Bulgarian rain
It’s now a few years later and I’m finally posting photos from, in some ways, the two most historically important countries on the trip. But first a rainy bus ride in 2011 to Sofia.
September 19th I think.
Enough. Long bus rides. Many. Long train and road taxi rides. Quite a few. All over the Balkans and more besides. On hot days and now cold days. Rough roads and super highways. Spotless toilets and squat toilets. Past picturesque villages and unsightly mines, Over mountains and under mountains. With bus drivers who are the impresarios of very entertaining little transportation kingdoms and taxi drivers who do not speak for 110 kilometers. Through slow and fast border checkpoints.
I have paid my road travel dues and am switching to airplanes. Not that they are such a joy. But the toilets are better and, while the humiliation and discomfort are greater when flying, the duration is certainly shorter and the ability to get information when you get into the new place is greater.
Yesterday. A bad, bad, bad, good, bad, good travel day. Didn’t sleep well, up at 5 am to get to Pristina bus station at 6. Staying in a very nice little room in a tiny hotel above a store where the hotel employees (a family) go home at night so when I can’t figure out how to operate the shower there’s no one to ask. I take a sort of splashing-about a running faucet bath of sorts. You would be surprised at the number of ingenious devices shower makers have created to make you want to stay at home with your own shower forever and ever.
The weather has turned fall, cold, rainy, gray…my favorite other than the cold part. Bus to Sofia unheated. Even with four shirt/sweatshirt/sweater/pullover combination things it is chilly after a few hours.
I arrive in Sofia without a hotel reservation, not worried because I know a couple of hotel names and there are always a bunch of taxi drivers on the street outside every bus station with many suggestions. NOT in Sofia. There are three guys none of whom speak English and no central area where I can turn on the computer and check some possibilities.
Finally I get one of the guys to find Art Otel in a guidebook. For 20 Euros, more than I paid for the ride from Pristina, we get here. It’s a sweet but cold room. I go to a little Bulgarian food buffet next door for a late lunch and the food is simple and beautiful and fresh and tasty. The hotel gives me a little heater—because I’m old and a wimp and I whine.
I go out to buy some bananas and get totally lost. But the rain lets up and my neighborhood is the art/funky chic area of the city so finding my way about is a pleasure. I come back home to my berry tart and in-room cappuccino and lots of CNN International and rediscover how much I love doing this…for long moments and hours and sometimes even days.
Good night.
Macedonian night
NOW FOR ISTANBUL AND ATHENS.
It is 2016. I’m having a book printed for each year of Time and Place. As I review and edit for the publishing I sometimes find big gaps. Those days and places I meant to write about as soon as there was time. Five years after the glorious jaunt about Eastern Europe including all the the former Yugoslavia and topping it off with Istanbul and Athens, I’m mostly remembering the journey through my photos. Here then is Istanbul from which a big chunk of the world was ruled at one time, and Athens, womb of western civilization (a rather tattered civilization in 2016 it’s true).
HISTORICAL ISTANBUL
Hagia Sophia is a great architectural beauty and an important monument both for Byzantine and for Ottoman Empires. Once a church, later a mosque, and now a museum in the Turkish Republic.
PERSONAL ISTANBUL
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- ME
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- AND THE RUG I ALMOST BOUGHT
AND THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST (or something like that): ATHENS
I loved Istanbul. Not Athens so much. Not sure why except that it was the end of the trip and all of my senses were sated and my feet and back were simply cranky.
OLD STONE THINGS
(2016: This is an apology for the scattered quality of these final pieces from Eastern and Southern Europe. Since these posts are going into a 2011 Time and Place book, I’m trying to fill in some neglected areas so a fairly thorough record of my travels is available.)
