Qui Transtulit Sustinet

Welcome to Sarajevo

2008-02-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

I don’t think that any city I’ve recently visited has a cachet quite like that of Sarajevo’s. But while this is a fascinating and worthwhile place to visit, it is just a city in Europe, not a place on Mars, and while evidence of the Bosnian War exists, it is less dramatic than the fully destroyed buildings of Mostar. I arrived shortly after lunch and quickly explored Sarajevo’s historic Turkish core, filled with shady courtyards, covered bazaars, and numerous 16th c. mosques. While television images of the war broadcasted views of shelled 1970s office-buildings, it became somewhat obscured that Sarajevo, like Mostar, is a city founded by Turks and retains a strong Turkish influence. I’ve been able to refill my water bottle in the fountains that stand in the mosque courtyards and like in Mostar, the air is frequently filled with the sounds of muezzin calling the faithful to prayer – although here in Sarajevo they must compete with the rock music blasting from the cafes and bars that co-occupy the Turkish quarter along with the mosques, madrassas, and innumerable souvenir stalls.

After a few turns along the streets of the mostly touristy Turkish quarter, I continued into the Austro-Hungarian city, constructed to state of the art specifications so that by 1914 Sarajevo was perhaps the most high-tech city in the empire. Sarajevo lives up to its reputation as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, with mosques co-existing with Roman Catholic cathedrals and Serbian Orthodox churches. The city has two synagogues, a Sephardic one dating from the 16th c. and custom built to accommodate Spanish refugees, and an Ashkenazi synagogue from 1901 for Jews following the Austro-Hungarians after Turkey’s 1878 defeat and loss of Bosnia.

The central avenue of the new town, Marsala Tita, is headed by an eternal flame in recognition of Bosnia’s role as a partisan stronghold during WWII. Tito himself spent 30 months during the war holed up in Bosnia’s mountains. Continuing down Tito Avenue and turning onto the riverside airport road, dubbed “sniper alley” during the 1992-1995 siege, I ended at the Holiday Inn, a city landmark and only functioning hotel during the siege, home to journalists, visiting dignitaries, and other rogues and characters. Sometime during all of this I stumbled across the Latin Bridge, the spot where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and wife Sophie on June 28, 1914, sparking WWI, and the National Library, Sarajevo’s greatest Hapsburg edifice, done in neo-Moorish style and ravaged by fire when a shell struck in April 1992.

The next day, today, is Sarajevo’s full day of sight-seeing. Having oriented myself yesterday, I spent a bit soaking up the unique atmosphere of the Turkish quarter before crossing a bridge to the neighborhood on the far side of the narrow river which is a bit rougher around the edges. I had someone open up the synagogue for me so I could see it, the continued down the block to the 1970s concrete heap that now serves as the parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the two “Entities” that comprise the Republic of BiH. Along the way I passed a few “Sarajevo Roses,” blotches of red paint on the sidewalk that mark spots where Serb shells killed civilians. They are eerie as they almost look like large splotches of blood. Before recrossing the river I poked around the Skenderija Olympic Center – once the grand city center venue of the 1984 Winter Olympic Games but now a partially abandoned relic from another time. I managed to get in and snap a few pictures of the molding indoor arena where ice-hockey and figure skating competitions were held before getting kicked out by security.

Sarajevo is a strange place in so much that while it appears superficially to be a relatively normal, albeit poor and run-down, city, it is palpably haunted by two significant events, only eight years apart but representing the best and worst moments in the history of the city. The 1984 Winter Olympic Games, the most successful games ever until that point, marked the apex of Sarajevo’s soul – the recognition by the entire world of Sarajevo’s accomplishments in arts, culture, sports, and humanity. The cultural center of Yugoslavia, Sarajevo and its people had the reputation as being lively, humorous, tolerant, and just all-around good people. The warm fuzzy feeling that permeated the ’84 games seemed to convince the world at large of this as well. “Welcome to Sarajevo – Olympic City,” proclaims a sign as the bus entered the city, and while the games are now 23 years and another universe away from the Sarajevo of today, at 2007, it seems as if the residents are hesitant to let the memory of 1984 slip completely into the night, for doing so would leave nothing but the nightmare. For only eight years after Sarajevo’s moment of triumph, this city, ringed by lovely hills and set in a lush valley, would become the epicenter of Europe’s worst conflict since WWII.

The story of the three-year Siege of Sarajevo, when Serb artillery and tanks completely surrounded the city up on the very hills that was once the eye candy of its residents, is presented at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, housed in an incredibly shabby building in the Novo Sarajevo district – the post-war city that bore the brunt of most of the fighting. The commentary was a bit pretentious and arty for my taste – “Sarajevo was not a victim but a place of human experiment” etc., but the photographs and clippings were able to tell the story far more effectively, although no museum could convey the horror of a city under constant heavy fire for three years.

It was a pretty lengthy walk up to the Olympic Stadium, home of the opening and closing ceremonies and also housing a small, free, museum about the games. It was worthwhile mostly for the extensive video footage of the Olympics available for viewing as well as good views of the city and of the hills. Adjacent to the stadium is a very large cemetery. It was amazingly hot, just like yesterday, so I took a breather to use the internet at a place next door to the American Embassy and then walked to the bus station to buy a ticket for tomorrow to Banja Luka. The night was low-key and I woke up early for the bus. I later climbed a hill for panoramic views of the city – unforgettable.

Bosnia: Mostar

2008-01-23T10:03:00.001-08:00

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

The temperature has skyrocketed the past few days, reaching 43 degrees yesterday in Mostar, the largest town of the Herzegovina part of BiH. After the relentless consumerism of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a breath of much needed fresh air. Mostar is only a bit inland from the coast – 4 hours from Split, 3 from Dubrovnik, but man is it different. In the space of a few hours and 180 km, I’ve been whisked from Venetian Gothic to the romance of the Ottoman orient. Mostar’s heart is a splendid Turkish old town with cobblestoned lanes, mosques, a Turkish bath-house, and the world famous Old Bridge of Mostar – the original dating from the 16th century but destroyed during the war, the current incarnation dates from 2003.

Another aspect of Mostar which differentiated Bosnia immediately from Croatia is the fact that it is very apparent that Monstar is recovering from a serious conflict. Now divided into Muslim and Croat halves, the once-united city of Mostar was one of the worst affected cities during the Bosnian War. Throughout the town, and especially along the boulevard that was the frontline between the dueling Croat and Muslim armies, are destroyed buildings – shelled out skeletons and crumbling ruins. Signs all over town worn against entering ruined buildings, but the vast lobby of a bombed-out office building – at least 20 stories high with twisted iron and shattered glass – is completely open to the street and large graffiti murals cover the exposed concrete. The juxtaposition of the destroyed town, dozens of large buildings, banks, schools, shopping centers, untouched for a decade and a half, and the carefully restored Ottoman town with its brand new “Old Bridge of Mostar” and souvenir stalls with all goods priced in Convertible Mark, Euros, and Croatian Kuna, is jarring.

Large groups of tourists, in Bosnia on daytrips from Dubrovnik, enjoy the Turkish atmosphere and bask in Mostar’s carefully orchestestrated Eastern romanticism and never see what most of Mostar currently looks like, or consider that the residents of Mostar must walk everyday past what was once a state-of-the-art 8-story shopping center but is now a massive hulk of debris after an attack by Croatian tank grenades. I actually enjoyed Mostar quite a lot. I was picked up at the bus station by my host Miran and taken to the hostel where his mother plied me with fresh juice and watermelon. Later, Aaron and I walked around Mostar, receiving a short tour of Mostar’s best preserved Ottoman residence, watching locals dive off cliffs into the emerald waters of the Nestreva river down below, and climbing the minaret of Mostar’s most significant 16th century mosque for a birds-eye view of the town.

It was brutally hot and the sun was strong, but this somehow managed to add to the effect that I’d really entered the Balkans, Most of what used to be Mostar’s park space has been converted into cemeteries for the thousands dead, and seeing graves of so many young people all dying in the same year was quite sad. Later in the evening Miran took us to the town of Blagaj, near Mostar, which is home to a large clear stream and shrine of the Whirling Dervishes – only problem was, by the time we arrived it was dark and there was absolutely nothing to see. It was a bust, but a bit funny as well. Afterwards the whole hostel ended up a club called Alibaba’s, set in a cave, and we smoked hookah while downing 3 KM Sarajevska beers.

Split: Nexus of the Universe

2008-01-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

Zagreb seen, I was off to Split, Croatia’s second-largest city and capital of the Dalmatian Coast. I had booked at a hostel in Split for three nights, planning on taking day trips to Zadar and perhaps Dubrovnik, but hanging myself a bit loose, my three days were instead communing with fellow travelers: Aaron, the American from Bled who ended up staying in the same room as me, a trio of Belgians that had been on the same bus from Slovenia to Croatian Istria, two Brits I had played pool with in Krakow, and a variety of other characters – two Norwegians, also from Bled, some Canadians, Austrians, Americans, and and even a girl from my class at UR. So, Split is the center of my universe, and while I had grand ambitions for the Dalmatian Coast, the hot sun, teeming crowds, and high prices kept me just trying to stay cool and sane. After three days in Split I decided to cut poor Dubrovnik and flee the country – Croatia is just not for me.

That’s not to say that there weren’t interesting things I saw in Split and in the area: massive Diocletian’s Palace, a series of intact Roman buildings and the heard of Split Old Town, the ruins of ancient Salona – capital of Roman Dalmatia (not in such great shape) and the town of Trogdir, a Venetian town that, in terms of its Gothic and Renaissance buildings, ranks amongst the best I’ve seen recently, but the total of these attractions wound up being less than the sum of its parts. Instead, Split was all about heading to the beach with hostel-mates, chatting up the locals, and just trying to keep cool. There was a TV in our hostel room so the afternoons were lazy affairs of watching old Cosby Shows and Fresh Princes with fan at full blast and downing liter-sized containers of soda. Was my time in Split bad, or boring? On the contrary, Split, and my own personal Dalmatia has been an important chapter in this eye-opening journey. This morning, waving Croatia good-riddance, I crossed the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Zagreb

2008-01-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

Until July 17, Zagreb

It has been hard to catch up in the journal the past few days – 2 days in Zagreb and 3 in Split and never a moment of solitude to record events. Rather go out and live new experiences rather than staying in and recording the old ones. From Pazin it was a tiring bus journey to Zagreb, in the heart of “continental” Croatia, and although the scenery was spectacular – a series of mountain tunnels culminating in a high-altitude flyover of Rijeka – by the time we reached Zagreb I was a bit cranky. The bus was caught in rush-hour traffic upon entering the city, and all the way until the bus station the city center was no where in sight – just spread out lots and avenues punctuated with occasional socialist-era high-rise apartments. People I asked to help me with directions to the hostel were unfriendly and a guy almost ran me over and then shouted something nasty at me. Yes, I had low expectations for Zagreb and I was sure that this would be a quick visit. I did find the hostel without excess difficulty, and expecting that I would be leaving a bit later the next day, dragged myself into one of Zagreb’s famous blue trams into the city center. What I saw in the next hour convinced me to grant Zagreb a full day tomorrow.

Zagreb is off the traveler’s circuit, it has a reputation for being a dull, unexciting place, but I found Zagreb to have all the prerequisites of an intriguing, livable city: A large Austro-Hungarian Lower Town with impressive central square, a several-blocks long entertainment district with cafes, bars, funky shops and internet cafes, and a “green horseshoe” or immaculately manicured parks that link together the town. Up on the hillside is Kaptol and Gradec, Zagrebs’ twin, and rival, Old Towns, that existed separately until merging in 1850, Buda and Pest style, to form modern Zagreb.

The next day I started at Zagreb’s central square – Bela Janivic, at the tourism office, where I was plyed with information on Zagreb and given a brochure for a self-guided walking tour. The tour started at the square and wound through parts of the 19th century city, pointing out some interesting 19th and 20th century buildings such as the Stock Exchange, the Bank of Croatia, and the Arts Pavillion, built in 1934. Soon however I am in Kaptol, the ancient ecclesiastical center of Zagreb with the city’s principal, neo-Gothic cathedral. Compared to the very 19th century cityscape below, Kaptol and Gradec have an older, 18th century appearance, although no less Central European in its origins. Slightly further up the hill from Kaptol is Gradec, the secular power center and home of the merchants and craftsmen of medieval Zagreb. The main drag of the neighborhood is lined with restaurants and clubs – the people here are much younger than in Kaptol. All in all, the two areas are very much urban villages within the city. Paris only has one Montmartre, but felix Zagreb has two. In the middle of Gradec is St. Marks Square which is the government center of the Republic of Croatia. Here is the Presidential Palace and the Parliament. All government buildings in Croatia are draped with both the national flag as well as the EU flag, which I find quite pathetic. To Croatia’s credit, this is certainly a country that seems as if it should be an EU Member State – in terms of prosperity and development it blows some other EU states out of the water. But Croatia’s timing was all wrong – while former Eastern bloc states were in the midst of earnest negotiations in the 1990s, Croatia under President Franjo Tudjmann was committing war atrocities and by the time the dust settled, the EU was fatigued by constant enlargement. Still, Croatia really seems to have deluded itself that it is part of the club, with many cars even sporting a fake “HR” extension to their license plates.

In a Capuchian monastery on St. Marks is the Croatia History Museum, which had a top-class temporary exhibit on Croatia during the First World War. Given Croatia’s geographical location, there was a bit more emphasis on the activities of secondary Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey and some insightful interpretation on the blatant commercialization of Franz Josef’s death in 1916. With most of Zagreb now “seen,” I was able to leisurely stroll through the city, thoroughly impressed with its historical and cultural attractions. The previous day, while reading about Zagreb in the guide, I thought to myself: “Zagreb, the city of 1000 attractions – none of them interesting” and while Zagreb’s offerings certainly are typical, the place has a certain charm, and it is far from being touristy. I passed through the Botanical Gardens and the Mimara Museum, an outstanding private collection with pieces from all the heavy hitters, before throwing in the towel and heading back to the hostel.

Croatia: Rovinj

2007-11-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

July 12, Rovinj/Rovigno

Pazin isn’t exactly as convenient as I had hoped, but tolerable nonetheless. I was down at the bus station at 9:30 only to be told that the next bus to Rovinj was at 1:25. Déjà vu? So, after sitting in a park decorated with busts of partisan heroes, I went back to the travel agency that helped me find the hotel last night and became friends with the girl that worked there – gee, today is just like yesterday! After chilling there for a while and asking some questions about life in Istria, I went to the Pazin Castle to tour the museums houses within, the Pazin Museum and the Istria Ethnographic Museum, although to claim that there are indeed two distinct museums inhabiting the castle is a bit grandiose. The most interesting thing I learned here is that the castle was the primary location for a schlocky 2002 movie called “The Female Muskateer” starring Gerard Depardieu and Michael York.

The rest of the day was spent with my friend Latica from Strasbourg. She introduced me to some of her friends, showed me around the town, where she has been working, and just walked around. Rovinj is home to the tomb of St. Euphemia, martyred in 304 AD and there are good views of the town from the top of the Cathedral bell-tower. After Porec I was pretty sure Rovinj would be worse but was surprised. Sure, the town was populated by tourists, but it was still manageable. It was really nice though to spend a relaxing day with a friend. But from here on in, it’s the great Croatian unknown.

Croatia: Istria and Pazin

2007-11-13T17:16:00.000-08:00

July 11

I believe that I’ve made a very good travel decision today, although it may have been too early to tell. I’ve been somewhat dreading Croatia for the high prices and large crowds. But worst of all is the practice that one must stay a minimum of 3 nights in the desirable coastal locations or else get socked with up to a 100 percent surcharge on the nightly rate. And staying 3 nights in one place will simply not do, at least nowhere in Istria. So, I made the decision to travel to and stay in the in-land town of Pazin, and make a day-trip, only a one-hour bus ride away – to the tourist magnet of Rovinj, where I will be visiting a friend.

I woke up at 8 in Piran and was at the Lucija bus-station by 8:40. Asking the gorgeous girl begind the counter when the next bus to Croatia was, she told me that a bus would pass through on its way to Pula at 2:30. Skeptical that no other bus would be crossing the border, only 2 km away, until 2:30, we tried looking up several different combinations and destinations before I was satisfied that I was stuck in Slovenia for another 5.5 hours. I asked if there was a movie theatre in town. Yes, but no movies before 4 pm. I muttered aloud, “this is the worst place ever…’, and the girl replied, “yes, it is.” I sat down and wrote in the journal for a bit. I talked to the girl, Jana, for most of the morning about the differences between northern and southern Slovenia, about fun things she did with her friends (go to Trieste, Bratislava,) the different bus drivers that came in throughout the morning with gunney-sacks full of change. Thanks to her the morning passed quickly and I was soon on a bus and over the border in Croatia.

I got off the bus in Porec and had 45 minutes until the bus to Pazin, so I took a quick peek at this seaside town. What I was was despicable. Apparently the Nazis won the war, because the Germans were running Croatia now, or at least it seemed that way. Hawkers on the side of the streets shouted “bitte schon, bitte schon” with their tacky knick-knacks. I was cheek-and-jowl with every manner of Teuton looking for sun and cheap booze. Literally every storefront of the Old Town was selling Che t-shirts, shell necklaces, your name of a grain of rice, your caricature, rip-off Chanel #5s, ice cream, and boat excursions. The fine decoration of the buildings was completely obscured by advertising. Overwhelmed, I returned to the bus station and drank a coke while reading my Satanic murder novel. The ride to Pazin was 40 minutes due inland, and I felt as if I had made the right decision the moment I got off. Here was a real town, a beautiful place nestled in the Tuscany-like hills of Istria, and nary a tourist in sight. Pazin, which oozes with authenticity, is built on a series of Karst caves, and there is a dramatic gorge. There is the last house, and then a sheer drop of several hundred meters into a cave system. There is a path that winds down from the town into the gorge, and below the tree-level, inside the cavern, is practically an entire different ecosystem than up-above. French geologists commented on this place and Jules Verne sat much of the action of his novel “Mathias Sandorf” in Pazin and its gorge and caves. Walking through the slightly Monkey Island-eque streets of the town, stone buildings with big clock towers and overhanging lamps, I wondered if I would have the opportunity to visit another Croatian town as normal and un-touristy as this one. Best of all, accommodation in the town’s only hotel is about 25 USD a night, less than half the going rate for a room along the coast.

Slovenian Coast: Koper and Piran

2007-11-11T15:56:00.000-08:00

July 10, Koper (Capodistria) and Piran (Pirano)

Most of the day today was spent traveling from Lake Bled, up in the Alps, to the towns along Slovenia’s Adriatic Coast. I changed bus in Ljubljana, and the ride from the capital to Koper was about 2.5 hours, passing through the famous Karst region of limestone caves and the Lipica horse ranch along the way. The change from the Alpine zone to the Mediterranean coast is astounding – one could fly for hours on an airplane and not find the change of scenery, temperature, attitudes etc. that one finds from the drive from northern Slovenia to the coast, a sliver of several fishing villages and resort towns wedged in between Italy to the north and Croatia’s Istrian peninsula to the south. Mentally, I’ve started to thing I’m already in Croatia, I need to remind myself that I’m actually still in Slovenia. The bus from Ljubljana ony took me as far as Koper, Slovenia’s chief port with an old center that is less cute and less touristy than nearby Piran. I decided to check the place out so I stashed my bag at the train station and rented a bike from the rail company for 2 hours. Koper is an interesting place indeed. The town, like the others, was founded as a Venetian colony and has a distinctive Venetian-Gothic style, complete with a towering bell-tower copied from St. Marks. Most of the buildings look like they were last restored or redone in the 1920s or 30s, and the relative few tourists – especially compared to the number that a similar town would have in Italy – give the place a bit of a time-warp quality to the seedy elegance of the Interwar period, when this whole region, all the way down to Rijeka, was part of Fascist Italy. It was definetly worth a stop-over, even if only for 1.5 hours.

About 20 minutes down the road is Piran, another Venetian outpost, situated just at the point where the small Bay of Piran meets the larger Gulf of Trieste. Unlike Koper, Piran is not surrounded by light industry but by resort complexes, and the place had lots of tourists from Italy and northern Europe, although by no means jam-packed. I’m trying to savor the relative lack of crowds in Slovenia while mentally preparing myself for the human zoological exhibition that is the Croatian coast. As for Piran, it is pretty, small, and picturesque, if not that interesting. The interior is a dense tangle of streets, punctuated by small hidden squares a la Italiana. It is well preserved and not that commercialized but due to its size there isn’t a whole lot to do. I got the idea pretty quickly and searched around town looking for the best spot to get that magic photo, which I found at the top of the Old Town walls guarding the rear of the town from mainland attack. That night I had dinner at an excellent seafood restauarant with a guy who I had previously met at the Ljubljana hostel and two Canadian guys from McGill that were doing the Eurotrip. Also staying in our room was a French woman who was bizarrely walking everywhere. I saw that she had booked the next night in Izola and I commented that that was only 10 minutes away. Yes, by car, she said, but it will be maybe a half a days walk. Uh, yeah, you’re crazy.

“Ricky Kasso, Jimmy Troiano, and Gary Lauwers were three kids from good homes. But by the time they hit high school they were bad boys…cutting class, smoking marijuana, taking LSD, and angel dust. Everyone knew that they were headed for trouble. But no one guessed that there were also ‘getting into Satan’…until one night in the chic town of Northport, Satan said to kill…” -Say you Love Satan, by David St. Clair. This is the back cover of the very entertaining pulp-crime true story novel that I’ve been reading as I’ve traveling by bus up and down Slovenia’s mountains and into Croatia.

Lake Bohinj

2007-11-10T09:30:00.001-08:00

July 9, Lake Bohinj

Continuing my “vacation from my vacation,” I slept in late, roused myself from bed around 10, and headed back up to the castle to get a panorama view of Lake Bled, views that were pretty good but which I could have lived without. Hitting the Mercator, Slovenia’s #1 supermarket chain, I bought some snacks and a sandwich and waited for a bus that would take me from Lake Bled to Lake Bohinj. Located within the bounds of Triglav National Park, Slovenia’s only national park and covering most of the northwestern chunk of the country, Lake Bohinj is a bit rougher than Lake Bled and less picturesque. Its also less developed and less touristy. Instead of aquamarine waters surrounded by low hills with fluffy trees, Bohinj’s dark blue waters lie at the bottom of a gorge-like indentation with mountain walls rising almost vertically from its surface. Riding until the last stop of the bus, I then hiked for about an hour uphill to the Savica Waterfall.

It was a challenging hike with not many others so I thought it would be a secret spot, but there was a parking lot about ¾ of the way up which ruined it a bit. The views however of the park were spectacular. After winding back down the path I headed for the lakefront. I was prepared to go swimming but it was a bit cold and even started drizzling off and on, so I decided to go back to Bled, where I hung out with two other Norwegian guys who were traveling. One of them had just gotten out of the Navy and regaled me with tales of boarding Russian vessels way up near Spitzbergen. That night I ate a kebab with an American guy I kept running into and found out that we knew people in common and that we both went on the same Study Abroad program in Brussels.

Lake Bled

2007-11-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

Lake Bled

Aujourd’hui, une sejour au lac Bled, un lac alpine situé dans les alpes Julian. Je m’est reveille assez tot ce matin, à 9 heures, pour prendre le bus à Bled. Le voyage, qui durait une heure, on a pris en dehors de la ville de Ljubljana et sa region aux Alpes, une paysage magnifique. Enfin, après passant Kranj et des autres petites villes, c’est Bled. Sans doute, Bled est l’endroit le plus belle que j’ai jamais vu. Une lac, les eaus clair et bleu, turquoise water, with a tiny island in the middle with a fairy tale church. Towering above all, on a craggy outpost of rock, is Bled Castle. The place is just picture perfect. I found a hostel and climbed to the top of the castle, which I was unable to enter because I had no money in my wallet but where I may return tomorrow. Descending from the other side of the cliff, I spied my first glimpse of the lake at last. I had been puttering around for an hour nearly but had managed to not yet see the lake itself. At the base of the path I bumped into two people who had taken the bus with me, had a brief chat, but soon parted. I had lunch in town and then walked around the entire lake, admiring the view from every angle. Plying in the water between the lake and the tiny island were tiny gondolas ferrying tourists to the island, where they run up the church steps that the bell.

Back at the hostel I met a bunch of Norwegians and went with them back down to the lake to go swimming in its sweet waters. It was an absolute joy and one of the highlights of my trip to be swimming in this little Slovenian paradise. The last thing I did today at Bled was late at night, after dinner. I found Vila Bled perched above the lake, the former summer retreat of Tito, now a four star hotel. Wandering through the hotel was like exploring the lair of some James Bond supervillain. The concierge was very accommodating and showed me the concert hall, once Tito’s private cinema and adored with 1947-vintage murals depicting partisan victory in WWII and culminating with a Socialist Yugoslavia. Next door was Tito’s office and conference room, all very atmospheric and evocative of the times.

Ljubljana, Slovenia

2007-11-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

June 7-8, Ljubljana, Slovenia

“The sunny side of the Alps,” Slovenia has so far lived up to its former marketing slogan. The six-hour train ride from Vienna to Ljubljana was filled with spectacular scenery, but I was too tired to properly enjoy it and slept most of the way, at least until the Slovenian border near Maribor. About an hour and a quarter later, I arrived at last in the Slovenian capital. Ljubljana is a very small city but immensely livable. It is, without a doubt, the only city I’ve visited on this trip that I would consider living in – funny then, that I actually did consider living here sight unseen. The greatest attraction of Ljubljana are many cafes that crowd the quai along the Ljubljanica River in the Old Town. In the evening, when candles illuminate the path and live music wafts from bridges-side musicians, the ambience is one of coziness and relaxation. No sense of hustle-bustle here, no pretension, just a hip, classy place.

