage of golden paint from where the building gets its name “Soneri Mahal” – “Golden Palace”. Very few of these frescoes can now be seen on the wall. ASI has done a very shoddy job of recreating some of the frescoes after having white washed all the walls.  The palace is also a venue for the annual Ellora Ajanta Aurangabad Festival held at the end of November.

The tomb of the last great Moghul stands in all humility inside the little town juxtaposed to the city of named after him. Khuldabad is the last stop on the Mughal Trail where rests Aurangzeb. It was once called ‘Rauza’ which means garden of paradise.    22 kms from Aurangabad and four kilometers from Ellora caves, the town itself is surrounded by a wall constructed by Aurangzeb with seven gates built around the city.   Here lies the valley of saints where several sufi saints chose to reside in 14th century. Zar Zari Zar Baksh migrated to Khuldabad in 14th century on the orders of his teacher Nizamuddin Auliya.  It is said that in this town rest 1500 Sufi saints in their graves. Referred to as the the abode of eternity many in the history including Malik Ambar who is referred to as the architect of Aurangabad, Azam Shah who constructed Bibi ka Maqbara found their resting ground beneath the soil of this little town.Aurangzeb died in Ahmednagar on 20 February 1707 at the age of 88. Today he lies in the courtyard of the Sufi saint Shaikh Burham-u’d-din Gharib’s dargah. His grave lacks any embellishments, a sharp contrast against the elaborate burials that has brought Moghul dynasty much fame around the world. His grave is covered by a simple cloth next to his teacher’s as per his last wish. On the other end of the courtyard behind metallic door and heavy locks is placed a robe of Prophet Mohammad and a single strand of hair from his beard. The robe ‘Pairhaan-e-mubarak’ is said to be historically important. It is said that the robe was presented to Prophet by Allah on his trip to heaven. 

Alongside the Kranti chowk there is a deceptively decrepit shop open on all three sides facing the Shivaji statue in the center of the roundabout. With a clay oven in the center and chairs and tables strewn about carelessly on another side, it could be a place you can easily miss. The shop is shabby, its walls blackened by the soot from the oven that rages with fire like your empty stomach.  But this is the shop that Aurangabadis have been thronging for ages for their dose of evening snacks. What is on offer you ask – from moong daal bhajia, aalloo vada, samosas and kachori, you cannot pick one. You must have one of each. Everything is sold at per piece basis for INR 10 laden with sweet and sour chutney at the top. Bhajiya is fried balls of soaked and boiled moong dal that taste crunchy and soft. The food is fried in a big wok infront of you, served fresh and hot. Close to the shop are other food options including paav bhaji, bhel puri, and badam milk. If you eat as much as I did, your mouth will now be on fire and what you now need is a cool stick of kulfi available for INR 10 from push cart vendor. We ended up with a meal for four for INR 130 with 3 plates of bhajiya, 3 plates of samosas, 3 plates of kachori, 1 aaloo vada and three kulfis.

Two days after our wedding, and a day after my arrival as a new bride in the city that is now second only to Delhi in my heart, I could not resist my long held desire to see the Daulatabad fort that figured so often in my long talks with my husband in our courtship days. As I was falling in love with him, I also fell in love with this fort that he described to me in the murmurs over the phone in the stillness of night. He told me how high the summit of the fort was and he wondered how the king got to his palace at the top. He told me about the many gates, giant and small to the building to be used as defense in case of attack, the steep slopes around the fort with just a single point of entry, about a moat that surrounds the fort which at a time swarmed with crocodiles with just a small bridge connecting the fort entrance to the outside world. He told me about the hathi hauz, the elephant tank, about the bats that housed themselves in the now empty staircases and dark passageways where not a ray of day light can creep in, the mendi tope, goat headed canon that is stationed in the fort overlooking the views of the barren landscapes.  I could see through his voice his childlike excitement over what sounded like an incredible place to which he must have gone first as a child. As a child, I myself had read in my text books about Devagiri which was the capital of the Yadavs and I thought wasn’t Delhi always supposed to be the capital of everything in India and I wondered which this other place that rivalled Delhi’s position is. Daulatabad, I …

It is not as old or as historic as its rivaling ‘Hagia Sophia’ but like the grand building it stands facing, Sultan Ahmet mosque popularly called ‘the blue mosque’ is the dream of an emperor, his highest aspiration, standing out like the solitaire bedecked in a ring amongst its contemporaries. Its victory stroke is that it is not dead yet. Its spacious halls, glistening ceramics and chandeliers hanging from sky high ceilings are all alive with the prayers of many believers that knock on its doors and kneel on its floors. While outsiders to the faith queue infront of its majestic doors, waiting for their turn in its grand courtyard examining its galleries. When the clock bids and the devotees depart, the vistors enter eagerly. Failing to mimic the order of the believers, the visitors totter around in deference holding their shoes in plastic bags, admiring the mosque and appreciating the delicate carving at the mihrab from a distance. After a few minutes of silence, pictures and videos, visitors make a quiet exit into the courtyard. There are six elegant minarets from where the call for prayers is made five times a day, nine mighty domes that reverberate with devotion, the 260 windows that let in the light and 20,000 blue tiles fitted on its ceilings – all tell the story of four hundred years that it has been standing for. The mosque stands proudly in the center of Istanbul adjacent to the ancient Hippodrome. Commissioned by Sultan Ahmet, it was to be his response to Justinian’s Hagia Sophia. The ambitious sultan demolished the last few remnants of the Great Palace of Byzantine to make place for his ambitious project at the chosen spot. Although built in seven years, even after four centuries the mosque is by no means an old building. It is constantly restored to its old glory.