I am in love with Eastern Europe. Starting in Sarajevo today…2011 is long ago and faraway so I’m not going to try to recreate the stories I would have shared back then as the notes have vanished. Here are photos and some web notes however: Sarajevo was an intense experience having just read books about both the assassination and about the recent war and siege of Sarajevo. So while there are a very few personal notes in the previous post, here’s some real history from History.com:
THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
2016. I spent most of my two or three days roaming around and being so absolutely pissed off mostly at the Serbs for feeling compelled to try to destroy one of the few places where Christians, Muslims and Orthodox Christians were getting along. The siege, in which residents of the city were pinned down by fire from the hills for months, was hideous: vicious and uncalled for–like most wars since the beginning of time. Boys with their toys that go bang bang and feed their egos…here are a few more photos from charming, beautiful, warm Sarajevo.
ON TO ALBANIA AND KOSOVO.
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- BILL CLINTON WAVING TO HIS ADORING PUBLIC IN PRISTINA, KOSOVO
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- OLD NORWEGIAN DETECTIVE ON THE TRAIL OF HISTORIC BAD GUYS
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- FAVORITE BEDROOM OF THE TRIP.
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- PRISTINA, KOSOVO, EMBRACING CAPITALISM AND SMOG
I had to beg officials at the border to stamp my passport for Kosovo, usually they do not bother since they’re not fully recognized as a country by many in the UN.
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- COMMEMORATIVE SCULPTURE OVERLOOKING THE FIELD OF BLACKBIRDS.
The battle was fought on June 28, 1389 (“St. Vitus’s Day”in Serbia) at a place called the Field of Blackbirds in Kosovo. June 28 has strangely been a significant date in Serbian history since then as well: it was the date of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria by a Serb nationalist in 1914, and the day in 1876 when Serbia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. It was also the day in 1989 where over a million Serbs gathered in Kosovo to commemorate the battle and listen to a nationalist oration by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. (https://qcurtius.com/2016/09/02/the-field-of-blackbirds/) More about this in following paragraphs.
RANDOM PHOTOS OF ALBANIA AND KOSOVO COUNTRYSIDE
Under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha 1983 a total of 173,371 concrete bunkers were scattered throughout Albania. The bunkers were intended to serve as lookout and firing posts and shelters for thousands and thousands of families in Albania during a projected invasion. This is mentioned in the next paragraphs as well.
HERE’S WHAT I WROTE BACK in 2011.
I left you in Sarajevo; I return to you from Pristina in the Republic of Kosovo. I can report several things. The cheap hotel situation is perfectly wonderful. How gorgeous is this funky little 35 euro room? We are not talking clean here; we’re talking retro funky with lime green sheets and an old fashioned bathtub. Kosovo’s my new favorite place…well not really.
I am sorry to say that the pizza I ordered out for in a weak moment is just as bad as typical stateside pizza. I was hoping for something a little more Italian because of the Albanian-Italian connection. But you learn these things through extensive travel—do not order the pizza in Pristina.
The Pres looking good
Bill Clinton is much loved here because of sending the bombs into Belgrade to stop Serbia’s genocidal attacks on Kosovo. More about that in the history lesson that follows. Sorry I just cannot resist as this is one of five or so sites I really wanted to and did visit on this trip.
History, it’s good for you
Just returned from a drive out to the site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo where the Turks defeated the Serbs leading to a few centuries of bloodshed and turmoil. Rebecca West’s classic Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) describes Kossovo Polye, the Field of Blackbirds, like this:
Kossovo, more than any other historical site I know, arouses that desolation. It spreads peacefully into its vast, gentle distances, slow winds polishing it like a cloth passing over a mirror, turning the heads of the standing grain to the light. It has a look of innocence which is the extreme of guilt. For it is crowded with the dead, who died in more than their flesh, whose civilization was cast with them into their graves. It is more tragic even than its own legend, which with the dishonesty and obstinancy of a work of art, commemorates one out of several battles of Kossovo That battle which was fought under the leadership of Tsar Lazar in 1389, and placed the Serbs under the yoke of the Turks… “
Kosovo was a part of Yugoslavia before its breakup and Serbia is intent on maintaining that control even though over 80% of the population is Albanian Muslim.
The infamous Serb leader, Slobodan Milošević, came to this very site in 1987 to make a rabble-rousing speech that is believed to have had a major role in inciting the Balkan wars of the 1990’s that involved both America and Europe and ultimately led to Bill Clinton’s statue happily smiling and waving on a downtown street corner.