The first thing I did in Ljubljana was take a funicular cable car up Castle Hill to Ljubljana Castle. Inside was a short 3-D presentation on the history of the city, founded by the Romans as “Emona” – also the name of the Vienna-Ljubljana train. The main draw of the castle is the lookout tower of the castle, from which one has a commanding view of the entire city and the Julian Alps hovering in the distance. Also in the castle were several mediocre art installations. I spent much of the afternoon wandering around Ljubljana, which really exceeded my expectations. There are no sights to see in LJ – no famous churches, no large monuments, nothing that would put in on the map except for the fact that for what it is – a small, cultured, vibrant capital of a tiny nation – it is perfect. Everything is in just the right proportions, nothing too big, nothing too small, not too new, not too old. Even the modern office buildings offices along Slovensko Cesta seemed to be just the right size, and made more human by the mountains looming over them in the background. That night I had chicken schnitzel in a place run by a Bosnian (I think) who had a large picture of Tito hung up behind the bar. Afterwards I meandered through the Old Town, feeling mighty fine and thinking that I must have really good taste in cities, because I knew that LJ would be a special place while all the other backpackers were shocked by this discovery of Ljubljana as a charming and eminently livable place.

The next morning I did two of Ljubljana’s museums, the National Museum and the Museum of Contemporary History. Both were ok – the National Museum had a temporary exhibit on Slovenian numismatics, which was convenient because it allowed me to claim that I had conducted numismatic research in Slovenia as per the stipulations of my Phi Beta Kappa award. The Contemporary History Museum is located in a villa in Tivoli Park, which is a large forested area that buffers the city center and the suburbs further out. With a tank out front as manner of introduction, the museum had good exhibits about Nazi occupation, partisan resistance, and a surprisingly critical interpretation of socialist Yugoslavia. I later learned through my Slovenian friend Samo that the exhibit, the work of a new curator, had created some controversy. After lunch at a French themed café with correspondingly poor service, I had a few beers at a riverside café, lounging in a comfy chair before heading back to the hostel, a different one as the previous night’s had run out of space, to doze off the buzz. Later I went out with a French girl and a Norwegian guy and his disabled friend back to the Old Town. All agreed that there was something special about this place and that we were glad to be visiting the city now – before prices rise, before it becomes too touristy. Indeed, Ljubljana’s state seems to be a fragile one, because there are already a fair amount of foreign tourists and daytrippers in Ljubljana’s streets and the city doesn’t appear large descend all the way to the water and ring enough to able to sustain many more.

Interlude: Krakow and Vienna

2007-11-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

Up to July 6, Krakow and Vienna

I’ve become a travel snob. Hitting two major spots on the European-holiday circuit, I’ve found both places, Krakow more so, to be relentlessly touristy and kitschy. And having decided to stay in self-described “party hostels,” (for anthropological reasons) I’m incredulous as to the sheer stupidity and ignorance of the Anglophones indigenous to this habitat. A friend who visited me in Strasbourg last month told me how he had a better experience talking to high school students in Vienna than any of the fellow backpackers. I had a similar experience last night when I found myself chatting with three 17 year-olds, 2 from Finland, one from Japan rather than the dudes from LA and the skanks from the UK.

Krakow was disappointing. As a city, its just like Lviv or Timisoara, although bigger. The places of tourist interests, the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter, are absolute zoos. In the Old Town in particular, I’ve never seen such a ratio of tourists to locals except in Venice. Everything has been commercialized, including the city’s Jewish heritage, and as a result Krakow is completely stripped of any atmosphere, evocative-ness, or sense of authenticity. Somewhat interesting in Wawel Hill, the Polish Versailles and Westminster Abbey, but I didn’t have the patience or the interest in early modern Polish history to do the place justice. It also didn’t help that each building requires separate tickets and the line-waiting that goes with buying them.

The next morning I visited Kazimiriez, the Jewish section of Krakow, which was less crowded than the Old Town but even more kitschy with its signs in faux-Hebrew lettering and restaurants with names like “Finklesteins” or “Rubinbaum’s” on the main square of the ghetto. The two synagogues and the cemetery were worth visited however. I then crossed the river into a non-tourist zone and walked across weedy train tracks to a tucked-away industrial corner. Here is the factory where Oskar Schindler employed over 1000 Jews and spared them their Auschwitz fate. Inside is a small exhibit on the man and the Holocaust in Krakow. I was the only visitor.

An overnight train to Vienna. Vienna is a worthwhile place if you can put up with the nasty people and the high prices. I’m in sticker shock: 7.20 euros for batteries, 17 euros for a dorm bed in a hostel. The train arrived at 6 am, so I had plenty of time to see Vienna in a day, starting with the First District, the historical city. The city center is compact and looks as I expected – unexpected was the large WWII anti-aircraft tower that has been turned into an aquarium. I was a bit unlucky in that many of the most impressive buildings, such as St. Stephen’s Cathedral, was covered in scaffolding, but I’m glad I bought the batteries because Vienna’s cityscape is nonetheless photogenic.

Puis, j’ai passé le chateau Hofburg, le si ège imperial de la monarchie Hapsburg. J’ai acheté une billete, valide pour trios museés au sein le chateau; la collection de cutlerie en argent, un musée sur la vie de l’empress Elisabeth, et enfin, l’appartement de la famille imperiale elle-meme. Dans cette derniere musée, la partie le plus interresant du chateau, j’ai vu les chambers de l’emperor Francois Joseph, son bureau, et ses salles d’état. Il y a eu un guide audo offert avec la billete et dans ce cas, c’était utile puisqu’il n’y avait pas trop d’information sur les panneaux dans les chambers. Revanant du chateau à la “Ringstrasse” – cette fameuse rue qui suit les anciens murs defensives de la ville et compte quelques batiments importants comme le parlement autrichien, le theater, et des autres pieces d’architecture du XIX siècle (le fin-de-siècle viennois) je suis allé à la gare où j’ai acheté une billete de train pour Ljubljana. Ca faisait très cher – 60 euros. Malheuresement, je n’avais pas un choix. La Slovenie m’attend.

Après tout ca, je suis revenu à la gare Sudbahnhof pour me rendre au musée de l’histoire de l’armée austro-hongroise. Très interresant, les vrais bijoux dans le collection vont les artefaits venant du meutre de l’Archduke Francois Ferdinand à Sarajevo, juin 1914. La voiture, sa chemise (avec beaucoup de sang!) et son uniform militaire, tout est là. Il y a aussi un grand nombre de cartes, des armes de feu, et des autres trucs militaries. Enfin, le musée est situé dans le ancien arsenal de l’armée autrichien, un batiment impressionant and beau.

Interlude: Warsaw

2007-10-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

July 2, Warsaw

I truly felt that I had come in from the cold upon arriving in Warsaw, a city as modern and Western as any in Europe. The train arrived shortly before 11 pm and I walked to the very nice hostel not too far from the station. Warsaw is a big busy place with lots obviously going on, but there isn’t a whole lot of tourist interest. Warsaw suffered perhaps more than any other city in WWII, with hardly a building left standing after the ’44 Uprising, and the reconstructed Old Town, while nice for a photo op or two, is nothing so outstanding. Its small, about 9 blocks square, and centered on the old Town Square. I toured the Royal Palace, home to Polish royalty from the 16th to 18th centuries and which dates from the mid-1970s, the actual palace reduced to a pile of rubble. It was a bit strange touring this splendid royal palace, decorated to the era of Poland’s last king Stansislaw Augustus, and knowing that really, this Potemkin castle is only a few years older than I am.

From the Old Town I walked to the site of the Jewish Ghetto, now a boring residential area. Across the street from the Peugeot tower is the Jewish Historical Institute, which has exhibitions of Jewish art and of the Warsaw Ghetto. It is a research institution, not a museum per se, but there was a screening of a short documentary about the ghetto which was worthwhile. Lunch at KFC – Poland is cheaper than I thought – I wandered about town for a while, passing the Saxon Gardens and the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, housed in a ruined fragment of a place destroyed during the war. This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Warsaw, seeing odd bits and pieces of ruins and wartime destruction that have either been purposely left unrestored or have simply been forgotten. I found myself at the Palace of Culture and Science, a huge Stalinist skyscraper that is still the tallest and largest building in Poland, From the 30th floor observation deck it was possible to see how quickly Warsaw was being developed. The Palace might be the tallest building in Poland, but maybe not for long. I took the afternoon off, so to speak, and got my things together to head to Krakow tomorrow morning.

Belarus: Brest

2007-10-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

The next day I rested a bit at the hotel and then took a final stroll in central Minsk, taking in another museum and also finding the former residence of Lee Harvey Oswald and the monument to the Afghanistan dead, located by a faux Old Town with a few cafes and theme restaurants. At 3:30 I boarded a train, a modern Russian carriage with airplane style seats making the Moscow-Berlin journey, and headed towards the western city of Brest.

Brest, located across the Bug River from Poland, is the only place where I saw open resistance to the regime. Sitting next to the on the train to Brest was Viktor, who wasn’t about to let his very limited English get in the way of carrying on conversation for most of the 3 hour plus train ride. Brest born and bred, Viktor was unsentimental in telling me, especially with a soldier sitting across the aisle, that his country “is shit” and that it gets worse every year. The reason for the decline? “Our fucking president – he is no good.” And while in Minsk everything was clearly exactly how the government wanted, in Brest I saw two examples of the display of the nationalist – and forbidden – symbols; one on a long-haired teenager wearing a symbol emblazoned with the nationalist flag of Belarus (1918-1919 and 1991-1995). Also, stenciled on a lamp-post was the nationalist coat of arms, a knight on horseback similar to Lithuania.

Upon arrival in Brest I trekked across town to the Intourist, where I had to confront dual pricing. No matter, a nice enough room for 31 euros. Back at the train station to buy a ticket for the next day, I met two Russian girls, Yulia and Oksana, who were hitchhiking from their home in Karelia to Prague. Of course, being Russian speakers, they were able to find a hotel room for about a third of the price of mine. Walking back to the hotel I glimpsed a Lenin head, and I soon found myself in a small shop that was decorated as a full shrine to that ideology that now sits at the very top of history’s dustbin. Another place and it would have been done in a spirit of irony or camp. Here it was just normal.

The next morning I walked to the fortress of Brest, built in 1842 by the Russians to defend their western border and scene of heavy fighting in both world wars. Near the entrance are the ruins of the building where the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in 1918, excusing the new Bolshevik government from fighting the Tsar’s war at a huge material and territorial loss. The fortress is now home to an epic Soviet war memorial, Mount Rushmore style, and several museums. Its probably the best tourist attraction that Belarus inherited from the USSR. I bumped into the two Russians at the fortress, who were a big help with translation. They also told me that it was a poignant experience for them to be there, as a both the friend of Yulia’s grandfather died at the fort in 1941 – we found his name on the memorial – and because Brest has become a symbol in Russia of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, bestowed with the honorific “Hero Fortress.” After the fortress I tooled around Brest for a bit, used the Internet at the Beltelekom office, bought a t-shirt from Liechtenstein at a used-clothing store that I later lost (along with all my Belarus propaganda) and then picked up by bag at the hotel to take the 10 minute, and very heavily guarded, train ride across the river to Terespol, Poland, along with about 40 cigarette smugglers.

Europe's Last Dictatorship: Belarus

2007-10-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

June 29-30, Minsk, Belarus

I make a thousand decisions everyday when I am traveling and mistakes are bound to happen. That is what I said to console myself about an especially bone-headed move regarding my visa to Belarus. When asked by the girl at the Vilnius travel agency how long I wanted to stay in Belarus, I absent mindedly said “oh, about three days or so…” When I got the visa, I saw that it was valid for exactly three days only, when I had the right for a full 30-day visa at the same price. Its put a bit of a crunch on my time here in White Russia. The train pulled into Minsk station at about 10:30 am and after a brief chat with a girl at the station while waiting in line to use the ATM – she used to work at a summer camp in New Hampshire, the world is a small place – I excitedly set out to see this Stalinist showcase of a city. Here are a few things I learned about Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenka, beloved father of the nation:

1) Lukashenka doesn’t like coins: No coins are used in Belarus, only paper notes issued at regular intervals between 10 and 500,000 Belarusian rubles. In practice this means that you buy a soda for about 2150 rubles, pay with a 5000 note, and are given such a thick wad of paper as change that my wallet could barely close. Everybody in Belarus is an expert money counter, as it takes a full minute to give out change. There are 2100 rubles to the dollar, so interestingly, it is cheaper to use 10 ruble notes as toilet paper than it is to buy a roll. This of course hasn’t occurred to the folks at the National Museum of History and Culture, who keep their latrines stocked with strips from newspaper Pravda.

2) Lukashenka doesn’t want people to enjoy public spaces: Belarus perhaps looks like what would have transpired had the USSR been able to follow the same road as China – capitalism, albeit in a controlled form, with an authoritarian government. The Minsk cityscape is comparable to that of Kiev, but whereas every space inch in Kiev is covered in giant billboards or fluorescent signs advertising Western brands, Minsk is empty and austere, save for the massive amounts of government propaganda with flags, maps, and patriotic slogans the order du jour. The country is gearing up for Independence Day on July 3rd (which commemorates liberation from the Germans in 1944, and not independence from the USSR, which was unwanted and unmarked on the calendar) and while I am sure that Belarusians are happy for the occasion, I am suspicious when the government uses large numbers of exclamation points in its propaganda. Minsk is quiet and calm, and while there are shops and stores, even an Adidas store, they are low-key and without the glitz or glossiness I am used to elsewhere. It is clear that the government keeps a tight ship. People live their lives indoors, and it is quiet on the street, people are deliberate and keep their head down. On two occasions I saw police or army guys, who are omnipresent, tell people to move along if they tarried too long at one spot. Once, a group of three people sitting on the steps of the KGB (still in business) headquarters, and later, when about five slightly Goth-looking teenage girls sat down on the steps of the Palace of the Republic concert hall, a Spetnaz guy came over and told them to move along.

3) When asked nationality, Lukasheka answers “Soviet:” Not a surprise, but the rulers of Belarus clearly decided that they would change the least amount possible that they thought they could get away with. So, the flag is the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic flag minus the hammer and sickle. That brand might be gone, but Lukasheka didn’t have the hart to ditch the red star, which is still there on the national coat of arms, on the walls, on the uniforms of soldiers. Of course Lenin still guards the entrance to the government administration building, and many fine pieces of social realism grace Minsk such as the interior of the GUM department store, on the metro, and in and on many of the beautiful public buildings that line the main street of Francyska Skamyk like the main post office and the Belarus State University. The well-tended Soviet legacy, along with the current regime that does its best to emulate the Soviet playbook of societal control, make Minsk a very unusual place to visit.

4) Lukashenka is well guarded: Across the street from the Palace of the Republic and the Great Patriotic War Museum, whose roof is crowned with a huge light-up block of letters that reads “The deeds of mankind will live forever!,” is the Presidential Palace where the President lives and works. I approached and was quickly stopped by a plain-clothed security agent who told me to backup. I could see that there was some sort of going-on in front as a bunch of soldiers were standing stiffly while some suits paced back and forth on their phones, but I was prevented from investigating closer by at least 20 un-uniformed security thugs, fanned out around the building. I continued on, but hitting the street I then saw a large motorcade pass by escorting a town car with a Venezuelan flag. I made it just in time for a crowd to emerge from the motorcade, and followed closely by a media scrum, scurried quickly inside the building. So who knows, maybe I saw Lukashenka and Chavez?

5) Lukashenka holds no grudges: The Germans leveled Minsk, along with much of Belarus, but German seems to be the main Western language spoken, at least by the older generation. The receptionist at the lovely Hotel Sputnik – which would be considered 1950s retro in the US but is the normal state of being here, spoke to me in German, which was smart because “zwanzig minuten’ means a whole lot more to me than something in Russian. At dinner at the hotel restaurant I couldn’t figure out the menu so I told the waiter to follow me and walked to where a large party was feasting and pointed out what I wanted. After some interested questions my way, I ended up joining the table, which was a German-Belarusian dairy concern, and found myself in a real world episode of “The Belarusian Office’ witnessing all the men vie for the attentions of the lovely Olga, the drunken murmurings of the German boss which oscillated between benevolent and stormy, especially when he broke the chair, and the watchful eye of the sane one, an older guy who later whispered to my astonishment, when the others were dancing or throwing up in the toilet, “so…you’re Jewish right?” I suppose that Jews and Belarusians have coexisted long enough for a sort of Jew-dar to develop. And this being Belarus, the evening was about 6 bottles of vodka strong, tempered with drawn-out toasts – “To America! To President Lukashenka!” and copious amounts of black bread.

Vilnius

2007-10-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

The next day I breakfasted at the hotel, moved my stuff a few hundred feet to the hostel, and grabbed a bus heading southwest towards the spa town of Duvshkinikai, 6 km from the border with Belarus. I got off a few minutes before the town and walked one kilometer to the Soviet sculpture park of Gruto. The park, dubbed “Stalin World” by Lithuanians, is interesting almost as much for its back story as its content of Lenins, Lithuanian communists, and one very avuncular-looking Stalin. Started by Lithuania’s own “mushroom mogul,” a former collective farm boss turned fungi capitalist, the place is a monument to kitsch, with a compound in the middle of the woods outfitted as Siberian gulag, with barbed wire and guard posts blaring Soviet-era patriotic hymns on the loudspeakers. Originally perceived by locals as trivializing or even celebrating bolshevism, the park was obliged to add a host of pc reminders as to the evils of communism. The statues themselves were no surprise: Lenin pointing, Lenin rabble-rousing, Lenin with crossed legs, Lenin taking tea. Waiting for the bus to take me back to Vilnius, I was able to spend some moments alone in the deep forest, by a lake, and felt both peaceful and apprehensive that I was really in the middle of nowhere and that I would be in trouble if the bus never came. It did come, and back in Vilnius I set out again for the TV tower, an obligatory accessory for every Soviet capital. The tower, the tallest structure in the Baltics, was the scene of a 1991 clash between demonstrators and Soviet troops that resulted in 13 deaths. The trip to the observation tower, a wallet-busting 21 litas, was the biggest disappointment of the trip so far. The elevator dropped me off at an expensive restaurant at 160 meters and the view – the tower is so far out of the Old City that virtually nothing is visible except for apartment blocks – is not just mediocre, its just bad.

The next day was my full day dedicated to Vilnius and I spent time wandering around the charming town. Highlights included the Museum to the Victims of Genocide, which refers not to the over 100,000 Lithuanian Jews who perished in the Holocaust, but to Lithuanians who were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan and the partisans who resisted them. The museum is housed in the former KGB building and includes the underground dungeon and chilling execution chamber. Also a highlight was the private tour I received at the House of Signatories, the place where Lithuanian independence was declared in 1918 and I learned about Lithuanian national ambitions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Vilnius presents itself as a Baroque showpiece but there are other sides of Vilnius too: Jewish Vilnius, obliterated and now acknowledged only by a handful of plaques in the old Jewish ghetto and a small bust of the Vilna Gaon tucked away in a back street, and the funky off-beat Vilnius, with its Montmartre/Christiania “Uzupio Republic” neighborhood, where “everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat” and its statue of Frank Zappa, designed by the guy who did most of the Lenins in the USSR no less. Also strolled through the courtyards of Vilnius University, watched the changing of the guard at the Presidential Palace, and saw a bunch of pagan idols at the National Museum. Oh yeah, I also finally got my good view of Vilnius from the ruins of the Royal Castle perched on the hill behind the Cathedral. Sometime in between all of that I picked up my passport, Belarusian river newly affixed, and bought an early morning train ticket to Minsk.

Arrival in Vilnius

2007-10-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

June 26, Vilnius, Lithuania

My first few hours in Vilnius were a whir of sweaty confusion. After checking into a guesthouse located in a former monastery next to the 16th century Gates of Dawn I went to the train station to see if I could arrange a visa for Belarus. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing – paying a lot of money to the visit one of the most depressing countries in the world but then again I figured that if I was ever going to visit Belarus, then this was that opportunity and took the plunge, coughing up 97 euros for the privelege to enter what Condi Rice memorably called “Europe’s last dictatorship.”

The weather in Vilnius was horrible the whole time I was in the area, cold driving rain with periods of drier, but hardly less unpleasant, grayness but I could immediately see that the Lithuanian capital is completely different from the Hanseatic cities of Tallinn and Riga. Replacing the austere Lutheran churches and tidy guild-houses is an ornate Baroque splash – a 17th century cityscape of monumental Catholicism. The architectural change, along with a noticeably darker population, makes Vilnius feel like the Rome of the Baltics. Vilnius – the Catholic and Baroque city inhabited by a people reknowned for their piety, zeal, and superstition. Yes, Vilnius is different.

I spent most of the afternoon relaxing in the hotel but I did take a quick stroll around the area, passing some of the major sights and noticing the massive amount of construction in the Old Town center in anticipation for 2009 – Vilnius’s turn as European Capital of Culture that coincides with the 1000th anniversary of the first written mention of Lithuania (by a German monk complaining about the pagan warriors who ate a bunch of his friends). Lithuania was the last European people to adopt Christianity, in the late year of 1387, and their devout Catholicism is imbued with a pagan zealousness that manifests itself through the ornate wooden crosses that the people erect everywhere – by the side of the highway, as a memorial for the martyrs of independence, or behind the massive white neo-classical cathedral, itself a sacred space for the Lithuanian thunder god. Eventually their paganism became a bit of an embarrassment and ditching the old gods, the Lithuanians, who at this time inhabited most of the swath between the Baltic and Bessarabia and not the small boundaries of the present Republic of Lithuania, hitched themselves to the Poles and started one of the great partnerships of European history that lasted until the partitions of the 1790s.

Liepaja and Klaipeda

2007-10-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

June 23-23, Ventspils, Latvia – Klaipeda, Lithuania

I took a bus from Ventspils to Liepaja, another Latvian Baltic port and bigger and gritter than Ventspils. Liepaja, with the exception of a long white sandy beach and some interesting dilapidated art-nouveau buildings, was a bit of a bust with absolutely no attractions whatsoever. Furthermore everything was closed because of Jani, the pagan-rooted Latvian midsummer festival. I tried to have a good time in Liepaja, but couldn’t overcome a sense of sinister that I felt in this decaying concrete jungle.

I took a city bus up the district of Karosta, a one-time czarist and Soviet naval base that was touted as an artists’ colony amongst evocative military structures, but was, the exception of an impressive 1908 Russian Orthodox church, nothing more than one of the many Soviet housing projects I’ve seen lately. Liepaja is majority Russian-speaking and feels more Russian, bare, windy, and cold than Riga or Ventspils. I stayed in an overpriced but friendly Australian-run hostel, which was very Australian.

The next morning I crossed the border in Lithuania, Baltic Sate #3. The bus first stopped in the beach town of Palanga before reaching the port of Klaipeda, known historically as Memel. I’d gone from Latvia’s third city and Baltic seaport to Lithuania’s third city and seaport. Klaipeda was unexpectedly charming. I’d half expected a wretched Soviet construction, knowing full well the ravages of the Red Army in East Prussia (called here “Lithuania Minor”) but communist grimness has been evicted from the city center, which is divided into the glossy and sleek malls and restaurants of the New Town and the remaining remnants of historic Memel in the Old Town.

Memel was the most northern and easterly German city, passing from the Teutonic Knights to Prussia (with Swedish and Russian interludes) and then to a united Germany. The town suffered as a result of competition with regional capital Koenigsburg and was stripped from Germany in 1918 and put under a French-administered League of Nations mandate. Lithuania invaded and annexed the town in 1923, before being handed back over to the Reich in March 1939. It was Hitler’s last territorial acquisition before the start of WWII.

The historic center of Klaipeda is dotted with half-timbered houses that look like they could be from Strasbourg and that crowd around the Theatre Square, named for the neo-classical theatre where Hitler made a triumphant speech from the balcony proclaiming that Memel was at last free- from the East, from the Jews. A large dock for cruise ships has recently been built and there city was littered with tourists, mostly Germans and Americans, who would otherwise not head to such an obscure place. Nostalgic Germans I would expect, but loud Americans who crowded into the newly opened bars and cafes were a surprise. I walked to the ruins of the castle, of which nothing remains except some defensive walls. Then I headed back to the hostel where I bumped into the English guy for the third time and an Australian girl from Ventspils. Later we headed to a concert to celebrate Lithuania’s midsummer, apparently one night later than Latvia’s, and saw a band play heavy metal renditions of Lithuanian folk songs.

Saaremaa and into Latvia

2007-10-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

June 22, Saaremaa to Ventspils, Latvia

Thursday in Saaremaa was a bit of a change of pace. Saaremaa is all about nature so I decided to rent a bicycle and get out of town. I picked up the bike next to the bus station and zipped around town for a bit, stopping into a few antique places and riding around the castle grounds before heading south on a narrow peninsula that is serene now but was the site of very heavy fighting between the Germans and Soviets in late 1944. I pulled off the road shortly after leaving Kuresaare and bicycled down a dirt path and found myself in the midst of a benevolent Nordic forest, surrounded by wildflowers, tall green grass, and pine trees. I thought that gnomes and fairies were going to jump out at any moment.

About 15 kilometers further down the main road I made a stop at a beach that was the site of the WWII battle. There is a Soviet war monument and a cemetery. According to my map there was a traditional windmill of Saaremaa about 5 km further and I was determined to get that photo. I pedaled further and further and after a long time finally arrived at the broken down and very underwhelming windmill, but satisfied that I saw a traditional symbol of Saaremaa. Determined to get home, I pedaled the 25 km back to Kuresaare as quickly as my legs would allow. Back in Kuresaare I collapsed off the bike and took a rest before heading back to the spa to use the pool and sauna. 2 hours later, after a nice shower, sauna, and dip in the pool I was a new man – although my suspicions that was spa was a complete death factory were heightened when I noticed that there was no life-guard at the crowded Olympic-sized pool. I brought this to the attention of an attendant...”oh…usually there is…but not today.”

The next day it was goodbye Estonia, hello (again) Latvia, but now armed with the traditional Estonian insult, “you are as stupid as a Latvian.” The boat ride was about 4 hours on a small ferry, and I disembarked in Ventspils, Latvia, Latvia’s busiest port and considered to be the most prosperous city in the country after capital Riga. But in the Baltics the capital cities don’t count, they aren’t representative of the country as a whole, and places that are considered to be major provincial urban centers such as Tartu in Estonia or Ventspils in Latvia are very small and low-key in reality. Nothing to see in Ventspils except a 1290 castle of the Livonian Order which doesn’t look very old. I took a walk along the beach and met two Russian teenagers, Valerie and Dasha, who were very interested in America, especially after watching “every single episode of ‘Sex and the City.’”