How do you review a restaurant in a place where all restaurant serve great food. There is no such thing as a bad meal here. Sit down restaurants serve great plates of food with on the house dessert liqueur and bites of dessert at the end of the meal, the fast food options mean no compromise in taste but great savings for the pockets and even on the go meals are surprising delights. Here 7 new dishes to prepare your palette before Greece trip. Meditating upon food Spinach pie – Greece sleeps late and wakes up late. If you got out in search to feed the morning hunger, the only shops that will be open are bakeries. In bakeries, the freshest are piles of spinach pie laid out in baking trays. Spinach pie or spanakopita will be your typical morning breakfast for as long as you are in Greece. It will be cheap – for Euro 2, fresh and omni present on your entire vacation. Fava dip – This is a warm dip made from boiled fava lentils, blended with olive oil, onions and garlic. It is a perfect light and healthy starter to a meal. Beetroot Salad – A meal replacement when you are hopping islands in Greece. The quality of food in Greece is never lousy. I had a salad when packing a little before a flight and it is a salad I have tried to recreate in my kitchen several times over.   Gemista – Greek rice cooked in a special mix of Greek spices stuffed into red peppers and tomatoes is a perfect light vegan meal option.     Gyros – This is a take away cheap fast food option of the Greek kitchen. Shavings of Donner kebabs with a blob of tzatziki (a yoghurt dressing), chips and salad wrapped …

In a pursuit of wonderful moments, panoramic scenery and life-changing experiences, we go travel. Longing for moments when we sit face to face with a great view that makes us stop everything, hold our breaths and steal moments of our busy lives and stay a little longer. And when you find these views and you want soak them in your memory and sip a great cup of coffee.    What I have learnt is that a great cup of coffee cannot be the one where the question of size is asked – it is not “tall,” “grande,” and “venti”. It could be a flat white, cappuccino, macchiato, Americano or just black coffee with milk. It is never ‘to go’. It is always to stay and it is a cup that you want to keep sipping out of forever.   Wonderful pastries breakfast with cappuccino, in Manarola  This is my favorite cup of coffee ever. I took this on my first trip to Italy, my first trip to Europe! I sat in one of the many coffee shops facing Pantheon and thought what a blessing it was to be able to travel. I was in love with Rick Steve’s back then. Me and him were inseparable. Today its a different story though. Pantheon My little balcony in Manarola, one of the five cliff hugging villages of Cinque Terre in Italy.   View of the Ligurian Sea This is a little cafe on the hike up to the Schilthorn in Switzerland. With the breath taking views of the alps and cool September air, coffee tastes better after you have climbed up a height and are  looking into the faces of tall mountains, when you have walked many miles and have a couple more to go and when you are very tired but can give it a little more to …

So often you just stumble upon great things without much research. After an idle day in Zermatt and comparing how the area fell short of Bernese Oberland, I wondered what else to do. I decided to the cable car to the top of the Klein Matterhorn – To Matterhorn Glacier Paradise Views from the top The Klein Matterhorn (Little Matterhorn) is the highest point in the Zermatt-Cervinia ski area in Switzerland. It is also the highest cable car serviced summit in Europe. Cross at the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise The cable car to the top of the Matterhorn is the highest cable car in Europe.  Sheets of ice cover the mountain top The peak is at 3,883 metres with the cable car terminal at 3,820 metres. There are three stages in the journey to the top of the summit with journey time of 50 mins on each side. From the top you can get views of Italy. On a clear day even Mont Blanc – the tallest mountain in Alps is visible. The day I went was not that day. It costs about CHF 64 to get to the top or CHF 32 if you hold a Swiss pass, but the money charged is worth every penny.

There is something about Switzerland that makes me break my rule “no country twice unless all country once”. I have been to Switzerland thrice in the past one year and I can’t wait to return. My ultimate wish is to retire amongst the green pastures of the Alpine country hearing the chiming of cow bells and climbing up and down its many mountains – my only doubt is if I can live up to the Swiss standard of life. Here are the five things that make Switzerland the perfect world – 1. Cleanliness – The country is spotless and immaculately clean. The Swiss are obsessed with cleanliness. You can see people vacuuming the outside of their houses and scrubbing clean everything that is visible to the eye. With an environmental performance index (EPI) of 95.5, this European country ranks first in cleanliness.  2. Robust Public Transportation – A dense network of railroads, buses, tramway lines and even boats operate on a systematic timetable allowing you to reach almost anywhere in Switzerland once per hour. In most cases one ticket is enough for a journey even if numerous railway, bus and ship operators are involved. Switzerland has the highest train density in Europe, a higher proportion of the population uses public transport and they travel longer distances than in any other country except Japan. They work with the goals of 95% arrivals with less than 5 minutes delay and 75% with less than 1 minute delay which are regularly achieved. 3. Hiking Paths – There is no end to hiking trails in Switzerland totalling a 66,200 kms. The best thing is that hiking paths are signposted with direction, distance and time to destinations. You can keep walking into the alps and always find your way back. The Roads are so well-marked that you can never get lost in …