I became interested in all this when I read West’s book a few years ago and was quite excited to see both the monument to Tsar Lazar and the stretch of battlefield. West’s description still rings true I think though the giant hydroelectric plant literally pouring smoke over the famed field certainly casts a real and historical pall on the surroundings.
Where was I? When last we spoke.
- Early morning bus from Sarajevo, long day to Podgorica, Montenegro. Spectacular wild mountain scenery. Odd smoky hotel but turned out perfectly ok because the open window and smoke from a nearby forest fire overwhelmed the smell of cigarette smoke. (17th)
- Left Podgorica early for Shkoder on the Albanian side of the border. Hassle because you have to take cabs since the roads are so bad on both sides only a few big tour buses brave it. But driver on Albanian side great. Stayed in a luxury (by my standards—almost $100) hotel last night and hated it. Fake glitter. (18th)
- I booked the trip today from Shkoder to Prizren with same cab driver—again no regular buses. Albania once had a very crazy dictator named Enver Hoxha who built thousands of little concrete bunkers all over his country…the idea was that Albanians could barricade themselves inside and shoot the enemy—whoever they were. Saw several of the bunkers today. Good history day actually. Then I took the bus on in to Pristina. Happy tonight in Hotel Lyon. (19th)
Enough. To bed. Wish I were still reading Balkan history but I’ve pretty much given into my base instincts and am engrossed in Scandinavian murders. One’s true nature always comes through doesn’t it?
ON THIS ENTIRE TRIP I HAVE HEARD AMERICAN-SPEAK EXACTLY ONCE! At the Hotel Moscow in Belgrade. Strange I think but I love it.
OH OH!…Back to the Present, 2016, and I just found a few photos from Belgrade, Serbia. This seems like a good place to put them since Serbia is pretty much the cause of all bad things that have happened in the previously mentioned countries. Bad Boys Go Last although from these photos it seems like a most jolly place:
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- Lunch at the famous Hotel Moskva.
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- Walking and Shopping Streets.
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- Moon over Timisoara
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- Full moon over Romania
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- the sun goes down
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- yellow and power lines and hills, nice
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- Mom and son on the train to Timisoara
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- Train stations just simply look mysterious and romantic
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- Roma people still obvious sometimes
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- VERY early at the train station
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- Gaze deeply into my buttery depth
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- MY TABLE at the B&B in Suceava
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- Love these horse and wagon scenes
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- “Polenta” field
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- Every town should have an orange building
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- Country roads, Moldovan, Ukrainian style
If I am not on a holiday or vacation or a fact-finding mission or a study trip what in the hell am I doing? Perhaps I am on a walkabout. The dictionary (Merriam-Webster) defines walkabout as “a short period of wandering bush life engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work.” How about…a short period of wandering around engaged in by a restless American woman as an occasional interruption of regular work. It is okay, I think.
This is my fourteenth day in the Balkan region of the European world. I am in the hotel, Pansion Harmony, in the hills of Sarajevo. Down in the city center where I spent part of the day wandering and shopping it is beautiful and historic and lively. The problem is … I have now spent so many days in city centers that are “beautiful and historic and lively” that it is getting harder and harder to keep my level of enthusiasm as high as these vibrant places deserve. The kind of city centers that we can only dream of in the US for the most part.
The walkabout so far then: September day by day
- To Bucharest (3rd)
- Arrive Bucharest (4th)
- Sightsee Bucharest, arranging bus to Chisinau (5th)
- LONG day’s bus to Chisinau (6th)
- Chisinau walk. Museum. Afternoon bus to Odessa. Check into hotel of horrors, Zirka. (7th)
- Change hotels. LOVE Odessa (8th)
- Odessa (9th)
- Early bus, Odessa to Chisinau, cannot get connections on to Suceava so overnight Chisinau again.(10th)
- Bus to Suceava, check in and dinner at B&B (11th)
- Tour of Painted Monasteries of Bucovina (12th)
- LONG train ride to Timisoara in hot dirty miserable train where I meet warm and friendly Romanians who feed me all day and we speak in something called “friend sign.” You know…where you smile and gesture and point and offer each other whatever you have. Overnight in Timisoara, unplanned originally (13th)
- Second night in Timisoara, hard to get to Belgrade! (14th)
- Early train to Belgrade, all day mini-walkabout in Belgrade, flight to Sarajevo.(15th)
- Today in Sarajevo (16th)
For the record!