Saaremaa

2007-10-09T11:37:00.001-07:00

June 20, Kuresaare

I had to wake up at 7 o’clock to catch a bus to faraway Kuresaare, capital of Saaremaa, Estonia’s largest island in the Baltic Sea. The ride was typically Estonian, driving through a forest for hours with hardly a break for any sort of human development until the whole bus drove onto a ferry to make the crossing to the western islands. The interior of the island of Saaremaa looks just like the rest of Estonia, except that I good portion of the island’s 30,000 inhabitants seem to be forest people – the bus would make stops in the forest and people would emerge from nowhere, looking fully modern and well-dressed, but nonetheless appearing to come from the deep forest.

The town of Kuresaare is the capital and only town on the island – its been a resort center since the 19th century and there are some Finns and Russians milling about. For me, it’s a cross between Walvis Bay – the city layout is just like it and has a similar feel, with the summer-ness of a New Jersey beach town. Not much to see in the town, some old buildings, a bunch of high school kids dressed up because its their graduation today, and not much else, a pizza parlor, ice cream stands, this is a vacation place.

The outstanding attraction here is the Bishop’s Castle, built as a stronghold for the bishop of the Order of Livonian Knights in the early 1300s. Like the castles of Narva, this castle has profited from its peripheral location, both in Estonia and an isolated part of Estonia, so the castle is in tip-top shape. The guidebook says that it’s the best preserved castle in the Baltics and I’d be surprised if there were many more better preserved castles anwhere as the thing looks brand-new, plucked right out of a Walt Disney movie. I’m used to seeing old and ruined castles and seeing one that looks like this doesn’t seem right. Inside is a museum, and as this was a bit of an emotional capture for the Wehrmacht - this being a bastion of crusading German knights - there are some cool German newsreels of the castle, looking just the same of course. I also stopped into spa that specializes in the kind of insane treatments that Russians go gaga over. I asked for a recommendation: they suggested that they chain me up against a wall while two guys blast me with high pressure water jets for 20 minutes. Um… no thanks.

Tartu

2007-10-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

June 19, Tartu

Tartu is a cool place. Estonians refer to it as the ‘intellectual’ or ‘cultural’ capital of Estonia, considering that Tartu was the home of the nationalist movement in the late 19th century and is the country’s premier university town, although I’d be hesitant to call Tartu the capital of anything, given its small size. But there it is, the nation’s second largest town and the yin to Tallinn’s yang. I started the morning with a walk along the riverfront, then stopping into the public library to use the Internet. Estonia is a country where its hard to pay to use the Internet, virtually the whole country is covered in free wi-fi, and if you don’t have a laptop then all libraries and tourism offices have high-speed terminals at your disposition. And the Estonians themselves are always on the computer – curled up in a café or surfing from a park bench: Welcome to E-stonia.

Tartu is the home to Estonia’s premier museum, but its closed today so I check out the Estonian Sports Museum instead. Its somewhat interesting, with exhibits mostly focusing on physical hygiene and athletics in the 1930s and then Estonian successes within the USSR in sports like basketball, sailing, and the decathlon. I found out at the library that I was accepted into Sciences Po – Paris, so I celebrated by buying a somewhat expensive (200 crowns) coin from 1930 featuring Toompea fortress in Tallinn. The streets in the small center seemed a bit crowded so I followed the train until I reached the main university building – the heart of a major northern European university founded in 1632 and modeled on Uppsalla, and saw that it was graduation. Like everything else in the past few days, it was kismet – what luck to be in a town whose primary claim to fame is its status as the national college town on its graduation. A stream of people were walking up a hill behind the university and I joined them, up the hill, into a building, up the stairs, and right into an elegant cocktail party. I sipped on champagne and noshed on fruit while listening to sentimental speeches in lilting Estonian before beating the crowd out. I saw that I was in a reconstructed section of the famous ruined Dome Cathedral, once one of the largest buildings in the Baltics but for over 300 years left in ruins, until part was restored in the 19th century for university use. The Cathedral, along with St. Johann’s Church down the hill, are outstanding examples of an architectural style known as “brick gothic” which reached its height in the 14th century in the Hanseatic towns of the Baltic Sea, most densely in the cities of northern Germany but surviving to the present day most completely in the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia.

The whole hill itself is littered with reminders of its past as the citadel from which the ruling Danes or Teutonic Knights ruled this town – called Dorpat in German and Jurjev in Russia and most notable as an intermediary between Western trading centers and the Russian cities of Pskov and Novgorod. Most interesting to me was a stone mound called the Sacrificial Stone – predating everything else, it is the remainder of a pagan shrine from ancient days. Most prosaic are the many statues and busts of Estonian literary heroes – virtually every single Estonian cultural figure lived and worked in Tartu as opposed to the much more Germanic and commerce-minded Tallinn.

Down back at the Market Square I was stopped by an English guy that had slept below me in the hostel in Tallinn. Also in Tartu on his own choosing was another guy, an American, that I had also met in Tallinn. We had a drink at a café and I suggested we rendezvous at 9 for more nightlife exploration. Unfortunately the main exhibit at the Tartu City Museum was closed so instead I took a walk of the suburbs, passing the two houses where peace treaties were signed in 1920 with the USSR creating an independent Republic of Finland and Republic of Estonia. Considering their symbolism as the birthplace of the independence of these two nations, both buildings are run down, with peeling paint and only small plaques to honor their historical significance. I was later told that the Finland house now houses a fraternity. The wooden houses of the outskirts give a frontiersky vibe, a contrast to the formal classicism of the city center.

I met the two other travelers a bit later, along with a professor of political science at the university that the American had met through couchsurfing.com, and after asking him all my pent-up questions about Estonia: what were the linguistic politics of Estonian vs Russian during the Soviet era, what was the true nature of the regime of the first republic, etc, we headed off to a graduation party. The party was held in a rented space in a downtown building, and was intended for students of the poli sci faculty, but it was a real party, not an American style “school-sponsored event” that I’ve learned to avoid like the plague. The Estonians are famously subdued, but as the party went on people became a bit looser, and I was able to have a few conversations with Estonian kids almost the same age as me – I even met a girl who will be studying at Sciences Po in the fall. Due to low population and small labor force, most of the graduates are headed to impressive sounding jobs in various Estonian ministries. The party also had a coed naked sauna, which was a good cultural experience, and I ended the party sitting on the roof overlooking the Tartu skyline watching the purples and oranges of a 2 am sunet.

Narva to Tartu

2007-10-05T13:21:00.001-07:00

June 18

Not a whole lot was accomplished today except for moving my body and my bag from Narva to Tartu, capital of south Estonia and second-largest town in the country. I slept in a bit, waking up at 10, and passed by the Narva tourism office to see if they could give me any info on the bus schedule to Tartu. They also told me where I could get the best view of the dueling castles. Brushing through growth that crowded the bluff overlooking the river I came across a clearing where two old men and a teenager sat drinking. After asking them to take a photo of me in front of the river and the castles, the same view featured on the back of the 5-kroon banknote, one of the old men offered me a swig of ice-cold Russian vodka and some bread and I then moved on to the bus station for the bus to Tartu.
The bus took us through the forests and along the shores of Lake Peipsi, the fourth largest in Europe and site of the epic 13th century battle between Alexander Nevsky and the Teutonic Knights, before reaching Tartu. I found the ‘hostel,’ which like the previous night are private rooms (this one with a tv) rather than shared dorms and spent some time exploring Tartu, but not too thoroughly, for I have all day tomorrow to discover this university town and Estonia’s spiritual capital.

Narva

2007-10-05T13:07:00.001-07:00

June 17, Narva

I’ve been pushing it hard the past few days but no respite yet. Today, travel from capital Tallinn to Narva in the east. Narva is Estonia’s third-largest city with about 70,000 inhabitants, but there is nowhere in Estonia quite like it as Narva is 98% Russian. The whole northeastern region of Estonia, heavily industrialized and ecologically devastated, is the home of Estonia’s 35% Russian minority, many of whom lack Estonian citizenship. I’m not going to Russia on this trip so a visit to Narva, 80 miles from Saint Petersburg and separated from Ivangorod in Russia only by the thin Narva River, will have to suffice.

The first hour or so east of Tallinn is pretty, as we are traveling through a national park, but during hour 2 and 3 of the bus ride more and more factories and plants dot the side of the road until we are in Narva, the end of Estonia. The bus station is right next to the train station, in front of which is a small monument to the thousands of Estonians who were deported from the train station to gulags in Siberia and northern Russia.

Narva is a place that never got the memo that Estonia is now supposed to be a first-world, high-tech nation, EU and all that. Instead, I’m very clearly back in the “second world” – more Moldova and Ukraine than Latvia or Finland – a country whose culture is very similar to that of the Estonians. Wandering through this very Soviet town of faceless apartment blocks, dirt paths, and empty bottles, my guess is that things aren’t so different here than on the other side of the river, aside from the incongruity that while Russian is the only language spoken here, all signage is in Estonian, a result of rigid identity laws designed to ensure that the Estonians will always be the dominant group in the country. Thanks to the help of the Narva tourism office, I’ve found a cheap and interesting place to stay – a non-descript located in residential area away from the center, it is, at my best guess, some sort of Soviet youth complex for Young Pioneers or other groups to stay and have conferences and the like. My room is only 225 krooni and I got to take a shower in an immense communal shower room in the basement that has bathed many New Soviet Men before me. I explored the place, half-abandoned really, pool tables covered in drapes, stacks of furniture piled in the corner, dusty classrooms with chairs still configured in a manner conducive for ideological didactics and self-criticism.

There is only one site to see in Narva, but it’s a good one. A magnificent castle, mostly constructed in the 15th century by the Knights of the Livonian Order, lies perched on the river, facing off against an equally impressive castle on the Russian side, itself dating from 1492. As the tourist literature puts it, “nowhere else in the world can the contradiction and rivalry between the Western Roman and Eastern Roman civilizations be seen more clearly.” The castle walls extend far beyond the keep and encompass most of the entire city today, although ruined or overgrown in some places. The epicenter of the castle is the keep, which has maintained a medieval appearance despite several reconstructions. Inside is a museum, in Estonian and Russian, explaining some of the battles that took place here during the Great Northern War in 1708. Inside the castle’s courtyard is the only intact and in situ Lenin statue located anywhere in the Baltics. And right next door is the Friendship Bridge linking Estonia and Russia across the oil slick called the Narva River, across which people have been walking all day.

The Narva castle used to be at the southern end of a charming Old Town – Narva was once a member of the Hanseatic League and have a Germanic Old Town like Tallinn, but the city was completely destroyed by the Soviets in 1944. As the museum rather understates, “the post-war planning authorities took no consideration of the historical tradition.” The top floor has a photo exhibit of before and after – its astounding to see a place that bears absolutely no resemblance to its former glory, not even the course of the streets have remained. There is only one building that was left standing at the end of the war, the 1640s town hall, which used to sit on the Narva market square. Now its an empty lot overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. It was pouring all day so I was completely soaked when I trudged into Narva’s main shopping center for dinner and a movie. I saw Fantastic 4:2, which was painfully stupid. I give it one-star, because it wasn’t too long.

Helsinki

2007-10-05T12:14:00.001-07:00

June 16, Helsinki

The word that I find to most accurately describe my day-trip to Helsinki is ‘delightful.’ I don’t tend to think in such words but I found the Finnish capital to be so charming in an understated way that I really enjoyed every minute I spent there. I woke up at 7 and was at the Passenger Terminal at the port by 7:30, where I picked up a boarding pass purchases yesterday. The ride is cheap, only 300 EEK (23 USD) for a roundtrip fare. – Viking Lines makes its money not by selling tickets, which is a mere formality, but by selling booze to Scandinavians looking to escape the crushing government liquor monopolies of their home countries. The back of my boarding pass reminds me, in Swedish, Finnish, and English to buy as much as permitted per customs regulations. It was only 8:15 in the morning when the ship pulled out of the harbor but there were already a few hardy souls on the terrace bar making the most of this 3-hour booze cruise. On my part, I settled into one of the few airplane style seats available, provided almost as an afterthought, and fell asleep.

I was awakened as the people around me scurried to buy alcohol before the shop had to close when within 15 minutes of the destination. I went outside and discovered that they ship had reached a truly beautiful destination. Dozens of sailboats and pleasure vessels plied an archipelago of tiny islands, some inhabited with red wooden houses and small docks, others just small rocks with deep green vegetation. The weather was perfect and soon I could see the green dome of Helsinki Cathedral, the city’s most prominent landmark. Passing through passport control I was soon on the docks of Market Square, perhaps Helsinki’s real focal-point, along with large Senate Square just a block north. The harbor was ringed with an ensemble of pastel-colored neo-classical palaces – the same man who designed St. Petersburg is also responsible for Helsinki, and the Rococo influence is visible here as well, even if limited to a small area. The locals were out in droves, along with a fair amount of tourists, enjoying the mild temperature and ice-blue skies.

Weaving through the harbor-side stalls selling both fresh fruit and Finland souvenirs, I walked up Peter’s Esplanade, one of Helsinki’s main streets lined with ornate 19th c. mansions now housing expensive boutiques such as the Marimekko store. All in all though the number of historical buildings is limited in Helsinki, and most of the city is composed of the same sort of late 20th c. architecture that fills most of Germany’s cities. Buildings of note, such as the art-deco train station and parliament buildings and neo-classical buildings around Senate Square are the exception rather than the rule. In contrast with Tallinn, which has a great deal of historical interest and patrimony and this exerts a pressure on the visitor to see as much as possible, Helsinki is a city that is very much in tune with the leisurely and modern lifestyle of its inhabitants. It’s a city for living more than visiting. I was walking quite quickly through the center, trying to make a 12:30 parliament tour, but when I got there a big guard who looked like he could be in Lordi told me I was 2 minutes late. I asked him if he was serious, in a tone that implied that I couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to let me catch up. But a group of South Asian guys had also just been turned away and while I might have gotten lucky if it was just me, there was no way he was going to let 5 people into the building late.

Dejected, I went inside Stockmann’s, an enormous and very well know Finnish department store. I had visited a Stockmann’s in Riga, now I was in the six-level flag store. I had lunch at a hamburger restaurant on the 4th floor. I was greeted by the cashier, as I was all the day, by a casual “hey!” which along with their flawless English impressed me that they could recognize me as someone with whom they could use this familiar greeting with. I later learned that “hey” or hej, is merely Finnish for “good day.” Stockmann’s is at the corner of Mannerheim Boulevard and Alexander Esplanade, this is the hyper-center of Helsinki and it is cavernous and busy – it could have been the busy central street of an upscale American city. Walking along I passed a corner and in a flash recognized an orange-painted mime as my acquaintance Janusz from Poland. We met in a youth hostel in Paris and I later saw him about 2 months later at Place de la Cathedrale in Strasbourg. I recognized him then and we were amazed that we would run into each again. Needless to say, to see him again in Helsinki is astounding, although I always had a feeling I would see him again. We chatted for a few minutes, I invited him for a drink later which he declined – huh, some friend, and had someone take a picture of us so I have documentary evidence of this man that I see all over Europe.

Back at the harbor I got onto a ferry to Suomenlinna, a group of small islands about a 15 minute boat ride into the isle-studded bay. Built as Sveaborg, which is Swedish for “Sweden’s Fortress,” the place was renamed in 1918 as Suomenlinna, which is Finnish for “Finland’s Fortress.” I like the symmetry of that. In any case, it’s a massive island fortification, the Gibraltar of the Baltic, and Helsinki’s crown jewel. The island has the expected fortifications, guns, and tunnels, apparently the place is a masterwork of 17th century fortification – its so big that it was the largest building project ever attempted by Sweden at a point when that nation was a Great Power, but Suomenlinna is much more than a place of historical interest. With a permanent population of about 900, Suomenlinna is a bona-fire city district and a premier place of recreation for Helsinkians. Indeed, everything about the place is picture perfect. A large group of visitors sat in the grass enjoying a free opera concert while others picnicked or lay out on the rocks soaking in the sun. The weather was perfect, the views of the city and the natural surroundings spectacular, the people watching first-rate, the bastions and mounted guns providing distraction – Suomenlinna was just delightful. I spent about 2 and a half hours exploring the islands, making it as far as the Finnish Naval Academy before taking a ferry back.

Back on land I mounted tram 3T, which loops in a circle, to mop up anything I hadn’t yet seen such as the 1952 Olympic Stadium, and a Lutheran Church carved out of rock. Ending back on Senate Square I spent a moment talking to an old lady in front of the Bank of Finland building who was going to invite me to her house for tea but my boat was shortly leaving and I needed to get back to the port. The three hour ride back was noisier than the morning, everybody going to get wasted in Tallinn. The boat docked at 12, I was sleeping by 1 am in the hostel.

Estonia: Tallinn Part II

2007-09-14T17:11:00.000-07:00

June 15

It was hard to sleep last night, me not being used to the near eternal light of the northland at mid-summer. It got a bit dark around 12 but by 3 it was light as noon. After the perpetual twilight of Iceland last year, now it’s the opposite – daylight bracketed by a twilight intermezzo. I got out of bed at 9:30 and had breakfast at the cozy Café Reval. Tallinn’s not cheap per se, but I get that impression that things are priced appropriately for their high quality. My first stop was St. Olaf’s Church, an austere Lutheran Church with one of Tallinn’s highest spires – formely used as a KGB spy antennae, now open as an observation deck. I climbed to the top and admired the 360 vies, the many ferries shuttling back and forth to Helsinki and the glorious Old Town and Toompea. In between are the sleak glass skyscrapers of the post-Soviet era – symbols of Estonia’s prosperity even if they are hated by the guidebooks.

Back on the ground, I walked to the Estonian Museum of National History, housed in a 14th century guildhouse. The museum was smallish and not that interesting. The exhibits ended at the beginning of the Russian period in 1711 and I asked if there was another museum that chronicled more recent history, specifically the 1918-1940 First Republic of Estonia and was directed to go to another museum out of the center. I stopped in another 14th c. church before entering museum number 2: the City Museum of Tallinn. The highlight here was a small exhibit on women’s fashion during the Soviet era, Tallinn being considering the fashion capital of the USSR and Tallinn fashion houses often representing the Soyuz at international competitions. I’ve noticed that both Riga and Tallinn like to think of themselves as having been the ‘most Western Soviet city’ and while both cities have strong claims Tallinn seems to have edged out its Latvian neighbor in sheer modernity. Estonia, or E-stonia, is the home of Skype and Kazaa. Its citizens vote online and I took a picture of a sign at a parking lot with the number to SMS to pay for your parking.

Criss-crossing the Old Town, now starting to become saturated with tourists, I stopped to eat at a place recommended by my hostel for incredibly delicious and cheap dumplings in soup downed with a half-life of Saku Estonian beer. The price was a hit under 70 Kroons, at 12.3 kroons to the US dollar. Nearby (everything is close in this compact city) is the Museum of the Occupation of Estonia, which is very similar in content to the Museum of Occupation in Riga. I was guided through the Soviet, German, Soviet occupations of Estonia with a series of 30 minute video clips, very well done and engaging. But I really couldn’t be expected to sit through a whole 4 hour miniseries, so I concentrated on the 1930s, 40s, and 70-80s, at the expense of the immediate post-war era. Downstairs, guarding the toilets, are the old statues of Estonian communists leaders that were once sprinkled through town- all in a looking-forward, “New Soviet Man” pose.

The day had been busy but I was wasn’t finished yet. I took a bus out of the center along the Gulf to Maarjamae Palace, an 1870s Neo-Gothic mansion that now houses Volume II of the National Estonian History Museum. Covering the 19th c. until the end of the First Republic, the museum has a different feel from the centrally located and somewhat tacky (docents in corsets?) of the downtown medieval museum. Here everything is displayed in Estonian and Russian rather than Eesti and English. Rather than the exhibits themselves, the highlight of the Maarjamae Museum was a large empty banquet hall with kitschy wall murals of cosmonauts and Estonian folk-dancers frolicking before a phantom head of Lenin.Next door is a very plain stone obelisk, one of the few Soviet memorials left in this city where tensions between Estonians and Russians (who make up almost a full 50 percent of both Tallinn and the nation as a whole) do not sit well. Just last month Estonians were shocked when full-scale riots followed the memorial of a Red Army monument from the center of town. Back in the center of the New Town, not unlike that of Riga -19th century Russian boom-town – I hung out at the mall eating a sandwich, watching people go by, before heading back to the hsotel and making small chat with the usual hostel crowd before preparing tomorrow’s day-trip to Helsinki.

Estonia: Tallinn Part I

2007-09-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Tallinn, Estonia
June 14, 2007

Day One of Summer Adventure 2007. Woke up at 4:45 this morning to catch a 8:40 flight out of Basel, then a transfer at Berlin-Schoenfeld before at 4:00 PM touchdown in Tallinn. Exiting Tallinn Airport, seeing the choppy grey water of the Gulf of Finland and the vast expanses of scented pine forests surrounding the inlet, I knew I was back in good-vibes country. I love the Baltics.

Sitting on the crowded bus near me was a stunning Adriana Lima look-alike, and her friend, a frame of blonde hair with hidden face next to me. Summouning my mantra that this would be the trip where I talk to anybody and everybody, I waited until she removed the earbuds of her ipod Nano and asked if she knew what stop I should get off for the Old Town. Turning and facing me, I saw the face of an angel. Estonia must have the world’s most beautiful women. I love the Baltics.

The Old Town of Tallinn, once the mighty Hanseatic city of Reval, has shades of Riga but seems older, less sleazy, and also less flashy. Estonia is a richer country than Latvia, but there are no gleaming shopping centers in Old Tallinn, no smoky Russian casinos, and significantly less drunken British. Old Tallinn is a classy place, 14th century lanes chocked with souvenir stores selling hand-knit sweaters and amber jewelry, cozy cafes, and plenty of blonde girls dressed up in medieval costumes selling souvenirs, leading tours, or serving tables. Indeed, I’ve never seen a city so enthusiastic about dressing the part.

It’s a cold and rainy day, and I slogged into the backpacker’s lodge where I had reservations and were greeted by three very pretty and friendly girls. I’ve recently seen the horror film “Hostel” and so I’m a little nervous about the affectations of Eastern Bloc girls leading to my dismemberment, but so far local Estonians seem classy, unpretentious, and beautiful – a hard trick to pull off when your cities original claim to fame was as the world’s largest keg party for hordes of alcohol-deprived Finns who descend each weekend from Helsinki, only 80 km across the Gulf. I put my stuff away, donned my blue raincoat, and tried to get a sense of Tallinn. The streets of Old Town have a different color scheme from the bright blues and pinks of gingerbread Riga: here orange and red tiles crown narrow lanes of white, cream, and ochre houses, which produces a soothing and harmonious composition, especially in the misty drizzle and as fat raindrops shimmered on the dark green vines that adorn some of the older, slightly crumbling buildings. Taking a few turns from the main Market Square, anchored by a completely original 1401 Town Hall – the oldest and most complete Gothic town hall in Northern Europe, I made my way to the castle district of Toompea – once the site of a Danish fortress and now the government district with embassies, ministries, and the Estonian Parliament. It was for the Battle of Toompea against the Teutonic Knights in the mid-13th century that a white cross on a red field from the sky and heralding a Danish victory. The dannenbrog, as the flag of Denmark is known, is as the oldest continuously used flag in the world. Its been a long day and I want to use the morning tomorrow for some museums so I think I’m going to call an early night, even though it doesn’t start to get dark until 12.

Summer Journal 2007

2007-09-14T10:41:00.001-07:00

Latvia Photo Album

2007-06-03T03:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Latvia

Old Town, Riga

Finnish fast food - Latvia has quickly moved from the Russian to the Scandinavian "sphere of influence"

Latvia's "Nordic meets north-west" vibe is strong in Baltic Sea resort Jurmela

Baltic Sea

Cuba: The Anti-Imperialist Beer

Midnight train to Kiev

2007-05-31T09:12:00.000-07:00

Lviv to Kiev

That night, waiting for my 11 pm train to Kiev, I was going to spend some time updating this journal but I was recognized by some French students I had met the previous night and had a good 30 minutes practicing my French. They are business students doing an internship in Kiev. On the platform, 10 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train, I showed my ticket to the conductor, who looked at it briefly and then handed it back to me. This ticket is for the third of May. Today is the 2nd. The impact of what happened didn’t hit me at all. The worst possible thing that could have occurred just did – I messed up the dates, I was going to miss my flight to Latvia. I asked him, maybe I can pay to change the ticket? I was in full frantic mode now, which attracted the attention of some local people who came over to offer translation services. Yes, I could go downstairs and change my ticket, but of course by then it would be too late – the train would have left. Look, I have a flight tomorrow from Kiev (didn’t say where to, let them think America). Ok, ok, the conductor says that you can get on the train and pay the price again and he will write you a new ticket on the train? Really? It will be 92 hyrvnia. No problem, uh-oh, no cash. Is there an ATM nearby? Just downstairs. Ok. I sprint downstairs and withdraw one Cossack-featured 100 hryvnia bill and jump back onto the platform. Ok, lets go, onward to Kiev!

On the train, the Ukrainians are changing into their track suits for the night journey. I’ve been triaged into the conductor’s cabin, a two-berth compartment decorated like someone’s home, velvet-red drapes, religious icons on the wall, clothes on hangers, a Ukrainian railways peaked cap hanging from a nail on the wall. The conductor, a youngish man in his mid 30s, sits down across from me. Ok, he motions. I pass over my ticket and the 100 hyrvnia bill (about 20 USD) Ok? Ok. He tears up the ticket and puts the bill in his pocket. You sleep here, he gestures, patting the top bunk. He passes me a bedding kit. I fully understand, I’m a stowaway with the conductor’s complicity. No exploring the train this time – I make the bed, roll over, and try to go to sleep, meditating on my immensely good fortune to have found this conductor and none one of the dragon-women conductors that seem to make up the bulk of human resources around here. The next morning I’m tapped awake by the conductor, we are about an hour from Kiev, and he has made me some tea. I spend the rest of the journey looking out the window. The conductor and I have a bit of a conversation, I communicate that I’m from the USA and that I’m going to Latvia and that I study in France. I learn that he is from Lviv. The train arrives, I shake the conductor’s hand, and I’m back in Kiev for the morning. I go to the basement of the station to store my backpack – I pay 6 hyrvnia and receive two tokens to operate the lockers. I look at the tokens, they are old Soviet coins. Even now, 16 years later, you can never really escape the USSR. I pass the morning in Kiev, do some shopping, and take a creaky old bus to Borispol Airport for my flight to Riga, Latvia.

