In Texas, I have my ‘spot’, I go visit EVERY.SINGLE.TIME we are in Houston on a trip. It’s my sanctuary. I designate one FULL day from each ‘vacation’ to Houston, to this place. It doesn’t matter if the trip is a week-long, or a month-long, I will visit my spot. Col will be in charge of dropping Lewis at day care, picking him up and feeding him dinner while I go visit my spot (though, this last trip to Houston, I took Lewis WITH me to my spot so we could do a little turtle spotting together! <3)
My spot is out on the Island (Galveston for those of you, unfamiliar), it’s in a housing sub-division and it’s my little oasis from the world. It takes over an hour to get there, over an hour to get back, and the only place to get any food or drink is this lovely little coffee shop that does great frappes.
My spot has water (I’m an Aquarian who grew up on an island and don’t do well without regular access to water), my spot has a swing under a canopy, my spot has turtles in the summer time and my spot is quiet, if I want to sing at the top of my lungs? I can do so. If I want to cry for hours at the fact I’m leaving Texas, again, I can do that too. I go by myself, always. I bring a book, my notebook, knitting/crocheting, or just music, to sit and exist in the bliss that is my spot.
Historically speaking, I never had a ‘spot’ in Ireland, I was surrounded by water on our little island, so I never felt a need to actively seek it out, especially, since we got our apartment on the water, and you can see water just by looking out the window. However, on our last trip to the UK, I decided that if I needed a ‘spot’ while I was there, the Glenoe waterfall wasn’t a bad place to call my ‘spot’. It may take more research, it may not.
I have found that India is a hard place to move to, it’s a hard place to transition to, to exist in, to come back to if you’ve gone away for a while – I FEEL like I definitely need a spot here.
In my travels around Pune, I think I may have found a potential candidate for my spot. In a land locked place, it’s pretty impossible to find an even RELATIVELY easily accessible place to call my spot. So water wasn’t necessarily going to be a hard and fast requirement here. Though, God knows, I miss it.
A friend took some pictures atop Parvati Hill when her family were in town and I my curiosity was instantly piqued. I had to go. We decided to visit while my in-laws were in town and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s abit of a jaunt from our society, around a forty-five minute drive there, (and the same back – traffic dependent, of course) and the view from the top was more than worth the climb.
“Parvati Hill is a hillock in Pune, India. The hillock rises to 2,100 feet above sea level… Atop the hillock is the Parvati Temple, one of the most scenic locations in Pune. The temple is the oldest heritage structure in Pune and was built during the rule of the Peshwa dynasty. For visitors, Parvati hill is also an observation point that offers a panoramic view of Pune. It is the second highest point in Pune. The hill has 103 steps leading to the top of the hill where the temple is situated.”
Parvati Hill has 5 temples atop it – These temples open at 5:00 am and close at 10:00 pm. That said, we went up in the late morning and guards ushered us out of the ‘viewpoint’ as it was ‘closing’, so take the timings with a big-ole pinch of salt!
As beautiful as the surroundings and views there are, and as tranquil as the place felt (there was a student sketching the temple while I was there and he was doing an incredible job at that), part of the attraction to my ‘spot’ is that I have complete freedom to drive myself to my spot, drive myself back from my spot, and I don’t have to worry about picking Lewis up on time from school as we always have two cars when we are in Texas. Here in India we car-share, I’ll be doing the drop off and pick up at school and if I have the car and driver, I’d be constrained by time, or have to send him and uber back to the house, it’s just not as EASY as my Texan spot. And that’s kinda the POINT of my spot. But, we’ll see.
If you’re a tourist in Pune, or live here and haven’t yet climbed Parvati – add it to your to-do list, it’s worth a trip, or two.
On our way back to our the house, we stopped at the Seven Wonders (Yashwantrao) park. It’s a hidden wonder in Pune City, as many Punites/Punekars are even unaware that it’s there. Now, the internet says it’s open from 6am to 9pm, but the security tried to convince us that it was closed when we got there – we kinda just started at them for a second, dumbfounded, and they ushered us in. Further reading has informed me that it’s open from 6am to 10am with free entry, and from 4.30pm to 8pm with a 20Rs. entry fee.
It’s by no means somewhere to spend hours on end, however, it was a nice place to go for a bit of a wander, Lewis really liked the cartoon characters etc along the left side of the park that he could get his picture taken in front of, and going for a run round the park.
The Seven Wonders are, Stonehenge, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Colosseum, Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty and The Eiffel Tower – yeah, yeah, I know, a bunch aren’t ACTUAL wonders of the world. However, it was worth a dander!