Doing it alone—but then aren’t all walkabouts alone? It is hard to maintain one’s level of energy and enthusiasm when traveling alone. With others you have someone to push you along when spirits flag, to remark upon at day’s end, etc. By the same token, traveling with someone else brings their moods and biases into the picture which can change your perceptions of a place or experience drastically…it’s all a trade-off of course.
ADDING PHOTOS FROM SUCEAVA, HOME OF THE PAINTED MONASTERIES for which I made a long out-of-the way trip. They are magnificent. The following information is from a Romanian tourist site. My photos follow:
Among the most picturesque treasures of Romania are the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina (in northeastern Romania). Their painted exterior walls are decorated with elaborate 15th and 16th century frescoes featuring portraits of saints and prophets, scenes from the life of Jesus, images of angels and demons, and heaven and hell.
Deemed masterpieces of Byzantine art, these churches are one-of-a-kind architectural sites in Europe. Far from being merely wall decorations, the murals represent complete cycles of religious murals. The purpose of the frescoes was to make the story of the Bible and the lives of the most important Orthodox saints known to villagers by the use of images. Their outstanding composition, elegant outline and harmonious colors blend perfectly with the surrounding landscape.
Whether you are interested in religion, history, art or architecture, you will be intrigued by the construction and decor — exterior and interior — of these edifices.
The best-preserved are the monasteries in Humor, Moldovita, Patrauti, Probota, Suceava, Sucevita, and Voronet. Another, a small church, is located in the village of Arbore. Seven of the churches were placed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1993. The eighth, Sucevita, is awaiting sanction to be added on the list.
Arrived in Odessa, Ukraine about 10pm. Taxi from bus station dropped me off on a dark corner. I entered the tiny shabby lobby where a line of “loving” couples and bewildered families were waiting to check in. Checked in. Room maybe 8X8. Hot. No air. Mattress a throw-away from the family camper. I AM NOT GOING TO LIKE ODESSA AM I?
Next morning on line I book Hotel Ekatarina.
Taxi. Check in. Light sunny room. Golden good cheesy sweet breakfast crepes.
Good things do happen to those that change hotels
Walk about the square, Richelieu takes center stage surrounded by the awe-inspiring buildings of that old beautiful Europe we love so much—the creamy yellows, mint greens, rosy-reds shimmer in the morning sun. I AM GOING TO LOVE ODESSA.
Odessa is a place to wander about most happily. For two days, I walked. Down Potemkin Steps, up through a huge park that led me to the beach where, among the froth of condoms and potato chip wrappers, I stuck my toes in the Black Sea. A friendly sitting-about and reading, card playing, family game kind of beach.
Potemkin Steps…you had to see the film
The seafront is grand. From Potemkin Steps to the working port.
Can’t walk down there because of “terrorism” the guy said when I tried
Long cobblestone tourist street with the requisite chic shops and cafes down to the fountain where marriages are being celebrated in fine Ukrainian and Asian traditions complete with snow white puppies and falcons and swords.
Among the wedding guests
Another meal to treasure. Beet-red borscht almost glows in the bowl in the sun by the sea.
I had no idea I liked borscht
Brown bread to be spread from the pot of pork fat retaining tiny slivers of the roast, a healthy shot of vodka decorated with a tiny scallion quite yummy to lick.
Even better than the borscht
I think I would love Odessa in the rain and snow as well. It has this sense of layers and layers of cultures mixing in battle and in bed leading to that thing great cities have—a bit of each of us in their DNA. Pushkin called Odessa the city where “the air is filled with all Europe…” I suspect ‘all the world’ could be accurate.