Lviv

2007-05-31T03:58:00.000-07:00

April 30 – May 2

Lviv is a very interesting place as small cities go. It’s a place to wonder around picturing how the city looked at different points in history, whether as Austrian Lemberg, Polish Lwow, Russian Lvov or Ukrainian Lviv. Lviv is to the 19th and 20th centuries what Sibiu is to the 18th – a giant memorial to Hapsburg elegance, full of faded glory and romance. I suppose that its no coincidence that this is the hometown of novelist Joseph Roth, an Austrian Jewish writer whose books serve as poignant elegies to the lost multi-ethnic world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Watching Nazis march down the streets of Paris, Roth could only have been dreaming of his childhood in Lemberg, a thriving town where dozens of different nationalities and confessions – from Armenians to Austrians, coexisted in relative harmony.

We arrived in Lviv in the morning, by now we knew how to deal with the Lewis Carol-esque hotel industry here in Ukraine, leaving our baggage at the gorgeous Hotel George until noon check-in. Cutting through the center, passing by Place Rynok and the Roman Catholic Cathedral, we headed up a nearby hill to the High Castle lookout point. It was early but we were still competing with Polish tour groups. Lviv is packed with them – Lviv is the only town in Ukraine apart from the Crimea that receives tourists and at least three-fourths of them in Lviv seemd to be Polish. It was a bit interesting – I suppose there aren’t many places that Poles can go and feel like big-shots. Where do the Ukrainians go, Kazakhstan?

Lviv has been called the Florence of Eastern Europe and from the lookout its easy to see why – the two major landmarks of the city, the dome of the Dominican church and the city administration building have a similar appearance to Florence’s most famous structures. Heading back into town, we popped into Number 4, Place Rynok, for the City of Lviv Historical Museum. Although interpretation in English was sparse, the quality of the exhibits was unexpectedly excellent, with very interesting items and images from Lviv’s slightly complicated recent history. Intriguing was a display on Ukrainians who fought for the Waffen SS against the Soviets – pictured as patriots and heroes. The only gap was the Polish period, from 1919 to 1939 – they really seem to dislike Poles, although it couldn’t have been any worse than Nazis or Communists. We had lunch at a dirt-cheap cafeteria that seemed to operate under the insane Soviet logic that all workers at a lunch-time cafeteria should have a lunch break between 12 and 2.

After lunch we took a taxi to the village of Bibrik, which is a town where some of my ancestors come from. We made a deal with the drier to take us there, wait 20 minutes, and then take us back. In the middle of the rolling Galician countryside was Bibrik – once a vibrant Jewish town and now a dusty little place with a few churches and an overgrown main square. We were mostly just there to take pictures of the signs and see the town. That night we had the best meal of the trip, at a small Lviv restaurant run by two Polish women. The walls are decorated with 1930s paraphernalia, to what Lviv people call “the last year before civilization ended,” 1938.

Here’s another interesting thing about Lviv. It seems as if I have at last discovered the Ukrainian nation. All through this voyage through Ukraine, the country has appeared more or less Russian - from Sevastopol, which appears to actually be under Russian control, to the Mafia Riviera of Odessa, or even the heavy Soviet influence of Kiev. But here in Western Ukraine, in its largest city Lviv, a different cultural and historical tradition prevails. Their heritage seems to be that of a Central European periphery, rather than truly Eastern like the Russians. Lviv holds the Ukrainian cultural torch in a land that is otherwise Russified, even if the majority of the population identifies themselves as Ukrainian.

The next morning, after ascending the tower of the City Hall for a photo-op, we took a taxi to the Folk Architecture Museum, where they brought old wooden structures from the countryside together in a park. Most of them look suspiciously new, and not dating from the early 1900s as claimed. Ron then left to catch a train to Poland, and I moved cross-town to a youth hostel. The trip took on a different tone, as I was back again the world of youth travel. I hung out with two German guys and a Polish guy and his girlfriend that they had met on the bus, and it was a good time – it was really too bad that I got sick for the first time in a while (Chernobyl?) I had to leave early and laid in bed with a terrible migraine headache. I was still a bit woozy the next morning, eating at the Wiener Kaffehaus with the two Germans Jonas and Mathias but I was starving, having not eaten the night before, so I ordered berry pancakes with were really good. After breakfast I took the tram to Lychakivsky Cemetery, which is such a big tourist attraction that they actually charge admission. The cemetery is very interesting, and like Lviv itself, it is a palimpset of all the nations and cultures that have lived here – Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Germans, and probably about a dozen more. Right in front is the grave of Ivan Franko, one of Ukraine’s major national heroes. Flanking him area more recent graves, some of Soviet gymnast champions with effigies of the deceased in full red-star leotards, or Russian tough-guy types with etching of the dead in very Russian style – as tough as possible, all leather jackets and gold teeth. Further back are graves of Poles who died in the 1919-1921 war with the USSR, and graves of Galicians who fought for Austria in WWI. I passed the rest of the afternoon in Lviv – revisiting the Armenian cathedral, the city’s oldest church dating from the 1360s, and bought some coins from old men selling Soviet knick-knacks in various markets. I visited the University of Lviv, which stands in a beautiful peach-colored building that served as the parliament of Galicia during the Hapsburg era. I went shopping in the large outdoor market north of the center, buying 2 pairs of socks for a total of one dollar. Spending a few days in Lviv with not much to do has opened me to the charms of this place, and it is probably the nicest city in Ukraine that I have visited. Apparently I’m not the only one who shares that opinion, from the number of tourists.

Chernobyl

2007-05-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the day trip from Kiev to Chernobyl. We started off the day at the train station where we bought overnight tickets to Lviv. Then, back to Yaroslava St. and the youth hostel to rendezvous with the tour group – about 15 people, half of which are quiet Finns. We drove north from Kiev through the flat Podossil region, not passing much along the way until we arrived at the first checkpoint at the edge of the 30 kilometer “exclusion zone,” which is also roughly 30 km from the border with Belarus. During the clean-up from Chernobyl, the Soviet government established concentric circles of “alienation” – Ukraine maintains checkpoints at 30 km and 10 km, inside which no one may legally live or do business without explicit government permission. The 30km checkpoint is like an internal border – passports are proffered, questions are asked, road barriers are raised. The exclusion zones were established to quarantine the radioactive fallout, but contrary to expectations, the long-term effects on the natural environment have not been as severe as initially expected, and the exclusion zone functions today as perhaps Ukraine’s most pristine bio-sphere. Not that we saw any of the bears or wolves that have supposedly become reintroduced into the area, but the overgrown forests were indicative of the absence of human activity.

Dating from the 12th century, Chernobyl was a predominatly Jewish regional center that had 10 synagogues before WWII. None of the Old Town remains. We pulled into the parking lot of Chernobylinform, the government agency that runs Chernobyl tours, and picked up our guide Dennis, a chain-smoking, aviator-sunglass wearing, fatigue-glad man of few words. We crossed the Pripyat River and pulled up to the four-reactor complex itself. Number 4 blew up in 1986, the other 3 reactors kept generating power for thirsty Kiev until 2001. We walked across an old railway bridge spanning the river where we saw some unusually large fish – a catfish about 2 feet long and some plump carp. I’m not sure what the point of this way, seeing that the abnormal size of the fish is more likely due to an absence of fisherman and of tourists feeing breadcrumbs all day than any radioactive fantasy.

Next we came within 100 meters of the fourth reactor itself. Underneath the crumbling “sarcophagus” that surrounds the reactor (which looks more like an abandoned factory than anything else) piles of debris covers a pool of uranium goo that continues to fissile and react 21 years after a safety text gone hay-wire caused a conventional explosion that then caused the reactor to overheat and triggered a meltdown. Dennis pulled out a Geiger counter and explained that normal background radiation ranges from about 5 to 15 roentgen units per whatever. Pointing the device directly at the reactor, the counter clicked all the way up to almost 600. Inside, its 2 seconds exposure and death.

We then drove to the town of Pripyat, only 2 km away. Built in the 1970s to house the workers of the plant, a kind of Soviet Springfield, Pripyat was a model Soviet town with community centers, a hotel with visiting researchers and guests, and a town center with a restaurant and a broad square upon which large Soviet crests guard protectively from the top of the two tallest apartment complexes. Today, it’s a scene from the post-apocalypse. The high-rise apartments lie empty, broken windows, dusty. Anything that could be stolen has, leaving only skeletons of concrete and twisted metal. The streets are overgrown with weeds and moss, invading every corner. Putting the Geiger counter to the rust-colored moss, which retains radioactivity longer than non-organic matter, it clicks all the way up to 1,990. Better not eat that. In another part of Pripyat lies an abandoned carnival, a ferris wheel, bumper cars, a playground. The May 1st holiday was only a few days away when the accident happened on April 26, 1986. Seeing all the rides silent for eternity is an eerie experience.

From Pripyat we continued our tour of the exclusion zone, coming across an abandoned village where several old timers still life, defying the Kiev government’s offer of apartments in the capital. Sure must be interesting to talk to them – too bad I don’t know a single word of whatever Slavic patois she was speaking. Finally, around 3:30 we made it back to Chernobyl town where the Chernobylinform staff had prepared for us a full lunch consisting of various manifestations of beets – borscht, of course, pickled beets, beet sauce, even beet juice. Not a lot of takers for the light-pink beet juice – other than myself, who managed to get about half the glass down, only our driver Sergei partook in this ancient Ukrainian tradition. The whole day was a bit exhausting and I fell asleep on the drive back to Kiev. Once there, we picked up our luggage, had a small meal at the mall food court, and met our train to Lviv.

Київ

2007-05-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

April 27, Kiev

A few days in Kiev, the big busy capital of Ukraine, and the cradle of Slavic civilization. It was here, in the Polosian swamps, that the primordial Slavic tribes banded together under Scandinavian leadership and founded the Kievan Rus, the first Slavic state and the incubator for all Slavic culture henceforth. Kiev was sacked by the Mongols in 1240, paving the way for Moscow’s ascent, and Kiev went into a long twilight, remaining an important but provincial city in the Lithuanian and Russian Empires, becoming the Soviet Union’s third-city, and in 1991 the capital of an independent Ukraine. Like many post-Soviet cities, Kiev is all glitz and glamour and aspirations of conspicuous consumption. It was Saturday night and I was looking for a place to go out – I soon found that nightlife in Kiev is the domain of the byzzensmeny who can drop hundreds of dollars on champagne and prostitutes. It’s a sleazy, wild wild East sort of place.

That’s the juxtaposition of Kiev, which lies stately along the wide banks of the Dnipro River. On one hand, it’s the exclusive and excessive capitalist orgy, where notorious oligarchs lord it over the poor and provincial – its not a very accessible place for an affable Western tourist such as myself. But its also a deeply spiritual shrine of Slavism, a city of a thousand gold domes, of monasteries and cathedrals, and a place where everybody, from the clubber to the cab driver, crosses himself each time a church passes by – and there are a lot of churches in Kiev. Seeing the sights of Kiev entails jumping from one golden domed church to the next; St. Andrew’s, St. Michael’s, St Sophia, all of them look great considering that they’ve been totally rebuilt in the past 15 years, after being neglected and even dynamited by Stalin. St. Sophia is exception – surviving as a cultural center during Soviet times, the church dates back almost 1000 years and is one of the precious few remainders of the Kievan Rus, along with a chunk of brick from the defensive walls that survived the Mongol invasions. Filing the space between the holy places are grandioise Stalinist apartments and office buildings, the main drag, Krymkatcha, is lined with communist palaces where important People’s business was attended to.

Kiev is fairly spread out with no Old Town to speak of, so it took the good part of a day to hit all the major landmarks, ending at a riverside park beside the Dynamo Kiev soccer stadium and the full social realist glory of the “Friendship of Nations” monument commemorating the brotherhood of Ukraine and Russia. Our route was also impaired by closed roads due to ongoing demonstrations, the latest episode of an ongoing saga that has characterized much of the past several years. Ukraine is in political turmoil, roiled by rival factions supporting either a pro-Western or pro-Russian outlook, and Independence Square, seen worldwide as the epicenter of the 2004 Orange Revolution, has been filled with thousands of demonstrators waving blue and yellow and red flags. They’re a coalition of nationalists, Russians, and communists who disapprove of the pro-NATO, internationalist course taken by President Viktor Yuschenko. From our hotel room, located directly above the square, we have an all hours entertainment of political speeches interspersed with pop songs and the occasional chant from disgruntled protestors. But look closely and its really just an act. The specific point of contention being disputed by the demonstrators, the dissolution of the parliament by the president, happened weeks ago, and the vast majority of those in the square are either the old – set in their ways and distrustful of any trust of the part of the government, and young people, most of the drinking beer, getting a tan, or chatting up members of the opposite sex.

The next day we started with the Caves Monastery, which is the largest tourist attraction in Kiev. It’s a major Ukrainian Orthodox monastery, and one can wonder through the underground caves where the bodies of saintly monks passed by lie un-decomposed (maybe…they were wrapped in cloth). It’s a good thing we were there early, it was tortuous enough with the fervent faithful stopping at every dead monk to kiss the glass or bang their head against or murmur incantations or whatever. Above ground is a motley collection of religious buildings housing esoteric museums. The highlights were a very very good exhibition of Scythian and Pontian Greek gold and artifacts, and the very soviet Museum of Miniatures. Complete works of Lenin engraved on a pin-head anyone? Next door to the monastery is the Great Patriotic War Museum and Defense of the Nation Monument, a huge 1981-vintage titanium Statue of Liberty-esque woman with raised sword and shield facing the Dnipro, repelling the Nazi invader. Inside is a large WWII museum with plenty of artifacts. It took almost 2 hours to get all the way through.

Sevastopol: Hero City

2007-05-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

April 25, Yalta to Sevastopol

A 2 hour drive in a minibus along the southern Crimean coast to the port city of Sevastopol. A closed city until 1997, Sevastopol was the focal point of the Crimean War and later the home of the Russian-Soviet-Russian Black Sea fleet. Russia has leased the Sevastopol docks until at least 2019, and Sevastopol has the air of a city jointly occupied by the Russian and Ukrainian navies. It seems as if the Black Sea Fleet is out, but there are still plenty of young sailors milling on the streets – Russians in black, Ukrainians in olive green. And thanks to Sevastopol’s position as center of the Soviet Navy, the city remains one of the most pro-Soviet cities in the former USSR. I saw an old man on the trolleybus, decked out in his old Soviet uniform, with red-stars and CCCPs gleaming, trying to garner respect amongst the new guard of Russian seamen. Like other cities I’ve seen in Russian-speaking Ukraine, Sevastopol still has all the trappings of a Soviet city, war memorials, Lenin statues, and hammer-and-sickles immaculately upkept. Our hotel, the grand Hotel Sevastopol, is a model Soviet hotel, the lobby decorated with a red-star motif (albeit one that has been painted over maybe one too many times). We paid at the “Administration Booth,” two grumpy ladies behind a glass booth, who gave us our key and keycards, needed to get through the ex-KGB goons who guard the entrance.

Ron and I took a stroll along the waterfront, passing a column marking where a Russian admiral scuttled his fleet in 1854, blocking the entrance to the harbor and preventing the allied British and French navies from taking the city by sea. Up on the hill, next to a series of buildings flying the Russian tricolor, is a giant statue of Uncle Vladimir, pointing towards the future. Up on the highest hill is the Panorama, a museum and large diorama illustrating the Battle of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. It was a little stodgy, but I suppose that’s how people got an idea of the scale of historical events before movies came along. From the Panorama we caught a taxi to go about 15 km south to the little town of Balaclava. A harbor in an inlet, Balaclava has a fjord-like natural protection, which is why it was chosen as the site of a secret Soviet submarine facility. The taxi dropped us off right at the entrance, which is a gaping hole in the cliff-face surrounded by old men fishing and a few mega-yachts owned by some oligarchs. There was nobody at the kassa, so a policeman led us a few hundred meters to a dilapidated building where a woman sold us 2 tickets for the 3 oclock tour.

The tour inside the sub base, which was very interesting although the explanations were in Russian only, showed us the interior of the mountain, which looks pretty much what you would expect an underground sub base to look like, either through movies or video games etc. Miles of underground tunnels lead to inlets where the subs could dock while under repair. Most of the Cold War era stuff has been moved – it seems as if the plan is to make a museum about the Ukrainian Navy inside the sub-base, rather than a museum about the 1950s-1960s era base itself. Outside of the facility, a 15th century Genoese fortress guards the entrance to the inlet, a relic and testimony to the diverse history of the Crimea and those who disputed it – Italians, Greeks, Turks, Slavs, and Mongols. Also lining the channel as it opens to the sea are ruins of fine early 20th century mansions, now nothing more than shells filled with rubble and rubbish. Taking public transport back to Sevastopol took a while to by the time we got back to the city and used the internet it was almost time for dinner. Dinner was another disappointment – although the food tasted good, the service and the quality just did not justify its high prices.

April 26, Sevastopol to Kiev
Finished up Sevastopol in the morning, which has proved to be a much more interesting place than hyped-up Yalta. Not far from our hotel is an enormous monument still in the works, it’s a gargantuan bronze statue of two sailors facing the open harbor, charging towards a now unseen enemy. I’m almost as tall as the foot of one of the giants. The scene is a major military construction site – dozens of camouflage-clad workers digging, scrubbing, polishing, or raking dirt, all under the supervision of a few officers in peaked-caps poring over plans. It looks like they are scrambling to put on the finishing touches before the start of the summer season. I scrambled up to the base of the statue, dodging some Central Asian-looking soldiers, where another soldier/slave laborer called out, “hey, are you speaking the Russian?” No. “Hey, give me some money!” Another shout from down below, something along the lines of “get back to work!”

Next was the Black Sea Fleet Museum, the second oldest museum established in the Russian Empire after the Hermitage. The first few rooms are a bunch of paintings and model ships, but the later sections have memorable Soviet treasures, including some civil war propaganda featuring Comrade Trotsky. Our train left Sevastopol station at 1:21 pm precisely, and we caught a peek of the Black Sea fleet and a submarine before heading inland through Bakhchisaray and onward through the night to Kiev.

Into Ukraine: Odessa (Одесса) to Yalta (Ялта)

2007-05-23T04:21:00.000-07:00

April 22

The next day was spent traveling from Chisinau to Odessa, which although are only about 100 miles apart, takes between 5-7 hours due to a detour around Transdniestria, and border controls both leaving Moldova and entering Ukraine. I sat on the bus amidst a group of beefy Moldovans, probably going to construction jobs in Ukraine, who ate hard-boiled eggs and started off boisterous but whose senses became progressively dulled thanks to the swigs of wine periodically taken from 1 liter water bottles. The Ukrainian border crossing was your typical scary man shouting rapid fire questions in Russian, but again, no problems, and after almost 1.5 hours, we started up again.

After Moldova the sun seemed to come out in Ukraine, it was after 6 and the green fields and wetlands of the lower Dniester were bathed in a golden light – the crumbling tin and unreinforced concrete ruins of Moldova replaced by smart new condos and waterside dachas. Less than 25 minutes after crossing into Ukraine, the bus stopped in central Odessa. I found the hotel where I was scheduled to meet my uncle, but he had left me a note saying that the hotel was full and that we were booked in a new hotel about 7 blocks away. This was a bit disappointing, because the Hotel Palladium and its attached night-club are known mafia hangouts, and what a better introduction to post-Soviet sanitation consultants?

Turns out that Odessa is about as mobbed-up a town as you can find. I’m in Ukraine, but Odessa is Russian through and through, and the have/have-not divide is glaring. Ancient women sell sunflower seeds on the street to complement their 30 dollar/month pension while mafiosos roar by in their tinted Caddies or Benzes. Being flashy is the name of the game- gold, gems, and girls. There are only two groups of people who can afford to eat out in Odessa, the foreigners and the mobsters, and all the restaurants are lavishly sumptuous affairs, where entrees cost a month’s salary and goons in dark suits and gold watches talk on cell phones while their girlfriends pick at a 30 dollar salads.

The next morning my uncle Ron, who arrived early yesterday morning, relaxed while I took in Odessa’s main sights. At the port, which was the largest of the Russian Empire, stretches Primorski Boulevard, a shady pedestrian walkway bisected by Odessa’s main attraction: the Potemkin Steps. The steps are the site where a famous scene in Sergei Eisenstein’s movie “Battleship Potemkin,” with the baby-carriage rolling slo-mo down the steps, takes place. Walk down, walk back up, check. Also nearby is a cannon captured from the British in 1854 and a bunch of statues of Russian generals. The cityscape itself is similar to others in the region – low-lying, green, most central buildings about 50 years old in varying states of decay. Odessa is not a tourist city, it’s a living city and a bit of a party destination, particularly amongst Russians. Politically, Odessa and the rest of Russian-speaking southern Ukraine supports the pro-Russian Party of Regions of Viktor Yanukovich and quite frankly I cant find anything in Odessa that could distinguish the city as “Ukrainian” and not Russian. After lunch Ron and I took a cab south of the center to Battery 411, which defended the city against a German/Romanian attack until it fell in 1941. A bunch of old Soviet hardware and a museum completely in Russian. That night we took a night train from Odessa to Simferopol, on the Crimea Peninsula. The train arrived at 6:30 and we descended and boarded a trolleybus (the world’s longest route) for a 2.5 hour journey to the seaside resort of Yalta.

The Crimea has a long and distinctive history, being primarily a Turkic region culturally and ethnically until it was colonized by Russia in the 1830s. More recently it became the premier holiday destination of the Soviet Union and with its Mediterranean climate it does have an eastern and exotic feel to it. Its also a bit incongruous – maybe the only place in the world where palm trees, a statue of Lenin, and the Golden Arches share a city square. Yalta is still a major destination for Russians and Ukrainians and like Odessa, its Russian, Russian, Russian. Crimea was administratively part of Russia until 1954 and the Russian population has autonomous standing within Ukraine which maybe explains the Lenin statues everywhere.

Aside from the Riviera-style beach restaurants and nightclubs, the main cultural attractions of Yalta are a series of palaces built by Russian aristocrats around the turn of the century. The most famous of these, Livadia Palace, was used as the summer retreat of the Romanovs between 1911 and 1914. In February 1945, it hosted the Yalta Conference, where FDR, Churchill, and Stalin agreed that most of central and eastern Europe would become Soviet satellite states. There wasn’t a whole lot about the conference, it only lasted a few days so how much detritus could there be? – but the bulk of the palace was devoted to the happy vacation memories of the late great Romanov dynasty. Further down the twisty hillside roads that reminded me of the Cote d’Azure’s corniches is Swallow’s Nest, which is picturesque and even featured on the cover of the Lonely Planet Ukraine, but in reality is like a follie or a movie prop. Inside is Ukraine’s most expensive coffee.

That night Ron and I had an expensive dinner at a jetty-side restaurant designed as a Viking ship, and afterwards walked along the promenade. The season hasn’t yet started and its quiet, but during the summer the whole of the town is a giant nightclub and its hard to imagine that Yalta used to be the place where confused Russians, standing knee-deep in their underwear, would gaze up at Lenin and wonder what these whole vacation thing was about – this thing they had worked 15 years in a factory for the chance to spend a week on the Black Sea coast. The next day we took a minibus 16 km west of town to another 19th century palace, designed by an Englishman in Orientalist style. We were only shown a few rooms and had to compete with a large Russian tour group, but it was here that I realized that the people I’d seen so far, whether Ukrainian or Russian, were the downright most miserable looking people I’d ever seen. From the babushkas selling herbs on the street to the young woman texting her friends while guarding a museum room, everyone looked like they’d never known a moment’s happiness in their entire lives. The misery of the Russian/Ukrainian soul indeed.

Transdniestria

2007-05-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

April 20, Tiraspol, Transdniestria

I woke up at 9:30 and went to the bus station to get a bus to Tiraspol which leaves every half-hour, but the woman refused to sell me a ticket, claiming that I didn’t have the proper documents to cross into the breakaway province, Transdniestria, also known as the Moldavian People’s Republic. “Where can I get the documents to visit Tiraspol?” – “In Tiraspol…” Of course, as a self-proclaimed country recognized by no other state in the world, Transdniestria has no external representation that could handle things such as visa requests. Walking through the crowded market, I thought about taking a train, although I wasn’t sure where the train station was and there would be no guarantee that I wouldn’t have the same problem there. I walked back over to the bus stop and was approached by a guy offering to drive me in his taxi – 20 US dollars to Tiraspol. I bargained him down to 15. Ok, do you have a passport? Yes. Transdniestrian registration? No. Ok, then 20 dollars. He had me in a spot and considering how much I wanted to go to Tiraspol, acquiesced.

April 20, Tiraspol, Transdniestria

We left Chisinau, passing the airport to the south and were soon in the country – rolling green countryside pockmarked with impoverished villages. About 8 km from Bendery, after about 50 minutes on the road, we passed a Moldovan checkpoint. Just beyond, a checkpoint of Russian peace-keepers, stationed to make sure that the conflict between Moldova and the communist hard-liners who control Transdniestria, dormant since a 1992 war, stays quiet. Just before the Transdniestrian “border,” we swerved onto a side road and drove through a village, reaching a quiet Transdniestrian checkpoint. The drove drove right through, beeping at the guard, who gave a slight nod. We were now in Bendery, which although on the western bank of the Nistru (Dniester) river, is controlled by the Transdniestrians, and their flag, identical to that of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic – minus the hammer and sickle, flies everywhere. We drove over the bridge, crossing the river, manned by more Russians, and were soon in Tiraspol, the capital of the non-existent country. At the entrance of the city was a large vertical billboard with the letters “CCCP” printed above a large design of the arms of the Soviet Union – a hammer and sickle imposed over the entire globe. Here, the Evil Empire lives on.

