Recent Sketch trails

Hello People,

I am sharing few of my recent sketches. Let me know your comments

 English Woman

Japanese Woman

Chinese Woman

Peacock Styled 

Here comes my favourite eternal couple "RadhaKrishna"

Enjoy. Soon will come up with a new post.

Cheers

Vennela

Travelogue - 1 Road Trip to City of Bath (Part-2)

Hey folks,

I am back posting the 2nd part of the road trip here. 

It was a colorful and exciting drive to the castle from Longleat. Near by the castle, a dirt bike jump race was going on. Something that I only saw on TV  and never imagined that I would witness it in reality. Though we didn't manage to get out of the car and watch, we could catch a glimpse of the fun.The place was all jammed with parked cars and so we had hard time to find a parking spot. Unfortunately we had to call off our visit to the castle. I could only manage to get one picture, an outside view of this spot. This castle was built in 13th century and served as a manor house in English Civil war.

The next destination was City of Bath. Before proceeding to the destination description, let me tell you about the route that took us to the city. I should say, it was simply a roller coaster ride. The City of Bath is surrounded by a hilly terrain and the roads were like a sneak peak routes and steep slopes. We came across many small towns on our way to the city and the homes in these towns were  like toy villas with cute gardens, and steeply inclined parking spots at the entrances. Their parking seemed like a challenge to earth's gravity. It seemed like a new face was easily recognized, as we drove along many of the residents who were on their evening walks gave strange looks at us. Apart from residential units, there were so many local pubs and most of them had unique window dressing...may be to distinguish themselves.
Unless and until you own a small car you and of course with exceptional driving skills, you cannot get  out of this route without a scratch. Luckily we drove in a small car. Most of the cars we notices there were Mini Coopers n small coupe cars.

The beautiful window decors used significantly for local pubs

When we neared the City, the drive was like a free fall to the City. The road that took us to the city gave a fantastic view of the City view in between the hills. The buildings and view of the city made it feel like a drive to the medieval period. 

With a neat welcome from the absolute clean city roads, our first halt was at Royal Crescent. A one of its kind Georgian Architecture building is among grade 1 listed buildings of England. This was built to serve as residential building but later turned to hotel and office use.The timing of the day was fabulous as it just started drizzling and we could see the dark clouds about to cover the crescent which was an exotic experience for us. There was a big lush green lawn and an Ha-Ha trench(engineering design term) in front of the Crescent.

The Royal Cresent

Next halt was at The Circus...which was originally called King's Circus. Its another Georgian architecture marvel and is one of the best buildings in Britain. It was actually inspired from the Roman Colosseum but this structure can only be viewed only from inside. Its facades are predominantly inspired by Greek and Roman architecture.  Architects and Engineer's must visit place because you get to see a lot of ancient architecture marvels here.

The Circus buildings 

Then, we moved on to visit The Abbey and Parade Gardens. The Abbey is a 10th century built church. Parade Gardens is just opposite to this church. This garden was said be best viewed after a rain shower. As I said earlier, we were there exactly after a drizzle. I can only say, one should experience the romantic flavor of the City. In spite of so many visitors, the specialty of the City is that, it is very clean and peaceful. I felt the climate also supports the City to preserve its beauty. 

Our initial schedule also included a visit to Roman Baths. City of Bath was established as spa resort by the Romans. The Great Bath is another worth visiting location but we ran late and it was closed by that hour. Anyways, since we decided that the City deserves a second trip, no regrets.

The Abbey

After spending some sweetest and best moments at the City, we were back on to the sneak peak drive,..this time it was not the same. The sneak peak thing ended quickly moving us into the farmlands. The clouds became darker ready to pour down and we drove off with jet speed taking the advantage of being on a lonely road. Rain followed in few mins and also stopped in another few mins. That's the beauty of the place. It lets us enjoy the changes. In midst of the vast farmlands there were very few farm houses here and there and folks you will be surprised to know this..there was an Indian restaurant too.

The hay bale cart

Further down the way we saw a paper flyer board "Free Apples". My apple hunt ended there. All along the drive, we found so many apple trees but there was no possible stopover. I thought I will miss them. As we drove inside the farm we found a lonely farmhouse and giant apple tree in front, farms on other 2 sides and lush green lawn with a hay bale cart on one side and an old couple enjoying their evening tea. When we enquired about the apple board, the old man said. "Help yourself and have a treat". Great! we quickly plucked some green apples from the tree and at the entrance gate there was another small apple tree which bore more fruits than its size.Never such a small tree with so many apples..looked like a Bonsai. Without the old man's notice, we plucked another two and drove off from there. You know how tasty stole fruits are :P

The Avebury Circle

Our final destination was Avebury, another world heritage site. This one was similar to Stonehenge but looked like it was not cared as much as Stonehenge. There were not many visitors and moreover it was not as exciting as the other. So we did not walk inside the site, but just drove around it to get a glance. Before I end let me tell you something else...there were many stables on our way. One that caught our attention was a stable where its horses were dressed..yes folks..the horses were dressed. I wish I could have captured one picture.