A perfect day for a wedding
I can picture myself…I’m young, living in a warm attic with my lover, the poet. We eat endless loaves of brown bread slathered with that delectable pork fat downed with the vodka we keep chilled in a bottle on the fire escape. It snows and snows. We stare out to sea, talking about our novels and poems and get chilly and damp as we dream. Then we get pneumonia and die.
And our pet falcons are sold to the circus where they are beaten
Most of my conversations take place during my endless quest for directions. My favorite in Odessa was with a young man, surely his grandmother’s favorite—polite, curious, charming—who wanted to know how it was I could be traveling about by myself. “How old are you?” “How come you are by yourself?” “Aren’t you tired?” “My grandmother cannot travel because her pension is too small in Ukraine.” “Where will you go next?” I think young men must favor their grandmothers—they’re always the ones that want to talk about their lives to me. Later, that evening three of these young guys from Moldova started a conversation about travel as I sat on a park bench near my hotel, telling me how hard it is to get visas to go places in the west, how one of them had never even seen the sea before, etc. I am so looking forward to the trip to Australia next winter with MY grandson who is THE best.
And walk and walk and walk
David B., thank you for recommending “The Lady with the Fan” and “Lost.” I am so excited I have discovered a new place to admire from afar and visit often through books. Cape Town was my earlier favorite—which I’ve largely been exploring through murder mysteries! This will be a change.
My flat will be on the top floor
ODESSA. I DO LOVE YOU.
A sticky business
Mini-bus Bucharest to Chisinau, Moldova takes about 8 hours. Countryside rolls by. Nap. Talked a little to the only English speakers on the bus—a Moldovan Mormon educator who supervises English teachers in 29 countries (my dream job…well except for the religious part) and a young American couch-surfer, a perfect way to travel IF one is young and extremely flexible (Taylor was on his way to live on the couch of a young family with two small children—which makes even a bad hotel sound good).
The new old world
Chisinau could be Albuquerque. Well not quite, because in Albuquerque we are not all white Christians. It seems Chisinau was once almost half Jewish but they drove out or murdered all of them—which was surely the city’s downfall as a culturally interesting place. The gypsies/Roma are still being driven out of town I hear. No identifiable Muslims, Africans or Asians were on the streets while I was there either. Michelle Bachman would love it there. There was a prevalence of oldish or really old women in Lutheran Ladies Aid outfits so, except for my jeans, I really quite fit in.
Well maybe…
Chisinau is the same size city as Albuquerque with equally few attractive buildings; they do have a lot of tree-lined streets though…but we have the Bosque.
On the good side the Hotel Stela de lux was pretty and stylish.
The Boucherie around the corner offered my new favorite food–meat solyanka “…with ingredients like beef, ham, sausages, chicken breast, and cabbage, together with salted mushrooms, cucumber pickles, tomatoes, onions, olives, capers, allspice, parsley, and dill are all cut fine and mixed with cream in a pot. The broth is added, and heated for a short time on the stove, without boiling”—with a big slice of lemon.Thank you Wikipedia).
My second favorite new food, polenta with sheep cheese and sour cream is a regional specialty, all nicely tart and creamy, although sheep cheese did give me pause.
Ended my visit at an okay museum/gallery.
What to say?
Hotel Trianon–Highly recommended
I visit countries the way we visit towns on a typical U.S. road trip or the way we investigate the neighborhoods of our own cities. I am walking and then walking some more with many stops to ask directions and much poring over my map. (No, I do not want to use the GPS of my Droid…I want to puzzle out the best way forward all on my own!)
The grand old world
It was a perfect get-acquainted day. The 7pm train to Chisinau was not running so I rebooked my Trianon Hotel room for another night and roamed and napped all day. I LOVE Bucharest. Grand old buildings, many still a little shabby from the bad years, and the interesting Old World is interspersed with the dank dictator-gray ugliness of soviet-inspired architecture. On this benevolently-sunny early fall day though it all looks historic and gracious.
Cismigiu Gardens
In the cool of the morning…slowly through Cismigiu Gardens. A mom out early with the baby, people cutting through on their way to work but not so hurriedly, old guy reads on a bench. It offers that green connection that can make almost any day go a little better.