The government of the PMR/TD, controlled by villainous-sounding Igor Smirnoff, is the only government in the world whose stated intention is the reinstation of the USSR. Recognized by no government in the world, TD nonetheless controls its own borders, has its own postage, currency, passports, police, army, and flag. An economic and legal black-hole, the TD oligarchy supports itself though illegal arms trading, human organ trafficking, prostitution, and extortion. All in the name of the People, of course. The driver dropped me off at the far end of Tiraspol’s main drag, Avenue 25 October where the Presidential Palace, guarded by a large and rather modern looking statue of Lenin, faces a Soviet tank adorned with the Transdniestrian flag and a memorial to those falled in the 1992 war.

I change money at one of the many banks along the street, and receive a wad of Transdniestrian rubles. The notes feature some 18th century Russian general, but the shiny new coins feature TD’s hammer-and-sickel national insignia. I think the situation here must have improved in the past few years, internet posts had described a desolate and empty place inhabited by the elderly, but there were plenty of normal looking people walking around and enough basic shops to spend your money. There is even a branch of Andy’s Pizza – not sure how Andy set that one up. I went into the post office to buy some TD stamps, and saw a few postcards behind the counter. They were old Soviet designs, on the back a date: 1965.

I walked up and down 25 October, passing the House of Soviets and another statue of Lenin and a bunch of government buildings. Not really anything to do, couldn’t find any of the museums, and knowing that I was in a tiny pseudo-country ruled by a communist mad man who dreams of resurrecting the Soviet Union and finances his own mini-Evil Empire by selling arms to Ukraine was a bit unsettling, especially since I was in TD illegally. I strolled along Liebknicht and Lenin avenues until I reached the bus station, where I bought a ticket back to Chisinau. I had spent under three hours in Tiraspol, but will all the Transdniestrian soldiers wearing Soviet uniforms supervising the populace, it was enough to get the idea before trouble found me. As we pulled out of Tiraspol, a woman on the bus came around to collect our tickets and Transdniestrian registration. No registration, I say. No registration? What? Uh-oh. No registration? Really? No registration, I say, no registration, Chisinau, Tiraspol, taxi. Ah, the woman nods, as if that explains everything. The bus stops in Bendery and the woman motions for me to get off. I do so, and at that moment countless hours were validated when a man says to me, “parlez-vous francais?” He will take me in his taxi back to Chisinau, going around border control. Again, I have no choice.

We get in the taxi and drive through Bendery until we get to a cul-de-sac surrounded by apartment buildings. We drive towards a path in the road, and changing gears we drove over the curb and into the scrub. Driving across a large field, he points to my right – the Nistru river, and just beyond, Tiraspol. To my left – Moldova and the Transdniestrian border. We get across the field and I see that we’re on the same side road as this morning. I guess this guy doesn’t have the same connections as my first driver. The Russian peace-keepers, then the Moldovans, and back into a legally recognized country. An hour later I’m back in Chisinau and I walk around a bit before heading home.

Moldova

2007-05-16T04:27:00.000-07:00

Apres a week-end prologue in Prague, I was finally off to my journey to the east. Dinner at a Mexican hole-in-the-wall, I say good-bye to Prague expats and carefully follow the map drawn by Adriana on the back of a napkin down Vinohradska onto the highway and down into Prague’s train station – a building that might sum up Prague – art-nouveau sumptioness on top, Communist rot on bottom. It’s my first time on a sleeper car, Im not sure what to expect so when the Romanian attendant shows me to a cabin furnished with a single bunk-bed, I plop down on the couchette and expect the worst. It’s 10:35 and the train is scheduled to leave at 11:02. 10:50, and it’s still just me in the cabin, 10:55, 11:00, the train starts moving. Its just going to be me, my own room on the train. The attendant comes, takes me ticket, tells me to lock my door because “on Slovak and Hungarian territory there are thieves.” Interesting choice of words. Not much to see in the dark so I read a magazine while the two British guys in the cabin next door get stoned (well prepared – the smell of airspray wafts through several minutes later) and sing-along to Bob Marley and Pink Floyd in classic lame-British manner. I get tired and lie down and soon the roll on the train helps me sleep. I’m woken up about 2:00 am with a knock on the door. It’s Slovak passport control, two big guys that look more like real cops than the usual border-guard rent-a-cops. Their uniforms are green and khaki, like sheriffs, and they sport big shiny badges of the Slovak cross. They leave without stamping my passport and I got back to sleep, woken up again in a few hours by the Hungarians, who stamp my passport and continue.

I wake up at 9 but seeing as I’m on the train till 4, no reason not to sleep in. Leaving Hungary, there are more passport controls. No problems but the guard knocks 10 minutes later – he has forgotten to write something down. Taking down my birthdate I note that its my birthday. I get a handshake and a “congratulations” and I go back to sleep. I wake up at 10:30 and I begin thoroughly enjoying the cabin, I’m almost about to fall back asleep at 2:30, lying down watching the scenery go by, but the attendant comes around and tells me that Simeria is 26 minutes away. I forgot that we’re in a new time zone. After two hours in Simeria, noted as the town with Romania’s highest rate of unemployment, I get on the night-train.
All of the good-luck karma came around, I was crammed into a compartment with 6 other people and didn’t get any rest. I also met a Romanian scholar named Liviu and we had a very interesting conversation aboutt communism in Romania. As we pulled into Iasi at 6:30 the next morning one of the old ladies started unloading her numerous bags and I saw that the contents of one gym bag was in fact a live chicken. A very, very, quiet one. No time to see Iasi, a one-time capital of Romania, and I’m right onto a van to Chisinau, idled outside the Billa’s Supermarket. We reach the border quickly, cross the Prut River, and pull up to the border post of the Republic of Moldova. Right away I could see that things were different over on this side of the former Soviet Union. Gone were the clerk-type agents of intra-European borders. Instead, a beefy soldier in dark olive fatigues and a wide-brimmed hat came on board and started looking at passports. When he gets to me he gives me two or three long hard looks and leaves. A minute later another guard got onto the an and asked me how much money I was bringing into the country. Before I could answer, “more or less than 10,000 euros?” Into Moldova.

There was a misty rain and the bumpy road made looking out the window hard so I fell asleep and woke up as we entered Chisinau. Chisinau is my first ex-Soviet city and is much more alien that I expected. While about 80 percent of the writing is in Romanian, the city seems much more Russian than Romanian or even a Romanian-Russian mix. Chisinau is one of those cities where the only thing to do is walk around taking pictures of ordinary buildings with important names – the House of Parliament the Presidential Palace, the House of Government. Chisinau seems very much to be its most recent life as a provincial Soviet capital and still seems a bit sleepy and dull for a capital city of an independent nation – even if that nation is the poorest in Europe. Chisinau shares a trait with African cities where most of the nice houses and lots have been occupied and turned into compounds for NGOS and other official sounding agencies.

It is a miserable rainy and windy day and it makes Chisinau seem like a pretty awful place, even thought it is green and relaxed seeming. Chisinau is also like Africa in that you eat at the first place you find that has edible food, so I eat every meal in Chisinau at Andy’s Pizza, a thoroughly Western operation that even has flat-screen computer monitors for the hostess, undoubtedly the nicest piece of electronic equipment in their lives. Hotels are unfairly overpriced in Chisinau and I decided to do something different and rent an apartment. I had been in touch with a woman over the internet and got in contact when I got to Moldova – a traveler’s challenge par excellence, trying to figure out where and how to buy a phone card and the decipher how to use it and for which phones in this country where the general knowledge of English is very low. Best English speakers in the city? Staff at Andy’s Pizza.

My fear that the apartment would be located far from the center was well founded as the taxi took me up and out of the center and into the terrifying Soviet high-rises ringing the city. My instructions – Moscow Boulevard, building number 11, doorway number 5, 15th floor, hallway 3, apartment 6. Inside the cavernous tenement with walls of peeling blue paint and a rusty old elevator with a car that looks too small for the shaft up the 15th floor. Sveta assured me that “Mama” would be waiting for me in the apartment but as I pounded on the door with no response I figured either Mama was sleeping or I had made a mistake somewhere with the directions. I sat down on the floor and read the book I’d started on the train and waited to see if Sveta would show up, which she did 15 minutes later (oh…so it was the door next door. I guess you can make an idiot of yourself anywhere) Contrary to the retro hall, the apartment is charmingly furnished and enormous, so much so that at first I thought that I would be renting a bedroom or part of the flat. But no, it was all mine, for 20 euros a night. From the 15th floor terrace I could see much of this strange place. A third border has been breached, first the Slavic world with Bulgaria and Czech Republic but now it’s the east for real.

Timişoara

2007-04-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

March 8-9, Timişoara

Seven hours on a slow as molasses state-run bus to get from Sibiu, in the geographic center of the country, to the western city of Timişoara, capital of the Banat region where Romania, Serbia, and Hungary meet. The trip was uncomfortable but a good way to see the country, I really felt like I as journeying across the land and not just taking short train trips from Point A to Point B. Knowing that the bus wouldn’t arrive until well after dark, I booked a hotel room on the Internet the day before and took a taxi ride, the first of the trip (5 lei soit 1.5 euros) to the hotel.
Timisoara is sometimes called “Little Vienna” because of its Hapsburg-era architecture, but today the city seems to be the Italian concession of Romania, if Bucharest could be considered the French and Translyvania the German sphere of influence. The hotel was full of Italians and the atmosphere just seemed a little more Mediterranean that elsewhere in Romania, although geographically we are far from Italy or the sea.

I slept in a bit the next morning and then set out to see the city. Of all things, Timisoara is perhaps most famous today as the place where the Romanian Revolution of 1989 started. On December 15, 1989, Lazlo Tokes, a Hungarian minister, denounced the dictator from his pulpit and over the next few days Timisoara gradually went to war, uprising against the Communist regime which then spread to Bucharest and other cities around Romania. Walking south from the beautiful 18th c. Piata Unirii, I passed the Musuem and Center for the Revolution in Timişoara, which looked intriguing. I walked in and then guard as me, “where are you from?” “The U.S.,” I replied. “Do you have time?” “Um..yeah?” A minute later and an old man with a limp and a cane came down the stairs and greeted me. A veteran of the 1989 Timişoara revolution and shot in the leg on December 17, he walked me through the center, explaining the different pictures and memorials and showing me a documentary film about the Revolution. At first it was wonderful, but the old man’s enthusiasm, along with his excitement to have someone to talk to, made him reluctant to let me leave and her proceeded to show me every little thing in the building, how many documents are in his computer, how many folders of newspaper clippings, etc. Two hours later I was finally able to escape – the whole adventure was a bit long, but still a highlight of the trip.
The return bus trip to Strasbourg passed by in a blur of Pauly Shore movies and long stretches of autobahn. Hungary, Austria, Germany, and back in Strasbourg about 18 hours later, just in time for lunch and a nap.

Sibiu

2007-03-31T06:57:00.000-07:00

March, Sibiu

Kronstadt, Schassburg, and now Hermannstadt, known these days as Sibiu. Always the largest and most important of the Siebenburgen, Sibiu doesn’t radiate reflections of a Transylvanian movie set like Sighisoara, but is rather much more evocative of an Austrian town. Indeed, Sibiu might be the town where the Austro-Hungarian Empire never died. Still populated by a mix of Romanians, Hungarians, and Germans in a perfectly preserved town, Sibiu might be the best place to see what a Central European town actually looked like 100 years ago, and that doesn’t just mean pretty Austrian Baroque churches or pastel squares, but also peasants driving horse-drawn carriages, old hags on street corners wearing bright colored folk shawls, and roads that turn to dirt as soon as you leave the old city surrounded by massive 16th c. walls. The Communists despised places like Sibiu, letting them rot, and development has only gathered steam in Romania in the past seven or eight years – so what you see is pretty much what you get – this is exactly what Sibiu looked like in the 1940s, and that didn’t look so different than it did in the 1840s, or even the 1740s for that matter.

Sibiu/Hermannstadt is another “Saxon” town, founded by German merchants and adventurers in the 1200s to safeguard the eastern borders of Christendom. Every schoolchild in 17th century Europe knew of Hermannstadt as the famous “last town” on Europe. To the East, the mystical and autocratic Russians, to the South, the blood-thirsty Turks. It was the last town on the pan-European postal routes and to send a message any further, one was at the mercy of whatever barbaric horde lay east of the Sibiu city walls.

The current incarnation of the cityscape is a result of Sibiu’s envelopment into the Hapsburg fold. Sent from Vienna to become governor of Transylvania, Samuel von Bruckenthal and his descendants are responsible for competently developing Sibiu into a prosperous and attractive city in an otherwise impoverished and peripheral province. Sibiu remained capital of Austrian Transylvania until 1918, at which point it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Romania. The history is undeniably alluring but I didn’t have such a great day in Sibiu, partly because I came to Sibiu anticipating a great deal more to do than is actually available. Sibiu has been named the 2007 European Capital of Culture, in hindsight, it appears as if this would be like awarding Rochester the Olympic Games. To be named the European Capital of Culture is an enormously big deal and mega-bucks are awarded to develop attractions and cultural events to draw tourists to the city. With a cityscape as authentic as any I’ve seen, Sibiu has enormous tourism potential, perhaps more so than any other city I’ve visited on this trip. But Sibiu just isn’t there yet – a European Capital of Culture needs to be able to hold visitors at least for one day, if not a whole weekend, and I was scrounging for things to do after just several hours. After taking a quick tour of the Upper and Lower towns, the former German/Hungarian and Romanian quarters respectively, I visited the town’s main attraction, the Brukenthal Gallery, houses in the former Austrian governor’s mansion. The museum has some very fine pieces for being in such an out of the way place, as well as a variety of portraits and Ottoman rugs. I should have spent more time in the museum, but I was distracted by two giggling Romanian schoolgirls who followed me through the museum (and even outside onto the square). Afterwards, I spent some town watching a film shot – I know its almost too obvious, but it really did look like Dracula – everyone dressed up in late 19th century costumes, the star a dashing young man in a long black cape wearing sunglasses being driven through town on a carriage. Maybe I just thought it was Dracula because all of the Gypsy children watching kept shouting, “Dracula! Dracula!”

The art collection is the only museum in this capital of culture worth even five minutes. The other two museums, the History Museum and the Pharmaceutical Museum were overpriced (at 3 lei for a student tariff) and pretty pathetic. They were charging 12 lei as a normal admission, putting it out of reach for all but the elite Romanians. Sibiu is charging Capital of Culture prices for a town that doesn’t seem ready to play such a host. Fortunately the 15th c. clock tower, one of the center’s most picturesque spires, was only 1 leu and the best place to take photos of the city. The main road of the center is named Nicholae Balcescu, like a million others in Romania. I found out from the tour guide at the House of Parliament that Balcescu was the leader of the 1848 Revolution in Wallachia. Its your average Romanian high-street, every other storefront is a travel agency advertising discount bus fares to western Europe, Romanians can’t seem to want to get away fast enough. I went to an Internet café, found the bus station to see the schedules, and just loitered like a local. There isn’t a lot to do in Sibiu, two or three souvenir stores, a bookshop, a handful of restaurants and cafes, but not enough to keep a demanding person such as myself occupied.

The hostel is German-city, there is even an old man, a Saxon himself, who has been regaling the other German backpackers with tales of times gone by. After a dinner of 2 slices of pizza I realized that even though I kept mentally comparing prices to Bulgaria, Romania was still pretty cheap and that I better start taking advantage of it. So I went to a café where Sibiu’s most beautiful people drink coffee while fashion tv plays on flat-screens and a digital ticket tape displays stock quotes overhead. A fancy coffee/hot chocolate with mint and a piece of cake came to about 5 euros and I enjoyed while two gypsy children, a boy and a girl, pressed their faces against the glass, peering into this unknown world.

Sighişoara

2007-03-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

March 7, Sighişoara

On the train to Sighisoara I saw some of the famous rural culture of Romania – horse-drawn carts, tiny Gypsy villages, and a charming landscape of hills and mountains. Also on the train journey we passed through part of Szekly-land, the Hungarian enclave of Romania, and all of the train stations had the names of the towns in both Romanian and Hungarian. Sighişoara, or Schassburg in German, is another one of the Siebenburgen, and is considered to be, thanks to its compact hilltop citadel, one of the most charming and well preserved. With Albert gone I’m back in the hostel ghetto but its off-season so I have the place to myself. On the way to the Old Town I passed a Soviet war cemetery which got me thinking about how greater than expected the differences between Bulgaria and Romania are. In Bulgaria there is a dual-price system left-over from the communist days, Soviet monuments in nearly every town, and no tourists. In Romania, where I hear American as often (or more) than I do in Strasbourg, seemingly the only memory of communism (not dictatorship) are the Soviet war cemeteries that pepper the country like the American and British ones in Normandy and Flanders.

The main gate to the ancient town of Schassburg is the enormous Turnul cu Ceas, with a 1648 clock that still keeps timee. Inside the 14th century walls is a tiny urban village nearly untouched by time save for a few paint jobs. Near the clock-tower is the house where Vlad Tepes Draculea was born in 1431 – it now houses a restaurant. Sighisoara, it is true, is a German town, but it is worth remembering that the people who built this town in the 1300s and 1400s were colonizers who traveled to the end of the western world to help guard Christendom against the Turkish horde. Transylvania now might be no scarier than say Ireland, that is to say not scary at all, but even 100 years ago this region was considered to be so wild and dripping with Gothic horror that it was an obvious location in which to set “Dracula.” A favorite author of mine, H.P. Lovecraft, has as one of his major themes the plight of noble peoples who settle in an isolated region (usually settlers in colonial New England in his works) and thanks to generations of in-breeding and isolation become perverse and inward, eventually becoming primitive and barbaric while the simpler peoples who live around them continue as they have done for millennia. This is, I think, a good way to look at these Transylvanian towns, where the Germans became more German than German, where public executions and witch-burning were more prevalent than in Germany and whose architecture is more extravagantly Gothic, and then Baroque, than most western towns.

Truth be told, I was done seeing the essentials of Sighişoara after about 2 hours, but I was stuck here all day, so I set out to really scour the citadel. On the eastern end is a large covered staircase leading to the highest point of town where the main Saxon cathedral and a 1908 school lie perched. The geography of the school and the hill is such that if it was dark and you squinted a bit, you could really get your Transylvanian money’s worth. There are about 4 hotels and restaurants and three souvenir places inside the Sighisoara citadel, but putting them aside, things are pretty real and down to earth, the inhabitants seem quite poor and trash is everywhere. A similar place in Western Europe would be prettified beyond belief, but Sighisoara is an authentic experience of an ancient, historic, Transylvanian town.

Braşov

2007-03-28T05:55:00.000-07:00

March 6, Braşov

Today, a journey into the heart of Transylvania, maybe one of the most evocative names in all of geography. Our train passed through the towering and snow-capped Transylvanian Alps, a branch of the Carpathians, before we pulled into the Brasov station. We were met at the station by a woman touting her hostel, she was pleasant enough at first but it soon became too much. Fifteen minutes later, after being shown pictures of the town, of the hostel, a guestbook with glowing comments and several schematic drawings of the hostel’s location, we managed to extract ourselves for her grip and found a lovely pension not far from the bus station where Albert will catch a Eurolines bus to Strasbourg tomorrow morning.

Brasov, known as Kronstadt in German, is one of the famous Seven Cities (Siebenburgen) of the Transylvanian Saxons. German colonizers invited by the King of Hungary in the 12th century to fortify his eastern border against the Ottomans, the Saxons (actually from the Moselle and Lower Franconian regions of western Germany) quickly established themselves and dominated Transylvania economically, socially, and politically well into the 20th century. The town itself is more German than Germany, a Freiburg or Heidelburg nestled in the Carpathians, a touch better preserved and endowed with 15th and 16th c. spires and bastions right out of a Disney fairytale. On the main square is the 1495 Council House, housing a historical museum explaining a bit of the history of Transylvania but mostly in Romanian. The storefronts around the square are full of banks and fast-food joints – in other words, affluent and content.

From the center and the 15th c. Black Church, we took a cable car to the top of a neighboring hill from which there were amazing views of the town on one side and the Carpathians on the other. We took a zig-zag hike down the hill which took almost an hour through the mud and ice.

Brasov is a great place to wonder around, its very similar to Germany but has a Gothic Transylvanian touch that adds a bit of atmosphere. I found myself in a Transylvanian cemetery at dusk as mist filtered between the hundred-year old graves before walking along the bastions of the old city walls. Brasov is really nice but it is a bit strange that the nicest and main tourist attractions of Transylvania are essentially German towns – I didn’t come all the way here to see something I could visit an hour away from Strasbourg. But seeing true Romanian culture is elusive – traditional rural villages are difficult to visit and outlying areas of the towns have been replaced by gray communist housing blocks.

Bucharest

2007-03-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

A full day in Bucharest, the sixth largest city in the European Union. A good part of the morning was spent getting travel arrangements in order. The dynamism of 2007 Bucharest is in some ways superficial, and coordinating bus and train travel is still considerably more difficult than in the West. After buying a bus ticket later in the week for Strasbourg at a travel agency and tickets for Brasov tomorrow from the state rail agency, we walked to Piata Enescu / Piata Revolutenei, the most significant of Bucharest’s three main squares. Nearly all the buildings around the open space are significant. The Central Committee of the Communist Party building, where Ceaucescu made his last speech before fleeing from a rooftop helicopter, now houses the Interior Ministry. Across the street is the Royal Palace, now a few museums, and the former headquarters of the Securitate secret police. Also on Piata Enescu is the Romanian Athaeneum - built in 1888 and Romania’s most prestigious venue for classical music, it is also featured on the 5 lei bill.

After lunch we made it over to the House of the People, Bucharest’s main attraction. Built beginning in 1984 at the height of the megalomaniacal behavior of The Genius of the Carpathians, the House of the People a.k.a Palace of Parliament is the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. It is located at the far end of a Champs Elysees clone 6 meters longer than the original, and though it looks pretty big on the outside, the inside needs to be seen to be believed. It’s very palatial, but at only 30 minutes, the official visit is almost unacceptably short and we weren’t able to see the chamber where the Romanian parliament currently meets.

The center having been covered we took the metro a bit north of the center to see Bucharest’s Arcul de Triumf, built at the turn of the century to symbolize the cultural links between Romania and France. Nearby is an enormous communist wonder, built in the Stalin Gothic style, that served as the press nerve center of the People’s Republic. I didn’t go inside but instead went back to Piata Universitate to the Hotel Intercontinental to the 19th floor to get a bird’s eye view of the city as the sun went down. It got dark quickly and we wrapped things up because we have an 8:30 train tomorrow to Brasov.

Русе - Bucharest

2007-03-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

March 4, Русе - Bucharest

Today was mostly spent traveling from Varna to Bucharest, switching trains in Ruse on the southern bank of the Danube. Crossing the river into Romania, I nodded off and woke up as the train pulled into Bucharest’s Gara de Nord. Bucharest is a different world than Bulgaria. There was no doubt about it, we were definently back in Europe. Strolling down Bucharest’s mammoth boulevards and passing by numerous trendy shops and eateries, all illuminated by giant fluorescent signs, it was hard to imagine that just 25 years ago Romania was the North Korea of Europe. Now, as prices have doubled or tripled and styles seem much more in tune with western standards, the memory of Bulgaria seems bathed in a Cold War pallor.

The urban cityscape of Bucharest is of giant proportions, thanks to the “systemization” of the Ceaceascu regime. All that remains of historic Bucharest are a few dilapidated blocks, nevertheless full of character, that are nearly drowned in a sea of Soviet high-rises. Our hotel, right off Piata Unirii, in one of the only pre-modern buildings in a city subjected to the devastation of world war and the whims of a megalomaniacal dictator, is super atmospheric and our room feels as if it could be located in Dracula’s castle. Right across the street is the Princely Court, built by Vlad Tepes – inspiration for Dracula – in the 15th century and was the center of medieval Bucharest.

The monotony of Bucharest’s streets are broken by either the occasional fin-de-siecle artifice of the French style, relics from the days when Bucharest was dubbed “Paris of the East,” or 21st century skyscrapers built within the past ten years. Bucharest is changing fast, one of the kitschy communist hotels recommended by the guide has been torn down and replaced by a 250 euro a night Novotel. We walked along the city’s main north-south axis, which is broken by three major traffic circles, the Piata Revolutionei, Piata Universitate, and Piata Unirii. We went to the movies and saw an awful movie, “Smokin’ Aces” which was at least in English. Dinner was at Mickey D’s and then I watched tv for a bit before going to bed.

Варна

2007-03-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

March 3, Варна

The ride from Veliko Tarnovo was precisely 3 hours and the landscape didn’t change much as we approached the sea. I nodded off for a bit and woke up as we pulled into Varna, Bulgaria’s third-largest city and capital of the Black Sea region. The bus station was about a kilometer and a half north of the center and the walk revealed a city seemingly more affluent than Plovdiv and Sofia, perhaps because of the dollars that flow into Varna thanks to the massive package tour industry of which Varna is the epicenter. Varna has a very interesting history as an important seaport, and there are several fine buildings, restored and otherwise in the old neighborhood near the train station, but the pedestrian center is rather soul-less, as perhaps the least interesting area we’ve visited. After checking into our hotel, the Interhotel Cherno More, which is another communist beauty with 1970s furnishings and big clunky rotary phones and Russian AM radios in the rooms, and set off to explore Varna.

From the hotel we walked a few blocks north to the Archaeological Museum, which unfortunately was closed due to today being the National Holiday, the Day of Liberation which marks the 1878 signing of the Treaty of San Stefano, ending the Russo-Turkish War and securing Bulgarian independance. Later, on the news, we saw some footage of politicians making speeches in Sofia, but here in Varna there was nothing to suggest that today from any different from a normal Saturday. From the Archaeological Museum we headed down the slight incline to the Black Sea, passing rather large ruins of Roman baths and Roman “thermae.” The latter are the largest Roman ruins in Bulgaria, occupying about a block and a half and surrounded by new condo developments destined for some British retiree. Bulgaria, and Varna in particular, seem to be in the grip of a veritable development frenzy, with a real estate agency or developer on every city block catering to Europeans looking for a second home or investment. I personally feel that Bulgaria has a long way to go if it is ever to become a second Costa Brava or Cote d’Azur, not least because transportation links to western Europe remain sparse.