Yes by then we finished all the destinations we decided to cover on the day's road trip. The single day drive was felt like a week long drive. Not that we are exhausted but the moments n fun n pleasure we had was very very memorable. I should also the thank the three shades of climate which supported and doubled our fun. I have been on many road trips, each of them were unique and even this was too. 

Hope you guys also enjoyed reading this travelogue. More to come, keep peeping into this page.

Cheers

Vennela

Travelogue - City of Bath(Part-1)

Hello Friends,

I am going to present my first travelogue episode here. This post is all about my road trip to the City of Bath, England. I know its gonna be a long post but can't help it friends. Anyways you can make two visit to finish reading my one visit..I mean I am gonna publish it in two parts.

Here goes the first one....

Our trip started in London at 8:30 am, it took us about 20min to get on to the motorway and it took another 15min to realize that we were running out of gas. In our excitement about the trip, we almost forgot to fill the fuel tank. Soon after realizing this, we had to search for service exits on the motorway. Unfortunately there were no service exits found until we decided to take a small town exit. The small town is called Farnborough. Even after driving into the town, for a while all we could see was an aerodrome and some office buildings.  But there was no gas station found. So we took advantage of the technology and got on to browse on blackberry for fuel stations. Fortunately we found one close, and drove off to the fuel station. Once the car was ready to hit the roads, we decided to drive around the town to have a glance. It was small town but a beautiful town. Just because I said its a small town don't jump into conclusions that it wasn't sophisticated as a city. In fact it was much better than a city, clean and green.

Lush green fields around Stonehenge

Once we took off from this small town, we drove for another 40min to reach our 1st pre-decided destination...STONEHENGE. From about a mile's distance, this monument was visible in between lush green fields. There is nothing but this monument in midst of the green fields..it was spectacular site to visit. The climate added more color and pleasantness to the site. Even the parking and services were a built a few feet down the actual elevation so that all you see is the monument.

Distant view of Stonehenge

Many of you might have seen this monument on Microsoft wallpapers, but let me give a brief introduction about this. Stonehenge is an ancient stone circle; an exceptional survival of  prehistoric culture. It was believed that this monument evolved between 3000 B.C and 1600 B.C. The exact purpose of this monument still remains a mystery. This world heritage site stands as the source of fascination and inspiration to many.

Stonehenge

The moments we spent there were so wonderful. The chilling wind, greenery all around and silent spectators around added more n more pleasure to the moments. After spending an hour at this exotic location, we moved on to visit Longleat House. The drive from Stonehenge to Longleat house was in between country side fields. The route was a single road with lots of ups and downs and great views on both sides. I can never forget the eye-candy view all along the drive. The attractions were lot of apple trees on either sides with full ripen apples and start of fall colors.

The Drive to Longleat

After an hour drive we reached Longleat house which was another awesome feast for eyes. The house looked amazing like a sepia effect sketch on a green fabric. Visitors slow down on the road to watch this view from 1/2mile's distance.

Longleat from long view

The building is an unique masterpiece of Elizabethan architecture noted for its landscaped parkland. This was built by the Thynnes and took 12 years to complete. Since we were short of time, we spent very little time inside the house. I should specifically mention about the kitchen shop which comprised of all those accessories used during medieval ages. I thought of buying few but they were all very expensive and moreover I couldn't spend time on shopping.

Longleat House

Soon after this we drove to a Safari Park located close-by this House. My first Safari experience excited me so much. I never had that close encounter with animals, I mean to say to watch them so close. I got out of the car for refreshments, since our car was blocking the road we had to park it inside the 1st park. After purchasing the refreshments, I walked inside the park to get into the car. But I am in the baby giraffe land already. Before I started enjoying them around me, I was told to get into the car by the crew. That was a fantastic experience I had. They gave us an audio CD at the ticket purchase which narrated the park's biography and about the animals that were kept there.

The Safari Park Entrance

The big cats park was actually very exciting of all and the deer feeding. The park crew sold deer food, so that visitors can feed the deers at the deer park. The deers happily showed up at the car windows to eat their meal. At the big cat's park, all of the visitors were asked shut the windows all along the drive. Unfortunately the tigers and lions were too lethargic to perform a stunt to the visitors. They were fed a heavy meal and so some of them enjoyed a noon nap. But we drove so close to them that if they were up and active, I wouldn't dare to imagine how our reactions would have been. And finally we bid adieu to all those animals whom we got introduced to and moved on to our next destination Farleigh Hungerford Castle.

Alright folks, keep visiting the page for next part.

Cheers

Vennela