Although I could not book my train ticket, the way there took me to a most beautiful old church (for which I now cannot find the name) and gave me a look at what is Bucharest’s most famous and infamous landmark, the Palace of Parliament.
Mine’s bigger than yours
In the mid 1990s, Romania’s very own craftily crazy dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, had a substantial chunk of central Bucharest bulldozed to build a monument to … himself, of course. He wanted it to be the biggest building in the world but, according to Lonely Planet, it is only the second biggest. The Pentagon, built to honor our very own dictatorship of the military-industrial complex, is the biggest!
When you need a break from the desert southwest…
Expensive milkshake and coffee in the leafy loveliness of the Gardens and back for a read and a nap. THEN my five-hour stroll up and down Calea Victoriei, the grand avenue of Bucharest. Hard to find restaurants oddly enough. Along the walk the choice was luxury hotel dining or McDonald’s. Finally found the French Bakery for a sweet little meal of quiche heavy with bacon, salad light with oil and vinegar, orange juice sweet with red wine.
You can almost never go wrong if the word French is in the title
An ever-so-pleasant sanctuary for the tired walker with a friendly talkative young man who gave me a real voice to hear—it seems all the words and history that accompany me come from books because I’m almost anti-social when actually on the road. I hear voices form history, from memoir, travel writers, all talking about the blood and guts and fear and deprivation of Balkan history. But here is an ordinary Romanian guy trying to figure out how his life relates to all that.
My smart new friends
We talk of Dracula and éclairs and history reconsidered on this September evening and my legs ache as I walk back but I’m happy.
No rest for the wicked…or obsessed.
Now for the bus to Chisinau.
At the Trianon Hotel, Bucharest, Romania and it is just as claimed. If you can get through that first exhausted collapse after 24 hours from home to hotel in a cheap, clean and comfortable room it bodes well for every move to come. The Trianon is an oddly pretty heap of a building, friendly staff and plain but good room for $63—my goal of $100 a day for everything could work.
Lonely Planet has a section for every country called “Getting There.” Here is my version.
Transportation: Flights to DC, Frankfurt, Bucharest—all United or Lufthansa—all uneventful. Bus from airport into city center, taxi to hotel.
Food: There’s a restaurant at the Frankfurt Airport that is a perfect spot to write, i.e. BLOG! My Sunday morning Muesli and yogurt was only $14 and included two tiny exquisite branches of lingonberries, three apples slices, four raspberries and five blueberries. Almost compensated for the fact that, on Saturday morning, in a weak and sleepy moment, I had succumbed and ordered breakfast at an Albuquerque airport restaurant (the one at the end of the B gates) which consisted of a puffy tasteless omelet covered in barely melted Kraft cheese, hash browns all sad and limp and desperate for catsup and watery orange juice—for $14. But then it is not all about food is it?
Nice People: I did a very bad thing (only second time ever) and left my billfold on the counter when I bought my bus ticket AND THE WONDERFUL TICKET SELLER CAME AND FOUND ME WITH IT! Otherwise some among you would have received a collect call…please tell me you would have accepted the charges! It is confirmed in my mind that honesty exists in at least two places in the world: Romania and Cote d’Ivoire.
Toys in orange
TOYS: There are Mattel toys and sex toys and motorized boy toys that go vroom vroom. My toys are better but will take awhile to get under control. This computer is my old travel buddy; my camera is quite familiar—I even brought along the CD of instructions on the off chance that after a year I would actually listen to them and the Kindle is fine, not so exciting but lighter than 10 books. BUT THEN there’s the Droid. We have not totally bonded yet although I do get goose bumps when my gravely-voiced little travel companion speaks to me. I AM TRYING. YES I AM. In fact I have conquered phoning and texting.
Droid and friend
A man at the Albuquerque airport asked me where I was going, “Bucharest.” “To see family? he asked.” “No, I’m a WRITER,” I said!
Scholars, intellectuals, thinkers— I used to believe that if only I tried hard enough I could become one of them. But, alas, I only made it as far as reader and here’s how we failed scholars but obsessive readers prepare for travel.