The ruins and the Varna train station are at the extreme southern edge of Primorski Park, which stretches 8km along the shore. Also in the area is the Bulgarian Naval Museum, closed in the inside but with some helicopters and missiles on display outside. Also on display is a submarine from the Balkan War of 1912-1913. A plaque notes that this sub torpedoed and sank a Turkish ship. This incident, notes the explanation, represents the “most glorious page” of the history of the Bulgarian Navy. Further into the park is Varna’s Monument to the Liberators, a huge stone sculpture of two soldiers, one with a pistol, the other with a grenade. We went back to the hotel and rested, then went back out for dinner at an Italian place and I had for the second night in a row a salad of shorpska, a traditional Bulgarian mix of olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, and white cheese. Dodging the hotel hookers, I stepped into the casino long enough to win back the money I lost in Plovdiv, and then went to bed after watching some tv.

Велико Търново

2007-03-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

March 2, Велико Търново - Veliko Tarnovo

Waking up around 8:30, we went back to the Aleksander Nevski church to look at the communist dechet being sold by old men in the nearby park and I bought 2 Bulgarian coins for 8 lev. Breakfast was at a spot called Onda Coffee Break with prices so outrageously expensive (3 lev for a coffee) that I was sure that it was only for foreigners and Bulgarians looking to show off and appear European. We were lucky for once and arrived at the bus station 5 minutes before the bus left for Veliko Tarnovo. During the 3 hour journey the landscape changed considerably from the somewhat parched Thracian plain to the pine-clad Balkan mountains.

Veliko Tarnovo was from the 12th to 14th centuries the capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom and was also a center of the Revival Movement. VT is also one of the major expatriate centers of Bulgaria and a number of bars and nightclubs cater to Brits enjoying time in the second homes. Walking up steps from the bus station we had lunch in a really authentic Bulgarian pit-stop, enjoying grilled chicken and coke for 4 lev a person. The Bulgarians, who enjoy lounging outside on wood furniture while drinking beer and eating grilled meat, seem a bit like the South Africans in this respect. Taking every opportunity to live the communist dream, I insisted that we check into the concrete high-rise Hotel Etar, a communist relic with East German built elevators and a surly staff that still represents a good value at 60 lev for a large room with private bathroom.

VT is situated on the sides of a narrow river gorge, the Luxembourg of Bulgaria if you will, twirling around an enormous communist monument. Walking through the center we passed more hotels and gift-shops than previously seen in Bulgaria – which gives VT the air of being a holiday destination. At the end of the main road is the entrance to the ruined fortress, the center of medieval Bulgaria. The views from the hill were pretty nice, and the tangle of ruins were evocative of the size of the medieval complex, but nothing else to make the visitor linger for more than 30 or 45 minutes. Returning through the center and passing through the Old Town with some nice traditional buildings, we made it al the way down and around to the 1985 denkmal commemorating the 800th anniversary of the Bulgarian revolt against the Byzantine Empire which led to the creation of the 2nd Bulgarian kingdom. Also notable here in VT – many, many communist cars hulking on the side streets, side by side with Benzes with German plates. Later that night I was introduced first-hand to the odd Bulgarian custom of nodding to mean no and turning from side to side to signal yes. At first it seemed as if, “yes, may I have the check please?” – “No!”

СОФИЯ

2007-03-18T04:10:00.000-07:00

March 1, Plovdiv to Sofia, СОФИЯ

In the morning, after a breakfast of coffee and Bulgarian pastries, we headed back to the Old Town to tour its cobblestone streets and look at the Revival-era architecture for which it is famous. After becoming de facto independent after the Russo-Turkish War of 1878, Bulgaria experienced a revival of national culture that had been suppressed under Ottoman rule and the outward-leaning wooden buildings of the Revival School are amongst the most well regarded artifacts from this period. The Archaeological Museum, with a very well known numismatic collection, was unfortunately closed and after a bit more wandering we said goodbye to Plovdiv and boarded a bus for the 2-hour journey to Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital.

Guarded by snow-capped Mt. Vitosha, Sofia is not in the same league as Plovdiv – it’s a full-scale city of 1.2 million. However, unlike Plovdiv, Sofia is weak in history. It was plucked out of obscurity to serve as Bulgaria’s capital mostly due to its proximity to Macedonia, over which Bulgaria started two wars with its neighbors in the first 15 years of the 20th century. In fact, a third war was already raging between Bulgaria and Serbia when things escalated elsewhere and turned into WWI – in these parts its known as the Third Balkan War. The Bulgarians aren’t very good in picking sides, they allied with Germany in both WWI and WWII, then turned coats in 1944 just in time to ensure Soviet domination for the next 45 years. It’s the reason the old-timers are a bit nervous about Bulgaria’s plunge into NATO and the EU. I was half-expecting a toy capital, a Tallinn or Ljubljana, but Sofia is very much a real city, albeit a somewhat formless and personality-less one.

Arriving at the bus station and walking south to the Place Sveta Nedalya, we found the Hotel Maya, in which we are staying in a very large room with furniture for 40 ЛЕВА. Overlooking the main square, this represents a major bargain, as hotel rooms in Sofia are, as a national capital, significantly overpriced. I’ve never used a mini-bar in my life, but with drinks only 0.70 lev, I’m being decadent. From the hotel we walked a few blocks east and soon discovered that Sofia is caught somewhere between the communist era and the 21st century. The largest buildings are the communist behemoths such as the layer-cake Communist Party headquarters, which is truly awesome and looks just like photos I’ve seen of Moscow, the Central Department Store across the street, gutted in the inside and now housing western brands with prices that would make an average Bulgarian think the world’s gone upside down, and the monstrous 1981-vintage Palace of National Culture, which is a testament to what happens when rulers aren’t accountable to anyone. Inside, which is empty except for a few ad-hoc stalls selling leather jackets and Turkish pop CDs, Albert and I wondered around a veritable museum of 1981 aesthetics – lots of wood paneling and marble. On the roof is a terrace with some of the best available views of Sofia. There are a few modern buildings, some business hotels and an Allianz skyscraper, a German insurer-banker with a particularly strong presence in Bulgaria, but its clear that Sofia could well use a scrub-down and a make-over. Seven floors of empty conference halls, shuttered cafeterias, and a plethora of signs and elevators, empty save for the wondering explorer who is reminded at every turn that they are welcomed to the “National Palace of Culture” in English, Bulgarian, and Russian and to please not smoke indoors.

The focal point of the city, Place Sveta, is just to the side of Sofia’s most prominent landmark, the Aleksander Nevski church. It is a large Orthodox cathedral built in the 1880s to honor the memory of the 200,000 Russian troops who fell in the 1878 War, ostensibly for Bulgaria – just don’t tell the Bulgarians that the war wasn’t really about them. The Bulgarians still feel as if they owe a debt of gratitude to the Russians, which is why Sofia has decided to not dismantle its Monument to the Soviet Liberators, one of the last Stalinist monuments left in a European capital. Surrounded by friezes of noble peasants, men hard at work in heavy industrial labor and handsome-faced women greeting returning soldiers is a towering column topped with three Soviet soldiers, the middle raising a rifle in triumph, as if reaching for the summit of Mt. Vitosha which looms in the distance.

After out visit to the Palace of Culture, Albert and I boarded one of Sofia’s creaky trams and rode to the end of the line, where we then switched to a bus which took us about 5 km south of the city to Studentski Grad, a communist housing project converted into the city’s student quarter. The effect was interesting, rotting high-rise apartment blocks providing the framing for new businesses such as Flavor Burger Restaurant and Xtreme Bowling. Also in Studentski Grad is the former Bulgarian Olympic Training Center, where steroid-enhanced wrestlers and weight-lifters put Bulgaria on the world sporting stage.

Back in the center for dinner, we headed to the TsKC Koop, which is one of the last restaurants dating from the Communist days still in business. Walking inside the restaurant, which has the air of an office building lobby, whisks the happy dinner back to 1982, the year in which the restaurant was established. Albert, who is not a history person, immediately remarked “this place is cold.” Indeed, the whole idea of the restaurant, it seemed, is to make the dinner, presumably some former apparatchnik, forget about the topsy-turvy years of the past two decades and instill a sense a sense of nostalgia for when good old Todor Zhikrov never let anyone forget who was really in charge – the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To help instill the effect, a two-person live band sings cheesy 1970s Bulgarian pop, a 15-page menu lists every dish under the sun even though only a handful are actually available, “service” is a punch-line, and you can be sure that at any moment someone is watching you. Ok, so tonight it was a staff wondering why in our right minds we would walk into such a place and not Security Police, but looking out of the corner of your eye and seeing someone observing you at all times certainly added to the “Communist” experience. There was only one other table dining with us in this latter-day exemplar of the Soviet model. Later, walking down the street, we passed a Sofia branch of the Happy Hour Bar and Grill, which unashamedly advertises itself as “Bulgaria’s American Restaurant.” Every table was packed and there was a line to be seated. The people have spoken.

Later that night, at what appears to be a typical Bulgarian hang-out with comfortable furniture made of dark wood, a woman came over and gave us the red and white bracelets being sold all over Plovdiv and Sofia. She told us that they were for Martinitza, a Bulgarian holiday marking the beginning of Spring and segues into the March 3 National Holiday.

ПЛОВДИВ

2007-03-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

February, Plovdiv ПЛОВДИВ

We got lucky and only had to wait about 40 minutes for a bus from Istanbul to Plovdiv. Our Turkish hotel nearly insisted that we take their car to the bus station 15 km north of the city center – otherwise, things would be “very, very, troubling.” Well, it was a pretty easy ride from the tram stop in front of the hotel to a few stops down the line where we switched to the metro and rode all the way until the Otogar, the bus station – a massive complex with buses ranging from Austria to Armenia. Although not very far from Istanbul, the ride to Plovdiv took exactly 7 hours, due to a 1.5 hour border transit. The fare, 35 New Turkish Lira, is cheap for us but expensive for Turks, so the ride was great with an onboard stewardess serving drinks and periodic snacks. The border itself was a mixed success – Turkey gave me a clear and interesting exit stamp on the passport, but Bulgaria, which until 2 months ago had a very old-fashioned, all-Cyrillic entry visa, has been replaced by the standard EU stamp, with “BG” surrounded by 12 stars and all Latin lettering.

Off the bus in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second largest city and one of the oldest cities in the world, things were immediately more relaxing and laid-back than in Turkey. We are clearly the only foreigners on the streets but no one seemed to give us a second look. Indeed, walking through the shady boulevards with 1920s buildings, I felt like I had gone back in time to the Russia of the 1940s. The atmosphere was Eastern European, but not at all grey or communist. Although Bulgaria was the most slavishly loyal of all the Soviet client states, even considering becoming an SSR itself, Plovdiv seems to have pretty quickly shed its socialist past and its Thracian and Turkish heritage is much more on display, from the several mosques that still stand to the cobble-stoned streets of the Old Town with low roofs and red tiles. The city that I have been to that reminded me the most of Plovdiv is Heraklion, in Crete.

A mix of Slavic, Greek, and Turkish influences, Bulgaria is often seen from afar as a big question mark, but out on the streets of Plovdiv, as developed and civilized as any European center, its hard to see why. Plovdiv is universally regarded as Bulgaria’s most attractive city, and it does seem livable, with a modern, restored commercial district abutting a massive tel that holds the debris of 3000 years of settlement. Roman ruins of the city of Philippolis, one of the major cities between Rome and Byzantium, peek-out from time to the tme, with the edge of a hippodrome jutting out from beneath an Ottoman mosque and a very large amphitheatre overlooking Boulevard Boris III and the Princess Hotel and Casino.

Our hotel is a bit overpriced at 40 euros for a large room overlooking a Communist monument that has been converted into a skate park, but other than accommodation, Bulgaria is one of the cheapest places in Europe. Exchange rate = 2 lev for 1 euro, which seems deceptively strong. But prices are low, doner kebab, 1 lev, a McDonalds meal, 4.50 lev, an hour at an internet café 50 stotinki (cents). Albert and I ate at a TGIF style chain restaurant and ordered extensively: 2 orders of garlic bread, chicken wings, two entrees, deserts and half liters of beer came to 27 lev total, about 7 euro a person. From the restaurant we went back to the hotel to rest a bit an then back out to walk around a bit and see a student café – local beer was 1.5 lev, not that cheap!

Basel to Istanbul

2007-03-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

February 26-27, 2007
Turns out that Monday was Carnival in Basel, which was interesting if a bit bizarre – lots of skull masks, Osama bin Ladens, Chinamen, and other outrageous and politically incorrect outfits. The whole center was packed with floats tossing graffiti and blood oranges, drunken Swiss revelry, unusual to see in a place as strait-laced as Basel. I was in Basel to get a flight to Istanbul from the Basel-Mulhouse Airport, and although the Carnival was special, it seemed to be a bit of a Swiss affair – lots of signs and banners in local Basel dialect, local grilled sausages and meats, and countless Carnival krews marching through the streets playing flutes and banging drums.

Escaping from the intensity, my classmate Albert and I took the #8 tram all the way to the end, and walked along the Rhine quays until we reached the Dreilandeck, the Three Nation’s Corner, where Switzerland, France, and Germany converge. Actually, the point is really in the middle of the river, but the marker is on a spit of land on the Swiss side at the closest dry point. Backtracking just a bit, we then crossed the Swiss-German border on foot to the town of Weil-am-Rhein – moving back and forth across the border added a few stamps to my passport. It’s a bit strange to see a real border in the heart of western Europe, but then again the Swiss are amongst the most eccentric of Europe’s peoples. I read an article before I left that suggested as its thesis that the experience of being in the midst of two world wars without actually experiencing any fighting somehow perverted the Swiss national conscience into thinking that they were somehow a “chosen” people, which would then explain Switzerland’s continued efforts to ward off the seemingly inevitable integration with the European Union.

Back in Basel, Albert and I headed to the 31st floor of the Basel Ramada Center, the tallest building in Switzerland, for drinks in a trendy bar and to watch the sunset over the city. Carnival was still raging strong even as we headed back to the train station to catch a bus to the airport.

The EasyJet flight to Istanbul’s Sabiha Gorcken Airport, on the Asian side, landed at 2:30 am, and we stayed in the airport until buses started running again at 6. The airport is about 50 km southeast of Istanbul, in Asia, and the drive to the Bosphorus revealed rows and rows of new development and office blocks in the far suburbs. The bus dropped us of right at the Bosphorus, the strait separating Europe and Asia, and from there we took an early morning ferry across the water, a spectacular 15 minute ride across continents with the rush-hour warriors. On one side, Sultanahmet and the Golden Horn, the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, on the other an impressive suspension bridge across the Bosporus and the modern hotels and office blocks clustered around Taksim Square and the “New City” of Istanbul. At the ferry terminal is a connection to a new tramway that wasn’t there 10 years ago, but which is supremely convenient in a city where transportation from point A to point B is different and urban planning haphazard.

We were able to drop our things off at the hotel but not check in, so we set out to explore old Stamboul. The Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, and the Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar – nothing much has changed but its still a pretty interesting place, if you can handle the aggressive tactics of the locals, “are you lost?”, “where are you from?”, “hello my friend!” etc. From 10-2 I slept at the hotel, not having slept the previous night. At 2 we took the new tram across the Galata Bridge and the Golden Horn to Taksim Square and Bambi Café, recommended by a Turkish student in my class as the best doner kebab in Istanbul. Delicious but hard to compare as it is in a very different style to western European kebabs. A ride in another brand-new transportation system – a funicular railway – to the tram connection and back to Sultanahmet. Unfortunately, the Hagia Sophia, an immense Byzantine basilica built in the 6th c. was closed, but the Blue Mosque, built about 1000 years later by Sultan Ahmet (Sultanahmet) is a functioning mosque and thus open.

Istanbul is more of a transitory stop than a destination, and its an exhausting place. Plus, I’ve “been there, done that,” so I didn’t knock myself out trying to see and do Istanbul in one day. Istanbul is however undoubtedly a world-class city, its location and waterways that run throughout make it attractive and exciting to look at, the streets are a bit run down by dynamic nonetheless. It has been almost exactly 10 years since I was last in Istanbul, maybe I will be back in 10 years more and see how this sprawling megapolis of 11 million people have continued to change and modernize.

For the Glory of Rome

2007-02-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

January 8, Rome

The train from Florence to Rome was about four hours on a local interregional train – Rome appeared suddenly – there wasn’t much sprawl, right from the blue-green hills of Lazio (the Italianized name of Latium) to Rome. I’m staying at a place near the main station that is a bit unusual, a little slice of Los Angeles (vegan food, yoga) in Rome. I checked in and put on my rain coat because it was raining on and off the entire afternoon. Walking south from the train station, I quickly came across the ruins of ancient Rome, punctuated by the Coliseum. The extensive Roman ruins are not quite as complete as I had hoped, what with the Roman craftsmanship and the complete Roman structures elsewhere in Europe, but I later learned that the ancient city was not ruined through time, but rather dismantled by the medieval Romans to construct their own monuments and palaces. The highlights are the Coliseum, the three triumphal arches – that as Constantine, Titus, and Septimus Severus – and the ruins of the Roman forum, the Times Square of the Roman world. The Arch of Constantine is the most recent and thus the most complete, but the most interesting is the Arch of Titus, which was constructed in commemoration of the victory over the Jews, and shows the Romans carrying off various biblical relics. Overlooking the Forum is the Palantine Hill, an aristocratic neighborhood during the time of the Republic and later the site of the Emperor’s Palace. The Palantine is a place for a guided tour because intepretation is non-existent, and although portions of the palace’s walls are pleasingly intact, some imagination is nonetheless required. The seeing was a bit unreal – hard to imagine that I was looking at the ruins of the Imperial Palace in Rome! One could spend hours wandering the ruins, but time was short, so I continued on.

Today, more than ever, I wished that I could transform myself into a large, scary black man, because on top of answering questions about directions and taking pictures, one American girl asked me to hold her purse! Like Florence, Rome is the domain of American college-aged girls 18-21. Right next door to the ancient city, and towering over much of modern Rome as well, is the Vittoriano, a late 19th century layer-cake celebrating a united Italy. Inside is another Risorgimento museum – but really more of a shrine. Like other Italian museums of a political nature, the Vittoriano is somewhat unreconstructed – lining the walls are allegories representing cities of a questionable Italian nature, Gorizia made it in, but the statute of Fiume, now the city of Rijeka in Croatia, did not. The murals are fascist art-deco – the Vittoriano reminded me of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria - nationalistic shrines in bad taste unite!

I exited through the back of the Vittoriano and found myself on the Capitoline Hill, another one of the 7 hills of ancient Rome. Nowadays it is the site of several Renaissance palaces, including one that is the Italian Senate. I searched for the ruins of the Roman Senate but could not find them. From the ancient city I walked to the modern city center, which is not nearly as large as I had imagined. Right in the middle is the Pantheon, the most well preserved Roman building in the world. The outside is best, it maintains the original Roman façade. Inside is a bit tougher, since the Pantheon was long ago turned into a church (in the 600s) so its hard to tell what, if any, of the interior decoration is Roman. Considering how it later down-poured, I would have liked to see the rain fall through the famous occulus of the dome, and become collected in the ingenious drainage system. As it were, I spent some time walking in the rain before returning to the hostel, which is nice, if a bit lesbian.

Rome – the next day
Woke up earlyish to fit in a full day of Roman sightseeing, the first stop being the Coliseum since I had admission with my combined Palantine Hill ticket. The inside was ok, but not a whole lot better than seeing it from the outside – if anything, the outide is more impressive. I bought an all-day transit pass for 4 euro and headed over to the Vatican City to see the Vatican Museums and the Basilica of Saint Peter’s. There is much evidence in Rome that reminds that Rome was ruled absolutely by the Popes for hundreds of years. All of the Roman monuments have large inscriptions with the names of the Poples, as if to say, ‘ok from now on, this Roman triumphal arch is a monument to Christianity’ and throughout the city scurry about lots of nuns, all from developing nations. At the entrance to the Vatican was a veritable gauntlet of gypsies, who have a stronger presence in Rome than anywhere I’ve previously visited. Inside the medieval walls, one enters a Monaco-esque complex of high-tech tunnels and bridges, directing museum-goers, pilgrims, et al to their proper destination. The museum was cheaper than in Italy proper – in Italy one must be a EU citizen to get a student discount and you better believe that they cheap for passport or identity chard, what with every fourth person an American studying abroad with European university card.

Entering the Vatican Museums (with a plural), is like entering the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Vatican has the best and most valuable of everything, Sumerian, Egyptian, Roman, and Renaissance. Walking down the halls lined with brand-new looking Roman sculpture, its easy to forget that they are actually real, since they are so much better than anything I’d seen before. But before long I had become desensitized, what would be the pride and joy of a museum elsewhere s just another piece of junk taking up space on the shelves here in the Vatican. The museums are huge and its necessary to keep moving to get through it in one piece, from Etruscans to Ethnography. You can wander around almost indefinently, but the Vactican Museum is almost too good. At the end everyone converges at the Sistine Chapel, which was very different than my from my imagination and more bombastic than beautiful. From the museum I walked to St. Peter’s, but outside the Vatican walls, tourists are not allowed to wander through the world’s smallest sovereign state without official business. St. Peter’s, what can I say, its big and its impressive. Everything inside is on such a grand scale its as if it was built by giants from another planet, but while it is powerful and imperial, it is not particularly graceful and exudes power and wealth but not the sense of peace and spiritual harmony that I find graces the earlier cathedrals of northern Europe. The exception to this is Michaelangelo’s Pieta, which stands enclosed by glass near the entrance. There is not a whole lot to do in the Vatican, you can go up to the Dome for 4 euros, which I didn’t do but wish I did, and I went underneath the Basilica to the tombs of the Popes and the place where St. Peter’s bones supposedly lie.

Moving at a brisk pace, I crossed the Tiber by foot, not a particularly impressive river, and caught a bus on Corso Vittorio Emmanuelle back to Termini, where I hopped on a metro to EUR. The district known as EUR, Exposizione Universale di Roma, was built for the 1942 World’s Fair that never happened, and was intended by Mussolini as a piece of urban planning that was demonstrate to the world that triumphs of Fascism. As such, it is an entire neighborhood constructed in the 1930s Italian Fascist style – a mixture of typical authoritarian neo-classicism and evocations of a Second Roman Empire that was never to be. The place is very interesting, it is today one of Rome’s major off-center business centers, similar in concept to Paris’s La Defense, and is one of Rome’s more desirable places to live and work. The coolest and most famous building was intended for the Pavilion for Italian Civilization and is known as the Square Coliseum. Imagine how a skyscraper designed and built by the ancient Romans would have looked like, had they had the capacity.

I spent a while walking around EUR, savoring its unique fascist World of Tomorrow ambience, before heading back into town to clean up with the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain, not far from each other. The Spanish Steps were nice, even if I am a bit mystified as to the origin of their fame, but the surrounding neighborhood, extending to the Trevi Fountain, is beautiful, very 18th century style with many upscale stores and shops. It was at this point when I began to “get” Rome, and from that moment on, Rome became a favorite destination on the trip. Rome has so much to see and to do without feeling like a tourist trap like Venice and Florence. I walked past Piazza Colonna, marked with a triumphal column built by Hadrian. Piazza Colonna is the center of the Italian government, and I walked into the Chamber of Deputies to ask if tours were available and was told that tours are only given the first Sunday of the month. I suppose there is not much demand, but even the parliament of Namibia has daily tours, so I’m not sympathetic to the Italians. The Trevi Fountain impressed me even though I thought it couldn't be impressed by a fountain - casinos everywhere owe it a debt of artistic inspiration.

That night I went out with some people from the hostel and returned very late.
I used the next day as a day of rest, after 15 days of traveling and a big night out I was tired and felt that I deserved it. I did go out for an afternoon walk, revisiting the Pantheon and wondering around the Centro Storico, visiting some churches and having a mediocre meal in honor of my last night in Italy. That night at the hostel I played scrabble with an Australian named Roger and won and went to bed moderately late. The next morning I just had a few hours so I revisited the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Museum, which houses incredible Roman sculpture such as a full equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius and fragments from the Colossus of Constantine. The last thing I did before heading to the Ryanair bus stop was to climb to the terrace of the Vittoriano, where Benito used to make his speeches to rally the masses.

The home journey was a snap, Rome to Baden-Baden, only 10 euro, really, then Offenburg for a kebab and home sweet home. At the Offenburg station there was a band playing as I got off the train, which made me feel like I was getting a hero’s welcome. And I should, 16 days, 7 countries, and only 1000 euros.

Florence

2007-02-21T11:47:00.000-08:00

January 6-7, Florence

I took a high-speed Eurostar train from Bologna to Florence, high speed being a relative term. Like Venice, Florence is a bit of a museum city, the real Firenze is buried under layers of souvenir stalls and tacky tourism gimmicks. But while there are plenty of tourists in Florence, with the French and the Americans comprising the two largest contingents, there are enough locals around the dilute the crowds a bit and prevent the place from feeling like a theme park. Unlike Venice, Florence looks and feels very much like a real town. Florence is a handsome place, with houses in various shades of yellow, orange, and tan, but unlike Venice, where the sights are secondary to just walking around and enjoying the unique feeling of the cityscape, the magic of Florence is very much contained within the walls of its galleries and museums. The millions of tourists don’t come to Tuscany to walk Florence’s streets and mill in its piazzas, which are good, but not great. They come to view the world famous ART inside the walls. I wasn’t overly excited about seeing the Renaissance art in Florence – and that’s just about all there is to do here, but I lined up outside the Uffizi anyway. The wait was about 2 hours to get in, the longest I’ve ever waited to get into a museum, and to my great surprise, was worth it. In line I met Sebastian, a young Australian who is traveling and staying at the same hostel as me, and right in front of us were two American girls, also at the hostel.

The pieces of art contained in the Uffizi are extremely beautiful, the really need to be seen to be believed. My favorite pieces were right at the beginning, Florentine art from the early Renaissance, late 15th century artists such as Botticelli (whose “Birth of Venus” is probably the single most famous piece in the collection) and Fillipo Lippi. By the end, the Baroque paintings, more stern with lots of black and dark reds, lack the grace and beauty of the earlier pieces. I was hoping to see all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the Uffizi, but the most famous works are purposely spread out amongst many museums, so seeing them all ends up becoming quite expensive. The only other art museum I went to in Florence was the Palazzo Pitta, which contains the Palatine Gallery, with some Raphael’s, and the Museum of Modern Art, which was actually 18th and 19th century art and quite interesting, lots of painting of the unification wars and of Italian life at the turn of the century.

