My Weekend Odysseys

Think about wine in India couple of decades back and all that one could think of was our Goan port wine. Champagne Indage was one of the pioneering company of wine producers in Maharashtra in the early 80's but today  Indian wine has captured the imagination of young & old due to India's answer to some world class wine produced by "SULA VINEYARDS" at Nashik. My visit:  In last 2 years each time I paid a visit to Shirdi, I longed to visit Sula Vineyard at Nashik but the plan would always get postponed. But that was till last weekend, on one of my trip to Nashik & Shirdi we had a whole of Sunday at our leisure, I and papaji decided to pay a visit to Sula. At approx 13 kms from Nashik on Gangapur - Savargoan road, lies this beautiful Vineyard which also allows tour of the facility and tasting of some exotic wines ever produced in India. The Vineyard complex has around 15acres of land where wine grapes are grown, also they have grapes crushing, fermenting and stor...

Tungareshwar - A wild life sanctuary which houses an abode of Lord Shiva is an hour drive from Mumbai, at a altitude of 2177 feet, on a mountain plateau of Vasai. Its a lovely place, thickly wooded and offers many opportunities to trekkers, nature lovers and also birding. Its a new comer to the list of wild life sanctuaries. At 3kms from the main gate of sanctuary lies famous Tungareshwar temple of Lord Shiva and 7kms ahead is the ashram of some yogi and the summit from where the entire wild life sanctuary is visible on a clear day. My trek: I had read and heard a lot about Tungareshwar since my childhood but never had an opportunity to explore the place. And since this winter season, I had decided to explore as many places as I can on Saturday / Sundays before the onset of summer heat. So here I was on a lovely Sunday morning, I boarded the local train for Vasai at 6.30am from Borivali. The early morning chill in the air reminded me of the fact that winters had decided to extend t...