WORK WORK WORK, EVEN ON VISITS UP TO THE NORTH WOODS.
Readers have the best of intentions but they never make it into serious research. They buy a lot of books—more travel literature and fiction than scholarly treatises on politics, religion or history. They sit near the many books for many months and take them to read on the treadmill and at the doctor’s office and to bed every night, and eventually they read all of some of them and some of all of them. They google and print too many pages of miscellaneous information—all of which they vow to read but don’t always. Sometimes they stop reading for awhile and just watch…the fortuitous release of a new film about the environs through which they will travel (The Whistleblower, post-war Bosnia) for instance. They order the odd map or two from National Geographic and maybe a Masterpiece Theatre DVD that will substitute nicely for a heavy and somewhat dated volume of The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning. We do try hard. Well, medium hard anyway…
This Balkans journey is one more step toward my every-country-in-the-world goal. Here is this whole turbulent jumble of little and not-so-little countries and almost-countries—a place called the Balkans of which I previously knew almost nothing. Except that WWI started on a bridge in Bosnia and the first European genocides since WWII are very recent history in the region, and Richard Holbrooke spent a lot of time there. I knew about Transylvanian werewolves and the bloody Christmas Day end of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu. What else? Alexander the Great was part Macedonian and part-Greek, our western civilization—such as it is—at least partially originated in Greece, and everyone says “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is a very funny movie. Time to learn more.
The Balkans: Political Boundaries(Kosovo isn’t included because it’s not widely recognized as a country but it is. At the southern end of Serbia.)
The Balkans
I was in Croatia and Slovenia (a performing arts festival, a train ride, a t-shirt) for a few days in 2008 so I won’t return this time. Nothing stands out from those few days although as the photos below indicate it was not for lack of scenery. The reason—there was no pre-travel study so no context within which to place what I was seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting…a reader is expected to do better than that.
Wild Balkans–tamed
In the next few days and blogs I will talk more about what my earnest but rather desultory study methods in preparation for this coming trip have wrought. First, a geographical note.
In The Fracture Zone, Simon Winchester describes the crashing and smashing together of two mountain chains to create a geological fracture zone to be known as the Balkans in which ranges of hills continued to collide, creating ever more wildly distorted geographical features. The hills and mountains had “…unexpectedly steep faces and deep and curiously isolated valleys, rivers that twisted and turned in corkscrew patterns, defiles that became dangerous culs-de-sac, hidden and unexpected plains, eternally defensible hilltops and impossibly deep canyons, eccentricities of microclimates, and on the coastline…deep fjordlike harbors and wriggling estuaries that proved terrifyingly nightmarish to innocent navigators.” (pp. 60-61) Winchester, Simon. (1999). The fracture zone: A return to the balkans. New York, NY: Perennial/HarperCollins.
Slovenia and Croatia, 2008
Everything can’t be pretty
If only there had been a video camera present—I would have gone viral on YouTube. Imagine. I am exiting my car, heel catches, I plunge to the concrete—along with the gallon of milk, pint of Dulce de Leche and cell phone I’m holding—full weight on my left elbow. I lie there in a pond of milk sobbing in agony as I try desperately to stretch my functioning arm far enough to push my phone out of the milk (you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do when your contract isn’t up yet). Not a pretty picture…but funny…in retrospect.
This clumsy episode, which required surgery and the insertion of a plate and some pins in my elbow, has unfortunately delayed my trip to the Balkans. But only by a couple of weeks—so now I am back to planning. HOWEVER I am discovering a sense of vulnerability never experienced before. Having only broken a toe in lo these many years who knew I was breakable in more profound ways.
I question the doc, ‘I will be able to lift my bag into the overhead in a month won’t I?’ ‘Oh, I think so’ he responds. I take that to mean for sure and move forward with changing my airline reservations. But there is just the smallest doubt in my mind…
Tripping through the streets of old Europe—I think tripping, as in stumbling forward, possibly all the way to the ground, instead of walking with a happy spring in my step. Dark and mysterious border crossings in the middle of the night—I think extra bag lifting and walking instead of ‘oh yeah, I need this experience in case I ever write a spy novel.’ Jostling crowds of weekend evening celebrants—I think, ouch, what if somebody hits my elbow too hard instead of ‘just look how all of these religiously diverse Bosnians are happily partying together in the streets….’