Florence has been a bit of a change from my normal style, I’ve been here a leisurely three days and spent some time hanging out with people from the hostel. I don’t think Florence is particularly great, but I’ve come to see that Italian towns look similar, so no need to go off to Siena or Pisa when I’m already here and cheap internet abounds (1.50/hour) Aside from the museum admission prices, which hover around 10 euros, Florence is surprisingly affordable, although I am still of the distinct impression that Italians will rip you off anyway they can – like giving you the largest gelato unless you specifically specify otherwise, or charging different prices to different people at different times.

Republic of San Marino

2007-02-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

January 5, San Marino

The hotel in Rimini was a great bargain, Rimini dies in the winter, so whatever hotels stay open are thirsty for visitors. I woke up and enjoyed a delicious breakfast, and walked to the train station to catch my “Internazionale” bus to San Marino. The bus took us inland through the Rimini suburbs, passing a magnificent Roman arch along the way, and before I knew it, we were within the borders of the Republic of San Marino. I was a bit surprised by this because I thought that San Marino was basically one town – I was wrong, San Marino has several villages and a good chunk of countryside. Consulting Wikipedia, I later learned that San Marino is still small as far as European micro-states go. Weighing in at 60 square kilometers, it is about 60 times larger than Monaco, but less than half the size of Liechtenstein. And it is dwarfed by Andorra, the heavyweight champion. As far as population, San Marino, Monaco, and Liechtenstein are roughly the same, with about 30,000 inhabitants – Andorra has at least twice that, the Vatican barely weighs in.

The bus climbed higher and higher, finally reaching the top of Mt. Titano and the capital of the Republic of San Marino, the city of San Marino. San Marino is a much less exciting place than Monaco, it makes Monte Carlo look like the Big Apple. The only thing remotely interesting about San Marino is the obvious – its status as an independent state, member of the U.N. and everything. So, the next few hours I spent here were pursued barking up this tree. The first thing I did was visit the tourist office, where I purchased a tourist visa for 2.50. Completely unnecessary, but it allowed me to receive a San Marino stamp in my passport. I then visited the numismatic shop, where I purchased San Marino euro coins. Lastly, I stopped in the post office, where I purchased San Marino stamps, although it looks like I’m the only person to have them cancelled since April 5, 2006.

The streets of San Marino are wall to wall with tshoscke shops, selling San Marino themed junk, swords, and duty-free booze and cigarettes. The most fetching thing about San Marino are the views of the surrounding countryside – the city is perched at the top of a mountain, and the panoramic views of the Republic are beautiful. Next, I visited the State Museum of the Republic of San Marino and learned a bit about its history. It was founded in 301 AD by a Christian fleeing Roman persecution, and calls itself the oldest existing republic in the world – this may be true. The most dramatic episode in its history occurred in 1740, when under the orders of the Bishop of Romagna, Papal troops occupied the territory. Eleventh-hour protests and pleas to Pope Clement reversed this action and the Cardinal was severely reprimanded. The most significant painting in the collection depicts an allegory of this event. On the ground floor is a Sammarinese (adjective of San Marino) coin collection; the 1930s series is stunning. I checked ebay – very, very, expensive.

With the same ticket I was able to enter the Government Palace, the seat of San Marino’s sovereignty. The streets outside were clogged with Italian daytrippers, but the Palace was empty. As soon as I walked in, several men walked past me and the forest-green clad soldier held the door open for them and gave them a stiff salute – they were ministers of the government. Inside the palace I saw official audience chambers, and the room where the Parliament meets. Above the chamber is a large painting of Marinus, the father of San Marino, imparting the gifts of freedom and justice. I’m convinced that San Marino must have been the model for Leonard Wibberly’s famous novel “The Mouse that Roared” – Sammarinese soldiers are still equipped with 16th century crossbows, the head of state is called the “Captain Regent,” and the two political parties are not the socialists and the conservatives, but merely the Reds and the Blacks.

Having taken care of all my business, I hopped on the next bus to Rimini, where I boarded a train to Bologna, and then Florence. So, how does San Marino compare to Monaco? Well, San Marino does have a leg up in the aspect that it actually has some territory, but that’s about it. Monaco is rich, Monaco is big business, and that means that Monaco is taken seriously. Both have all the trappings of a state, San Marino has a television network that I watched from my hotel in Rimini, I assume Monaco has the same. Monaco has an international calling code, San Marino does not. All in all, it’s a close match but I’d go with Monaco, since it is more well-known and they seem to flex their sovereignty a bit more. Oh, I just found out that the reason I saw so many stores selling weapons is because all of the guns and weapons that are illegal in Italy are legal in San Marino.

The Mosaics of Ravenna

2007-02-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

Trains move slow in Italy so I was obliged to wake up at 6:45 am again to catch a 7:30 train to Ravenna, arriving around 10:15. The journey took us out of the Veneto and into Emilia-Romagna, formerly part of the Papal States. Ravenna, on the Adriatic about halfway from Venice to Rimini, has spent the last thousand years or so as a backwater. Even during the Renaissance, Ravenna was a bit of a dump – Dante came here to write his Divine Comedy because he knew no one would follow him here after being kicked out of Florence, and Lord Byron went slumming here. Today, modern Ravenna is about as unremarkable place as any. But while it may not have a cinematic atmosphere, Ravenna holds treasures utterly unlike anything else in Italy.

Ravenna was an important Roman town, and in 402 AD, the Emperor Honorius moved the capital of the Western Roman Empire here from Milan (Rome itself had long since fallen to the barbarians). In 476, the Roman Empire ceased to exist with the crowning of a Gothic chieftan as King of Italy, right here in Ravenna. Ravenna was recaptured by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 600s and was made capital of the Byzantine Empire’s western regions. During this 200 year span, many important churches were built, and the arts flourished in Ravenna, with the artwork inside the churches reknowned throughout the Mediterranean. The amazing there is, for whatever reason, its all still there. Like brand-new. Along side Ravenna’s modern buildings, brick structures stand inconspicuously. These buildings were built in the late 400s and early 500s AD. They are only 300 years younger than the Colisseum in Rome. And they look like completely normal, functioning buildings. Every time I pass the Strasbourg Cathedral, I marvel that a building 700 years old could still be standing. These buildings are over twice as old.

And if that wasn’t impressive enough, its inside that really makes Ravenna a world-famous destination. All of Ravenna’s late Roman and Byzantine structures are adorned with the most incredible mosaics in existence anyway, with perhaps Istanbul matching. Walking inside the Basilica of St. Vitale, Ravenna’s main site, is like walking into a church and seeing all the walls and ceilings decorated with bright cartoons. That is how colorful, how complete, and how new-looking the mosaics appear. The mosaics were completed in the 500-600s AD but they look like they were installed yesterday. They are breathtaking. I hunted down all the churches in Ravenna, gazing at the miraculous mosaics contained within. Along the way I visited the Tomb of Dante, who is buried here. How is it possible that these buildings and their precious artwork have managed to escape the passage of time? One thing is certain, its that they certainly don’t build things like they used to. Outside of the churches Ravenna is depressing, so I continued on to Rimini, one of Italy’s main holiday destinations on the Adriatic’s best beaches. From here it is an easy journey tomorrow to the hill-top Republic of San Marino.

Taste of the Balkans: Trieste and Gorizia/Nova Gorica

2007-02-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

January 3-4

Sunrise over the lagoon as the train crossed the causeway connecting Venice with the mainland. I was headed to Trieste, about 2 and a half hours east of Venice. Trieste sits at the far end of a spit of land along the Adriatic, bordered by the sea to the south and b Slovenia to the north and east. Trieste prospered in the 18th and 19th centuries as the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s main outlet to the sea. Unlike Venice, which was under Austrian stewardship but also perceived as a nation under foreign control, Trieste was considered by the Austrians to be a part of the their own country. Italians lived in Trieste and in the fishing villages that hug the coast, but further inland, the region I was now passing through with stunning views of the Julian Alps, was, like the rest the empire, mixed – with Slovenes living in the countryside while Germans predominated in the towns such as Gorizia and Ljubljana, now the capital of Slovenia. Indeed, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the region of which Trieste is the capital, has for millennia been the greeting meeting point of Latin, Germanic, and Slavic cultures.

I arrived in Trieste and quickly discovered that I had not traveled through time, as I had hoped and expected, but through space. Trieste was not the time warp to turn-of-the-century Central Europe of my imagination, but I did acutely sense that I was no longer really in Italy. During the train journey we rounded the very top of the Adriatic Sea, crossing from the Italian side to the Balkan side, and out in the bright Trieste sun, walking along the azure waters of the Adriatic Sea, it was clear that the difference between here and the famous Croatian resorts further along the coast were of degree, not type. Trieste today feels like an Italian colony outside of Italy, which is some sense, it is. Italians colonized many Dalmatian towns from the Middle Ages on, Rijeka (Fiume in Italian), Zara, Split, etc – Trieste was the largest and most important, and became the focus of an intense Italian nationalistic longing, the irrendentists, during the late 19th century. Trieste only became a definitive part of Italy, after much dispute with Yugoslavia, in 1954.

The city center of Trieste is smaller than I anticipated, its not quite as large a city as I had believed. The first thing I did was pop into the main post office, which houses in the Postal and Telegraph Museum of Mitteleuropa, a few small displays on the postal service of Trieste during the Hapsburg era. It was here that I first observed a defining trait of Trieste – it is by far the most patriotic Italian city that I have visited. This makes sense. Italians are not known for being particularly attached to their country as a whole, rather, loyalties lie mainly with the town or region. Triestines, who live in a non-Italian region, view the history of Trieste as a long but ultimately triumphal struggle to become unified Italy. Therefore, the Italian nation is their main object of identification.

The postal museum was one of the less politically correct museums I have visited in some time – amongst others, there area framed letters postmarked and delivered to “Il Duce” and several posters and postcards that spread the idea of Greater Italy, that is, an Italy that extends along both sides of the Adriatic, from Trieste all the way to Albania. These items were presented with an aura of grave solemnity and respect.
I criss-crossed Trieste, trying to cover as much ground as possible, stopping or lunch at a traditional Trieste restaurant – German food. This is the biggest beer drinking region of Italy. After lunch I climbed to the castle, saw some Roman ruins at the top (they are everywhere in Italy, practically a nuisance) and hopped on a public bus to Trieste’s star attraction, Castle Miramare.

Castle Miramare, situated dramatically overlooking a cliff, was constructed between 1856-1859 as the principal residence of Archduke Maximilian of Hapsburg-Lorraine, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef (or, as he is called around these parts, Francesco Guiseppe). Like his contemporary Ludwig II of Bavaria, Max was a Romantic and tragic figure, this combination being very popular in the mid 19th century. His two great loves, apart from his wife Charlotte of Belgium, was nature and the sea, and at Miramare he constructed a sanctuary that would allow him access to both. The palace is very tastefully furnished, an elegant 19th c. aristocratic mansion that combined Italian and Germanic artistic traditions, along with generous portions of neo-Baroque (for the Italian-themed rooms) and neo-Gothic for the German bits. The throne room, decorated with dozens of portraits of his Hapsburg ancestors, looks like an over-sized Bavarian hunting lodge. Maximilian left Miramare in 1864, setting sail for Mexico, where, supported by his brother and Napoleon III, he was crowned Emperor. His reign, and his life, ended three years later in front of a Queretaro firing squad, while his wife died in a Belgian insane asylum in 1927. The second floor of the castle is furnished in art-deco 1930s style, these chambers being the living quarters of the Duke of Aosta and his family, who lived here from 1930-1937. An archetypical dashing 1930s explorer/adventurer/aristocrat, Aosta was appointed in 1937 as Viceroy of Italian East Africa and Ethiopia and died in Kenya in 1942 of tuberculosis, a British prisoner. Highlights of the second floor include full-length portraits of the Duke’s uncle, King Vittorio Emmanuelle III and his wife, as well as a series of maps celebrating the New Roman Empire in northern and eastern Africa.

It was nearly dark, but I wanted to squeeze in one last adventure, so I boarded a
train to Gorizia, on the Slovenian border, arriving 50 minutes later. Gorizia was an Austrian resort town, known as the Austrian Nice. In 1947, the newly demarcated Italian-Yugloslav border cut directly through the center of town. Italy got most of the good stuff, Tito took was he could get and built Nova Gorica (New Gorizia) on the other side. Since 2004, the barbwire that runs through one of the squares was taken down, and new piazza, christened Piazza Transalpina, was established were pedestrians are free to walk as long as they don’t try to leave the square. A formal border still exists between Italy and Slovenia.

Again, in my imagination Piazza Transalpina was a rather grand affair, in life, the Piazza, a good 40 minute walk through the suburbs from the train station, is more like a clearing in the woods. There are only two buildings, an ornate Edwardian building that is the Nova Gorica train station, and a cinder-box hotel on the Italian side. It was dark and the whole setup was a bit sinister. To “go to Slovenia” come-on is a bit of a gimmick since it is absolutely forbidden to go more than 15 or 20 feet into Slovenia, and coming all the way from Trieste, that just wasn’t good enough. Throwing caution to the wind, especially since I didn’t have my passport or any sort of identity document for that matter, I peered around the corner of the Slovenian train station, saw a dimly lit bar, and walked in. I opened the unmarked door….and was in Eastern Europe.

Slovenia is probably the richest ex-communist country, but things were much scruffier inside the bar. A bunch of pale young men were sitting on worn couches, wearing winter beanies and drinking beer. I was really in Slovenia, in every way. Reading Slovenian newspapers, talking Slovenian, looking different etc. I ordered an espresso, it cost 0.65 euro, about 2/3 the price in Italy. I didn’t sip it, I was extremely nervous. I paid and received the Holy Grail of my Slovenia mission – Slovenia euro coins. Only 3 days old, all dated 2007, the Slovenian tolar was withdrawn on Dec. 31, 2006 and replaced on January 1, 2007 with the euro. Yesterday was Jan. 3, 2007.

Leaving Slovenia, I hurriedly crossed the square and started walking back to the Gorizia train station. No sooner had a left Piazza Transalpina, an unmarked car pulled up and two Italian border guards jumped out, clearly relishing the idea of sending me back to the former Yugoslavia. I played the ignorant and stupid American, always the best move in these situations, and although I didn’t have a passport ( I showed them my student ID from Strasbourg!), I did have my train tickets showing that I had traveled from Venice to Trieste and Trieste here, which would good enough to get me off the hook. They let me go, after I assured them I would go directly back to the train station and not go back to P. Transalpina. The walk back through Gorizia was interesting, it is unmistakably Austrian. Its as if all the Austrians moved out and were replaced by Italians…actually, that’s exactly what happened. I got back to Venice around 10:15, took a very short walk and went to bed.

Venice: Day II

2007-02-10T11:32:00.000-08:00

January 2
If there was ever a place to fill up on free breakfast, it’s Venice. The first point on the agenda was to move my stuff from the 60 euro hotel to the 25 euro Hotel Marta where I made a reservation yesterday. It always feels guide to beat the guidebook, which says that hotels in Venice can’t be had under 45 euros a night. Finally, I would be able to see Venice the way it was meant to – from the water. I bought a one-day vaporetto pass for 12 euros and hoped on V.1, which zig-zags up and down the Grand Canal, all the way from the bus station to the Lido on the other side of the lagoon. Here, on the vaporetto, passing the ornate facades of the canal-facing palazzos, I felt as if I had truly made it to Venezia. Its not a very efficient mode of transport, it took nearly 45 minutes to reach the Ferrovia – train station, from St. Marks, but what a way to go. I guess building a metro is out of the question, so what other options are there? Dropping my bad in my basement cheap 25 euro room – far from being a sleazy place, the hotel has more of a hostel feel-guidebooks in the reception, young people with backpacks – I hopped back on the vaporetto to return to Piazza San Marco and see Venice’s major museums.

January 2

The first place was the Palazzo Ducale, which functioned not only as the residence of the Doge, but as Venice’s administrative and judicial center, as well as the jail. As to be expected, the Palace is dazzling, from the delicate marble ornamentation of the inner courtyard to the lavish rooms with some many 17th century paintings (there was a major fire in the 16th) that there is hardly any room for the woodwork, equally impressive. The palace itinerary weaves though the Doge’s modest apartment – the Doge was a mostly symbolic post given to people already past their peak productivity – to the various chambers where the institutions of the Republic of St. Mark’s convened. Although it called itself the Serenissima, the Most Serene, Venice was a bit of an evil empire where trials were secret and swift, executions common and public, and spying on your neighbor encouraged. “State Security” was the name of the game, and the ruthless “Council of Ten” the real brains behind the brawn, ruled Venice’s territories in mainland Italy and the eastern Mediterranean with an iron fist. St. Mark was chosen as the patron saint of Venice because Venice considered itself as the third pillar of Christendom, along with St. Peter of Rome and St. Theodore in Byzantium, although the Venetian thirst for power and wealth was even more naked than the other two Christian powers. The tour continued through the meeting room of the Great Council, Venice’s useless parliament. It is one of the biggest and grandest rooms in Europe with enormous paintings depicting Venetian military victories, especially those over archrivals Turkey and Genoa. After the armaments collection – all stamped with CX – Council of Ten – were the dungeons, connected to the main palace by the famous Bridge of Sighs.

Across the square from the Palace is another palace, constructed by Napoleon and which served as the official Hapsburg residence during Austrian control of the city for the better part of the 19th century. Inside are a number of museums, but nothing especially fetching save for a collection of maps and a large coin collection. Having done a fair bit of exploring by foot yesterday and now in possession of a boat pass, I decided to spend the afternoon exploring some of the small islands that dot the Venetian Lagoon. This adventure would take longer than anticipated, because although the islands appear to be close together on the public transport map, I found myself sitting on the boat for up to 45 minutes between islands. From St. Marks we crossed the breadth of the Venetian Lagoon to the Lido, which is the barrier between the lagoon and the Adriatic Sea and is most famous as a 19th century resort and the setting of Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice.” Switching boats onto a big ferry, the next ride was interminable, although riding through the lagoon was a bit of a nice nature excursion, I felt like I was down the Jersey Shore. Finally, a third switch at the northern tip of the Lido, Venice just a haze in the distance at this point, to the island of Burano. And the last switch to a little boat to make the final leg, just a short jump across a channel, to Torcello, my final destination.

The Venetian Lagoon was populated in the 400 and 500 Ads, as the Roman inhabitants of inland Veneto towns fled the barbarian invasions and sought refuge along the Adriatic. After some time, the villages on the two major islands banded together and formed “Venice,” electing their first Doge in the 750s. But before that happened, Torcello was the most populous and powerful island in the area, building the lagoon’s first cathedral in the 900s and reaching a zenith of 50,000 inhabitants. Art from Torcello was the first to fully synthesize the Byzantine traditions of the original inhabitants and the Western, Germanic influences of the new populations that had settled northern Italy and intermixed with the Roman/Byzantine population. This synthesis is the heart of the Venetian artistic tradition.

This history is all very interesting, but in life, Torcello was a complete dump, the 80 or so inhabitants complete hicks, the church wanted 6 euro to enter and view the art, another 3 to go to the top of the bell tower. And even here, in the most remote outpost of Venice, which took me nearly 2 hours to reach by boat, the place was crawling with tourists. I left Torcello on the next boat. Back on Burano things were a bit better. A small town, completely canalized like Venice, the houses of Burano are painted in bright pastel shades, like the Bo-Kaap neighborhood of Cape Town. And while the tourists were there, there also seemed to be some local people milling around and taking a late afternoon stroll. Burano was actually quite nice, I let one boat go by before returning to Venice.

It was dark by the time we landed in Venice, in a neighborhood I hadn’t yet visited. I took some random turns in the general direction of the hotel and something strange happened. I passed a man walking two dogs, a woman carrying groceries. On my right was a pharmacy, on my left a movie theatre. By Jove, I had actually wandered into a real neighborhood of Venice. Taking full advantage, I popped into a pizza parlor and had two slices, each fully 50 percent less than elsewhere I had seen (1.80 vs 3.50) I took another turn, and then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. I was back in Venice-land.

I just returned a few minutes ago from a stroll that revealed some more realities of local Venice life. I walked north from the hotel, to the extreme northwestern sector of Venice, called Cannareggio. I found myself in the old Jewish ghetto, where there are still a few synagogues. Venice didn’t invent the concept of locking Jews up at night, but the word “ghetto” does come from Venice. It means “foundry” in Venetian dialect – the area where the ghetto is located was once a foundry. Discretely following a Jewish man who hurried pass, secret agent skills in full form, I weaved through Cannareggio, ultimately finding myself in the workers’ quarters…oops, I mean the neighborhood where the present, few inhabitants of Venice live. They are not old buildings but modern condominium blocks. I walked into a gym and saw some men playing basketball. I wonder, are most buildings in Venice empty? Its not a smart investment to own or live in a building that is rapidly sinking into the sea, but it is strange to think that most of Venice’s buildings are empty, or inhabited in a few rooms only. Now I am ready for bed – this hotel is a real find, especially since it is so close to the train station. So I will go to Trieste tomorrow but only as a day trip. The train leaves at 7:37 am, better get to bed soon.

Venice: Day 1

2007-02-06T09:12:00.000-08:00

Venice is the one place in Italy I’ve wanted to visit since my childhood, so I was apprehensive on the train ride from Verona, as we ventured further and further into the impenetrable mists of the Adriatic marshes. The train made a stop at Venezia-Mestre, the mainland town where the majority of Venetians live and work, and then we were on the causeway, traversing the lagoon, and then, Venice. I got off the train at the ugly, purely functional station, found the exit, and then, before I went any further, I saw, from still inside the station, the near-fluorescent turquoise green water of the Grand Canal. Yes, Venice is the real deal. Crossing the Grand Canal using only one of three bridges that span Venice’s main through-fare, handily located outside of the station, I set out to explore this most unique of cities. Like everyone, I was dazzled by the phenomenon that is Venice. The maze of canals and bridges, of stunning Gothic and Renaissance churches and buildings imbued with an eastern, Byzantine design, the romance, the history – Venice is a place like no other.

I made my way to the Piazzo San Marco, the heart of the city with a commanding position over the Venetian Lagoon, and gasped at the ethereal Basilica di San Marco, utterly unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, so sumptuous, so decadent, that it might as well be from a different planet. The inside shimmers with golden frescoes nearly one thousand years old, the sanctuary and the treasury sparkles with the most priceless art and relics stolen from Constantinople in the 13th century. Venice is sinking into the sea not because of rising tides or subsiding land, but because its treasures weigh it so heavily.

Venice is really something else, but it comes with two major caveats that have effectively ended my Venetian honeymoon and pulled me back to Earth. It didn’t take long before I had the unsettling feeling that I had somehow wondering into the world’s largest theme-park. Because every person in Venice, I mean every person not serving food or behind a cash register, is a tourist. It is an entire city populated by visitors, most of the couples. I did not see one person that even remotely looked like they lived in Venice – myself, walking along, and not dragging a suitcase behind me on the perpetually wet pavement, probably came closest. This is very unsettling because every restaurant, every café, every shop, is geared exclusively to tourists. Want to find a local restaurant where the menu isn’t printed in Italian, German, and English? Forget it. After a while you start feeling that far from each souvenir shop (selling Carnavale masks) or restaurant being a separate establishments, all are merely outlets of some hypothetical Venice Park Co. This leads to my next point: if Venice is one great theme park, even if it is the greatest theme park in the world – then the prices match. Venice is shockingly expensive. One single fare on Venice’s “public” transportation, ferries called vaporetti, is 5 euros. A slice of pizza – 3.50. These things, along with the fact that a) no one lives in Venice (a paltry 64,000 permanent inhabitants) b) you can drive to Venice and park in the official Venice mega-parking lots, and c) the streets are populated exclusively by visitors, mostly British and American, add up to a sense of unreality. I am firmly convinced that Venice is not a real city at all, but a theme park, or to be more kind, a giant “living” museum. As to its quality, I will discover tomorrow when I do the main sight-seeing attractions.

Verona

2007-02-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

Verona, Dec 31, 2006 – Jan 1, 2007

I spent a few hours wondering the streets of Verona last night, New Year’s Eve, after finding the youth hostel on the bluffs across the river overlooking the town. Verona is a very attractive city in the western Veneto, near the border with Lombardy, known primarily as the setting of “Romeo and Juliet.” It is also noteworthy for its Roman amphitheatre, the third largest in existence. Verona is pretty, no doubt about it, but like many Italian places I’ve been so far, seems best suited for older people or couples with lots of money to spend on food and wine while soaking up the atmosphere, not for people like me who are actually looking for things to do and see when I go someplace. I thought about going to the main square at midnight to join in the celebrations, but didn’t feel like standing out in the cold by myself. The highlight of the night was climbing some steps near the hostel and finding myself in a tangle of ivy-covered Roman ruins that overlook the old town. It reminded me of drawings I’ve seen from the early 19th century, made by northern European travelers, of Italian ruins half-buried or overgrown with vegetation.
The next morning I spent about an hour finishing off Verona, seeing Juliet’s house (nevermind that the play is a fiction), and taking a picture of Via Cappuletta. I went to the train station and eagerly bought a ticket to Venezia-Santa Lucia Station.

Turin

2007-02-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

December 31, Turin

The youth hostel was closed in Turin, so I had stay in another sleazy hotel, a “resort” actually, but not before some street urchin attempted to pickpocket me. I wasn’t quite as tough as I’d hoped I’d be in that situation, but I didn’t let it happen, so no great loss. The hotel was run by Chinese people, which was reassuring for some strange reason.