But mostly I am healthy and practically INvulnerable and will be fine over there:
- My stomach always feels good when I eat yogurt—which was invented by Bulgarians.
- Throughout the Balkans there is a plum liqueur called Slivovitz, part of a category of drinks called Rakia—which sounds like a better nightcap than the pain pills I’ve been on.
- And there is the strange but true fact that my stomach NEVER hurts when I eat a lot doughnuts and I am almost positive Chisinau has a Dunkin’ Donuts.
- I can go on 12-hour bus rides and never need the loo or le toilette or bathroom or whatever the facilities will be called in Macedonia.
- Sleeping in shabby hotel rooms is okay as long as they do not smell like they’re more than a few hundred years old AND I think I will have a Kindle (more about that later) so I can read even if there are no light bulbs!
Writing oneself out of vulnerability is a good thing—if not necessarily realistic. Actually experience has taught me that most people are—one on one—decent, welcoming and helpful. It is only when religion or politics enter the picture that the dark irrational scary cruel tendencies come into play—among us all. On with the show then!
After I spilled the milk I ate the ice cream–signed Pollyanna
Could be Bucharest in early September
The idea is…if I work very very hard at writing interesting blogs and take many strange and wonderful photos for your viewing pleasure, surely someone among you will find a way to come and rescue me when I run out of money in Podgorica! …That was a trick question to make you check and see whether such a place even exists.
Here is the itinerary for a trip that will either prove I can do this every-country-in-the-world thing—YES I CAN—or that I started this project a bit late in life and might have to settle for every country in…say…Europe.
It all began when my friend, Andreya, told me he was performing his new dance in Zurich in August. I said ‘I’ll be there’ because I like both Andreya and his work very much and would like to bring this new dance piece to Albuquerque. And besides I had enough frequent flyer miles.
Next I said to myself…well Switzerland is the one country I have not been to in Western Europe but flying all that way to add one new country to my list is simply not good enough.
You have to start somewhere
Then it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to get those pesky principalities/kingdoms/little tiny countries out of the way. I had managed Luxembourg and Monaco back when I was a princess but there are three more: Andorra, Liechtenstein and San Marino. Okay. Done.
I peruse my new National Geographic Atlas of the World just in case I’ve overlooked some small place that could bring me up to five countries on this jaunt. Well, look at that, San Marino is just up the coast and across the Adriatic from Albania (Croatia too but I’ve already been there) so maybe that could be an inexpensive way to add a fifth country. I check and a one way crossing is about $75 and all night in a deck chair. I can do that.
I’m sure you can guess where this is going. I feel like one of the TV hoarders…only it’s all about countries instead of Tupperware or teddy bears. I think about money, about how much vacation time I have coming, about stamina, and about loneliness. Usually when I travel there is eventually a meeting up of friends at a far-flung festival. This time, after Switzerland I will not know a soul. But I am not deterred by these few conundrums and I continue planning.
How many countries in how many days was that?
From Albania to Macedonia to Bulgaria to Kosovo to Montenegro to Bosnia & Herzegovina to Serbia to Romania to Moldova. Or to use the stranger and more romantic sounding city names: Tirana-Skopje-Sofia-Pristina-Podgornica-Sarajevo-Belgrade-Timisoara-Chisinau-Bucharest (two cities in Romania). Guess the tiny countries and Switzerland have slipped off my route. Next time.
The basic itinerary is done. Three and one-half weeks. Cheap hotels. Bread and coffee and a bit of wine or the local plum brandy along the way. Many hours on buses and trains. I’m furiously reading history (very bloody) and Lonely Planets (very picturesque).
the classic
I am excited and challenged and eating pancakes right now to gather strength for the journey.
One–misshapen pancake–for the road