Turin, capital of the region of Piedmont in the northwestern part of the country, is a traditional industrial and political powerhouse. Turin was the first capital of Italy from 1861-1864, and its king, the Savoy dynasty, became kings of Italy. Until WWII, the Italian flag featured the coat of Savoy – symbol of Piedmont and of Turin. Turin has an elegance, thanks to centuries of involvement with the French and Austrians, and most of the finer things from Italy come from here: Italian chocolate and coffee, Cinzano, Nutella, and Tic-Tacs are all Turinese products. Turin is also the center of the Italian automobile industry, FIAT is an acronym, like BMW, and the T stands for Torino, the Italian name for Turin. (For some reason, Italy is one of the few countries where anglicized place names are still common) Turin is an interesting place no doubt, but it is a place that requires time, but also money, to fully apprechiate, and since I have neither, I had to content myself with only the most superficial of visits. I walked north from the hotel, passing the Piazzo San Carlo and elegant arcades, reaching the main square, the Piazzo Castello. Located here is the Palazzo Royale, residence of the Savoy dynasty. The Savoys moved their capital to Turin from Chambery, now in France, in the 16th century and began constructing and expanding the town, building the Palazzo Royale amongst others. The lands of the House of Savoy was known by many names, such as the Duchy of Piedmont and the Kingdom of Sardinia, and at the height of their power controlled their ancestral homeland in the French Alps (the region still known today as “Savoy,” most of eastern Italy, including much of the French Riviera, and then most of Italy proper as well during the period of the Risorgimento.

Behind the palace is Turin’s small cathedral, home to the world famous Shroud of Turin. The actual shroud is hidden away someplace safe, like in a Swiss vault, but a large reproduction is on display in the cathedral, along with a large blowup of the famous 1898 photograph, that far from debunking the shroud, revealed that the image of Jesus is a negative, thus, the photographic negatives reveal an astonishingly detailed picture-positive not fully visible on the shroud itself. It’s really amazing and an artifact deserving of its title as most sacred relic of the Catholic Church. Heck, it even has Jesus’ bloodstains on it. No one has been able to figure out how the image was created – assuming its not of supernatural origin, its creator must have been hundreds of years ahead of his time, and it is fairly certain that the fabric itself was produced in Palestine, due to pollen analyses.

From the cathedral I walked through town, a fairly cavernous cityscape of architecturally harmonious dark orange and brown buildings, to the Palazzo Cavour, named after statesman Camillo Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont, who is largely responsible for Italy’s unification – Italy’s Bismarck. The one museum I wanted to go to, the Museo Nazionale della Risorgimento, Italy’s main Risorgimento museum housed in Italy’s first parliament, was closed. From there I passed Turin’s main landmark, the Mole Antonelliana, a large dome and spire that was originally conceived as Turin’s synagogue but now houses a cinema museum. The Mole Antonelliana is featured on Italy’s 2 eurocent coin.

Crossing the River Po, I did the now obligatory climb to the highest point, in this case the Montagne Cappuchine, to get a panoramic view of the city. Turin was at my feet, but both the city and I were towered over by the majestic snow-covered Alps. They weren’t in the distance, they were right there behind the dome of the Mole Antonelliana and the spires of the Palazzo Royale and the cathedral. Turin is the first city over the hills, a sub-alpine place, which is one of the reasons the city was so often occupied by hostile powers – with Turin, one could have an Italian base, a foothold without having to make an Alpine crossing. I thought about stopping in at one of Turin’s famous fin-de-siecle Art Nouveau cafes, maybe for some famed Turinese hot chocolate, but it was lunchtime and I didn’t want to go in and just order a drink, instead I had some foccacia from a take-away place that was mobbed with locals. I decided not to stay in Turin any longer, to bypass Milan completely, and to traverse northern Italy all the way to Verona.

Genoa

2007-02-03T08:55:00.000-08:00

December 30, Genoa/Genova

Genoa, with a smidge under 700,000 people in the city proper, is Italy’s main commercial port and has a reputation of being unattractive and seedy – an Italian on the train told me not to stay, “c’est moche” – its gross. I found Genoa to be immediately captivating. Walking along the harbor towards the Old Town, I turned into a dark alley and soon found myself in a tangled maze of crooked alleys and side-streets, the famous “carrugi” of Genoa. But while the old towns of Nice and Monaco (Marseille doesn’t really have one) were tidy some somewhat Disney-fied, Genoa’s large, sprawling, labyrinth is a veritable Italian souk – creamed with ristorantes, electronic stores selling Flashing Pope lamps, coffee bars, and tobacco shops. Every few turns and you come across a tucked away piazza, the light of day barely reaching, where a crumbling Renaissance or Baroque church stands. There is an authenticity to Genoa that is undeniable – walk further a bit up the hill to the Castello neighborhood and the streets become rough – barely paved, with lines of laundry criss-crossing lanes so narrow that a person could like down and touch both ends.

Genoa is an undiscovered place – not by modernity, but by the tourism industry looking to make a buck off the past, because its present is so rough around the edges. Not that people haven’t tried. Genoa was named in 2004 a “European Capital of Culture,” a major honor on the European level, but besides a new harbor-side aquarium and convention center, and a metro that doesn’t go anywhere, Genoa seems to have let that fish slip by. The result: when I turned a random corner into a forbidding alley and found myself face with face with an ornate 17th century church or splendid Renaissance built by one of the city’s elite families, I felt like an true explorer. The layout of the caruggi date mostly from Genoa’s true golden period in the early 14th century. After winning a decisive battle against Venice in the 1290s, Genoa rose to become the premier trading power of the eastern Mediterranean, establishing colonies and trading posts and enjoying a new monopoly on the transit of exotic goods from the east to the courts of western Europe. It was at this point that a young England adopted the flag of Genoa, a red cross on white, in the hopes of intimidating possible enemy vessels at sea. Venice succeeded Genoa in the 14th century, but a young man from Genoa named Christopher Columbus would then start a series of events that would lead to the downfall of powerful Italian maritime republics – a sort of revenge, I suppose. I came across a 16th century palazzo owned by the Spinola family, their name adorns several palatial mansions throughout the old town, and took a quick tour seeing some period art and furniture. I discovered that museum-goers in Italy are carefully escorted throughout the museum, and heaven help if you should stray from the path. I reckon that is understandable considering the trove of arts and treasures in Italian museums.

From the caruggi of the immense old city, I stopped by the Ducal Palace, home of the Doges that were elected to lead the Republic of Genoa for one, and later two, years, the cathedral, and the stock market, delineating the line from the old city to the new city, planned from the 17th century on, but mostly constructed in the mid to late 19th century. Another street that forms the intra-city border is the Via Garibaldi, formerly known as the Strado Nuovo, New Street. The Renaissance happened and Genoa’s fortunes were back on the upswing too, thanks to the capable leadership of “Imperial Admirial” Andrea Doria, who managed to stop the inter-family feuds that were tearing the city – and it’s empire – apart. Genoa was becoming wealthy again, this time thanks to financial savvy. The Genoese, amongst others, got in the habit of loaning sums of money to the Spaniards at exorbitant rates of interest, which were then used to fund wars in the Netherlands. Spain always seemed to find another South American silver mine to pay their debts, but the game couldn’t last forever. But while it did, the leading families of Genoa decided to build the exclusive neighborhood to end all exclusive neighborhoods, and the street they built, the Strado Nuovo, is two blocks wall to wall of Renaissance mansions. It’s a UNESCO WH site. One of the mansion now houses the Deutsche Bank, another is City Hall – I walked in and saw a civil marriage ceremony, it’s just like in France, with the official in his tricolor sash. Three other houses are grouped as a single museum, and together they house the highlights of the collections assembled by the Genoese elite – all the big names are there. I just can’t seem to get into art, I don’t think it is the art that bores me, but the themes. I can only look at so many different versions of Jesus. The last palace had a collection of Genovese coins, which was nice. I went to an Italian restaurant, and had the Ligurian (Genoa is the capital of the region of Liguria) speciality, pesto.

After lunch I went the Casa Mazzini, Museum of the Risorgimento. The house is the birthplace of Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the early leaders of the struggle for Italian unification. The museum chronicles the history of Genoa in this period, from 1796 to the 1860s. Genoa was strapped for cash by the 18th century and the leaders decided to abandon a long-standing policy of European neutrality and join the War of the Austrian Succession in hopes of making a fast buck. This was a very bad decision that resulted in the occupation of the city by the Austrians in 1746 and the end of the Republic of Genoa. The next century was a period of constant turmoil; Genoa was attached to Austria, France, Piedmont, and finally, Italy. The museum deals with this period through many documents, uniforms, maps, etc. – it was pretty good but mostly in Italian. People here talk to me in Italian as if they expect me to know it, even after I make it clear that I don’t. So, they just repeat what they said, just with more emphasis, but talking louder doesn’t mean I can understand. I saw a great deal of Genoa, with much walking, and the last thin I did was take an elevator up to the highest point to take pictures of the city. Now I am in Turin.

The French Riviera in 7 Hours

2007-02-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

Monaco

December 29: The French Riviera in 7 hours

A long day on the fabulous French Riviera. I was on the train to Nice by 7:20 this morning, I didn’t realize how far apart Marseille and Nice are until I began planning this tri – it was almost 10 o’clock by the time the train arrived in Nice. Nice is without a doubt the “capital” of the Cote d’Azure and is the metropolis that anchors all of those exclusive towns nearby like Cannes and St. Tropez. Right off the bat from the station I could see that Marseille and Nice are very different. Marseille is big and aggressive and very French. Nice has a much more delicate feel, the buildings have elaborate 19th century ornamentation, and the city’s green spaces look as if they are carefully attended to. There is of course one thing that explains nearly all the difference between Nice and Marseille – Nice is very, very, rich. This is the land of well-tanned old ladies walking their tiny little dogs, and men and women sporting the most expensive wrap-around shades, and of world famous hotels. I walked from the station towards the beach, ending at the famous Quai des Anglais, named after the English who discovered Nice in the mid-19th c., along with the Russians, whose prescence is still noted by several Orthodox churches. I walked along the Quai/boardwalk, admiring the water, which looked nice, but not that nice, although I guess I shouldn’t complain considering it’s the end of December. A change from my previous destinations, Nice was packed with tourists, from all over, although there seemed to be a good deal of Italian daytrippers. Here’s a surprise – Nice, and the French Riviera, did not feel as “French” as I expected. The French love and cherish their Cote d’Azure, so I half-expected Paris with palms. In fact, Nice is firmly planted in the Provencal orbit, and actually seemed more Italian than French in spots. This was especially true of the Old Town, which will have to be considered my first Italian town. Nice/Nizza was annexed in France only in 1860; prior it has been part of the House of Savoy, and before that, Genoese. Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the heroes of Italian unification, was born here, although I didn’t see any monuments to hi m. The main square and attending statue is of General Massena, revolutionary hero and for a time Napoleon’s number two.

From the Quai des Anglais, I walked past Place Massena, which was closed due to construction of a new tram system (building trams is extremely fashionable in French urban planning circles these days) and down Boulevard Jean Jaures, poking into the Ols Rown via the back entrance. Like I said earlier, the Old Town, the town that was Nice before it expanded thanks to European aristocrats and the business they brought in to become the 6th largest in France, was for its entire history a firmly Italian town, despite frequent French occupations throughout the centuries. The Old Town is nice, but I’ve been exposed to so many images and ideas of Italy in my life, I felt as if I’d almost seen it before. Inside the Old Town is basically just restaurants and souvenir stores. Traversing the Old Town, which sits at the base of Nice’s ‘rock,’ I emerged back by the water on the Quai des Etats-Unis. I took the elevator up to the top of the mountain (0.80), where a 12th c. fortress stood until razed by Louis XIV in 1706 after he captured Nice in the War of the Spanish Succession. At the top, now a park, there were splendid views of Nice, the Baie des Anges, and the old harbor. I overheard someone pointing out Elton John’s house. In the distance, sure enough, were the snow-capped Alps. The name of Nice’s departement is Alpes-Maritimes, so its not just a marketing slogan. (that's a joke, the names of all of France's departements date from 1792 and are named after geographical features)

Walking down the hill, I went back into the Old Town to find a place recommended by the guide as a good place to by the Nicoise speciality of socca – friend chickpea batter with oil and pepper. Not bad – it tasted like fried catfish without the fish. Walking around a bit more, but feeling that I got the idea of Nice without spending any more money, I went back to the station and bought a ticket to Monaco. Time elapsed: 3 hours, 10 minutes.

Monaco:

Monaco is a strange place indeed. The ride from Nice was less than 20 minutes, and the Monaco station is a big, lighted underground tunnel, which makes you feel like you are entering the underground lair of some James Bond villain, and the announcements are in French and English, so you know right away that you’re not in France anymore. In fact, the whole place seems a bit like an underground lair, since you don’t really walk around in Monaco, but use a system of connecting elevators and tunnels. I emerged from the station in La Condamine, one of the Principality of Monaco’s six districts (the most two famous being Monte Carlo and Monaco-Ville, the capital).

I soon discovered that you can’t really walk around Monaco like a normal town. I always wondered how a Formula One Grand Prix race could be held in what I imagined were twisty little city streets. The answer is that Monaco’s roads are like miniature highways, with no sidewalks and little warning before a cycle or sports car comes screaming down at you. Monaco is strange like this, this miniature highway system, overpassing and tunneling through canyons of high-rise apartment building – Monaco is like Tokyo on the Mediterranean.

I walked along one of the lower terraces of the city-state, making observations and being amazing at the fact that yes, Monaco does look and feel like its own country, albeit a tiny one. The whole layout of the place is something out of a French bureaucrat’s nightmare, it’s too dense, the roads are too scary, the system of elevators and escalators too expensive. But Monaco is really its own country, they have their own license plates, flag, international calling code, post, money (in theory), and, their own police, who I was frightened of, because Monaco seems like the kind of place where they could lock you up for no reason and keep you there “at the Prince’s pleasure.” All the stores display a portrait of Prince Albert, who took over last year at the death of his father Rainier. So, for all of these reasons, and more, Monaco can rightly be considered a “real” country, least of all because I did not feel like I was in France.

At the eastern end of the Principality (which is really just one town, you can never not see France), is Monte Carlo, and it’s famous casino. All of the tourists seemed to be congregated here, taking pictures of themselves in front of the grand entrance. I used the bathroom inside the casino – it was the first time I’d ever seen a super-toilette I’ve heard of from Japan. I walked back from Monte Carlo along the port, passing through the horrendous Christmas Market, into La Condamine, which serves as the commercial center for the quotidian needs of Monaco’s 24,000 residents (of which only 5000 have Monegasque citizenship). Climbing stairs to the rocky outcrop of the western edge of the harbor, I made my way to Monaco-Ville, the “capital” of Monaco. This is the old city of Monaco, only a few blocks really, along with the Prince’s Palace, the Cathedral, the various “Ministries,” and the Conseil National, Monaco’s rubber-stamp parliament who lets the Prince do pretty much as he pleases. It’s a benign dictatorship though, he only really rules over 5000 people, and the Monegasques pay no taxes, not bad considering that Monaco is the richest nation on the planet. But there is a flip-side, as always. Monaco is also the most heavily policed nation on Earth. These figures might seem meaningless if you trivialize Monaco’s sovereignty, but, like I’ve written, Monaco is really its own “place”. Up in Monaco-Ville, I popped into the cathedral to see the grave of Princess Grace Kelly, which was adorned with flowers, and passed by the world-famous oceanography museum. The sun was beginning to set, I walked around, finding myself at the highest level, climbing many steps, and even crossing the border into the French town of Beausoleil. I made it back to the train station with no time to spare, catching my train to Genoa. Time elapsed: 4 hours.

Also, I went to the museum of the Palace, whose main exhibit was devoted to Napoleonic memorabilia (they even had his famous hat). But it was interesting to see some framed drawings of Monaco in the 18th and 19th centuries. Monaco was nothing, just a few houses at Monaco-Ville and the house of the Prince. Now, looking over the viewpoint to the most densely populated country in the world, where every square inch is dedicated to squeezing in a few more millionaires to live income-tax free, well, that was really amazing.

Marseille

2007-01-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

December 28

All night long I dreamed of the beautiful Mediterranean warmth that would be waiting for me in Marseilles, so I was a little bit disappointed when I stepped off the train at Marseille-St. Charles and wasn’t blasted in the face with a rush of hot air, like if I had stepped off a plane in some equatorial backwater. Actually, it was chilly on the platform. The oldest city in France, founded by Greeks c. 600 BC, Marseille expanded thanks to its role as gateway to North Africa, and especially Algeria, the jewel in the French Empire’s crown. Because of its history, Marseille has a very strong African (North and sub-Saharan) flavor, which in turn has rendered Marseille the butt of French fears and prejudices. Marseille is the city in France the French are most afraid of, and even though it is the second largest city in France, the French don’t seem too proud of it.

I found Marseille to be a big French port city, not scary, but not particularly interesting either. By far the most interesting thing about Marseille to me at the moment was its geography and climate – it’s on the Med and there are palm trees. The city itself, its very French, there may be a lot of North Africans around but the buildings and the cityscape look just like any large French city. I stepped off the train and discovered quickly that the budget hotels here are very cheap – I’m staying in a zero-star place directly across the station for 17. I was walking around all day feeling good about how cheap the room was, until this evening I approached the station from another direction and saw a hotel for 10 euros! (to call it a hotel might be much). Again, I have found it impossible to ever snap the cheapest place. I’m moving upscale for tomorrow though, I’ve made a reservation in Genoa for a 40 euro room since I won’t be arriving until 9 o’clock and Genoa is supposed to be another seedy place.

After leaving my bag at the hotel (but with my passport on me), I started on my long walk around Marseille. Walking through Parisian-like streets, perhaps a bit denser and the buildings a different color – pink and crème as opposed to Paris’ grays and blues, I came upon the Vieux Port, which was the site of the Greek settlement and is supposed to be the main tourist quarter, although I really didn’t see anything interesting. The Vieux Port is where you can catch a ferry to the Chateau d’If, the off-shore prison made famous by the Count of Monte Cristo. On the ground level, Marseille feels like Anycity, France, which is attractive and interesting, but a lot less so when you’ve been in France for a while. I took some pictures but tried to make sure they had a palm tree or something in them, so I would know right away that it was Marseille. From above however, Marseille is much more captivating. I climbed up one of Marseille’s hills to a peaceful garden, from where Marseille’s position off the sea comes into focus. But at Marseille’s highest point, from the ramparts of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de la Garde, the view is outstanding in all directions. From one side, the Vieux Port and the dense and clustered city-center, on the other side, luxury villas huddled against the sloops of the mountains until they crash into the sea. It reminded me of the view from the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town – not nearly as high up, but like Cape Town, you can see many neighborhoods and see how they follow the contours of the geograpy.

I walked back down from the Cathedral, taking off my turtle neck because it was actually getting a bit warm. I let myself get lost in Marseille, coming cross a few fountains and statues of famous Marseillaise. I walked for a while along the Rue de Rome, stopping in an internet café to make some travel arrangements. As night fell I found myself back at the Old Port, and allowed myself to get lost in the streets north of the Port before inevitably finding the station and thus my hotel. So, that’s Marseille. Marseille is probably not a terrible place to live, especially if you have money, it’s a big French city and the weather is nice. But for me, as a tourist, apart from my happiness at reaching the sea at long last, I didn’t really see anything in Marseille that I hadn’t seen before.

Lyon

2007-01-15T13:29:00.000-08:00

December 27, Lyon

The best way to convey the idea of Lyon is to simply say that it is the Chicago of France. The two cities are similar in many ways – both were the second largest cities in their respective countries until people started moving to the sun-belt, both are major centers of transport and industry that grew up with the Industrial Revolution (although different ones) and both think in their heart of hearts that they are just as good as number one, and, let’s face it, aren’t. Yet in the same way that Chicago has a down-to-earth authenticity that sometimes escapes Jewish-communist-homosexual New York, Lyon has a grit and flavor all its own that chic and self-important Paris long ago disavowed.

The city center of Lyon is not a highlight, it looks basically exactly like Paris, only smaller. Its boring and much less interesting than Paris, although it should be noted that Lyon’s center wasn’t built in imitation of Paris, but rather in the spirt if outdoing its rival. I bet that the Lyonnais thought that they could actually out-Paris Paris. The people of Lyon are very good at what they want to be good at – it was famous as a center of textiles and silk-weaving, and is the undisputed gastronomic capital of France. But as far as the tourist thing is concerned, Lyon never really seemed to get it together. For a city of 2 million people, there are few attractions and tourists. Even their marketing slogan, “Lyon – the unexpected surprise” is a bit demoralizing. Perhaps it is because a tourist city requires a certain openness on the part of the population and the Lyonnais are notoriously secretive and paranoid. This is a city full of secret passages that wind through courtyards, up and down stairs and between old buildings and narrow streets.

I arrived last night at Lyon Gare Perrache on the Presqu’ile, a spit of land between the Saone and Rhone rivers that ends at “La Confluence” – think Pittsburgh. Hmm, I see I already wrote about this, lets fast forward to this morning. My hotel was located in the Croix Rousse district, the old silk-weavers quarter. This is known as the Bohemian area, and to my surprise, actually was. We’re on a hillside and the streets zig-zag up and down with connecting staircases and secret passageways, called “traboules” and all along this narrow neighborhood are music shops and cafes and restaurants and artists’ workshops that have definetly not sold out. I had a coffee in a die-hard communist place called the “Fourmi Rouge” – the Red Ant. There were posters on the wall protesting the French neo-colonization of West Africa. Did I mention the restaurants? They area everywhere, I don’t know if I ever seen a place with so many restaurants, and even if half the myth of Lyon food is true, than they would be amazing places to eat, if only I could afford it. Le Croix Rousse is north of the center so I just kept walking down the hill until I got to the Hotel de Ville and the city-center proper. This was much less interesting than the Croix Rousse, hotels, FNAC/Virgin Megastore, banks etc., although the main place, Place Bellcour, with a large equestrian statue of Louis XIV, is ok. From the Gare Perrache I bought a one-day transit pass and headed over to the quartier de la Part-Dieu, which I wanted to see mainly because I like the name (it reminds me of “Hot Shots: Part Deux”). Part-Dieu is Lyon’s big 1970s development project, complete with a state-of-the-art TGV station, the largest mall in France, and two bona-fide skyscrapers, Swisslife and Credit Lyonnais – known locally as “le crayon” because it looks like one. All of this is, unfortunately, less interesting than it sounds.

I grabbed a sandwich in the mall and took the tram (Lyon’s main public transport is a subway) to the southern end of the Presqu’ile, to get a nice picture of the two rivers coming together. Maybe there would even be a nice park or something. Actually, La Confluence is certainly not a nice neighborhood. Like Chicago, space is not such an extreme premium like New York/Paris, and like Chicago, there are plenty of empty lots, decaying railyards, and other general industrial eye-sores. So, if you like that sort of thing, then La Confluence is your spot in Lyon. As I walked from the last tram-stop to the end, I passed about a half-kilometer of white vans. In the front sits the prostitute, who calls out while you walk by. If you like what you see, well, into the back young sir. Actually, I was hoping you could tell me where I could get a pretty photo of the river? La Confluence is also the classy neighborhood where I had the priviledge of seeing Lyon’s contribution to the classic French sport of car-burning.

Ok, now back at the commercial center, near Place Bellcour, and I’m thinking that Lyon is a pretty boring place. But as I start walking back up the hill to Croix Rousse, the real Lyon shows its colors. Maybe it’s the spirit of the canuts – the silk-weavers who are the real soul of Lyon. Radicals who founded the first insurance scheme in France and who would periodically rebel and charge down the hill, where they would be mowed down by government troops. With the slogan “Live working or die fighting,” the canuts actually seized control of the city in 1848 and held it for six months. Anyway, their hangout at Croix Rousse is charmingly ungentrified and its neat to explore the streets and alleys. For example, I randomly opened one door that was ajar, walked through a passageway, climbed a staircase, passed through a court-yard, up another spiral staircase, and out onto another street one level higher on the hill. This labrynith was constructed in the 1830s and 40s by the canuts and was used with great utility by members of the Resistance in WWII. Back at the top of Croix Rousse to pick up my bag at the hotel, I set off for the only part of central Lyon I hadn’t yet seen – the Old Town, Vielle Lyon. Lyon was capital of the Roman province of the Three Gauls, and there are impressive ruins of an amphitheatre on the eastern hills of the Saone. The town of Lyon from the medieval times until its modern expansion lie below the hill on the riverbank. I took the funicular railway to the very top of the hill and walked back down, passing the ruins, which are open and free, and skipping the Museum of Gallo-Roman Civilization, which is closed and not. Vielle Lyon cemented my judgement of Lyon as being a really cool place. Like the Croix Rousse and the Presqu’ile, Vieux Lyon isn’t show-stopping, but has unmistakable authenticity. I’ve seen plenty of quaint windy streets in the past few months, but Lyon is refreshingly real. The stores that line the twisty stone streets are cool hangouts and workshops, funky restaurants, hole in the wall dives, classic French institutions like the boulangerie and fromagerie, all connected by the same web of stairs, steps, and passageways. Like Chicago, they’re not doin’ it in Lyon for anybody’s benefit but themselves, and that makes Lyon refreshingly different.

Besançon

2007-01-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

December 26, Strasbourg to Lyon, via Besancon

Today is the start of the big trip where the primary goal will be to not spend all my money. The second goal will be to see some Italian highlights. Thirdly, this is a bit of a test-run to see how I hold up backpacking for extending periods of time. So, today, the main activity was Besancon, convieniently located about half-way between Strasbourg and Lyon. A capsule history of Besancon: capital of the Franche-Comte region, B. is one of those places where the locals really like living in Besancon because it has a “high quality of life,” codewords for boring. The Romans founded a camp at Besancon, and Julius Caesar wrote of its extraordinary defensive potential as the old city is enclosed within a perfectly rounded loop of the River Doubs. Later an Imperial city, Besancon became French in the 17th century like the rest of eastern France, and Louis XIV hired Vauban to build a massive fortress, a feat that took 20 years to complete and remains pretty much the only thing to see. Its impressive – the 300 year-old citadel looks relatively new, and was even voted best tourist attraction in Europe in 2003.

There are a bunch of museums contained inside, the interesting ones predictably closed, but the zoo was open and I saw some lions and tigers – not too shabby. Besancon then became a major clock-making destination, before that crashed in the 1970s with the advent of cheap quartz from Asia. Now, Besancon is yuppie, surprise surprise, although in a “we know we live in the middle of no-where, but we like it, especially since we are rich enough to leave whenever we want” in a New England-y sort of way. The Old City of Besancon is remarkably dull, although not unpleasant, the gray stone buildings reminded me of the old quarters of Geneva. Hmm, what else can I say about Besancon? I was a bit preoccupied, this being my first day with my big backpack and we so many exciting (and warmer) destinations to come, I feel like I may have given B. the short end of my attention span. But it was nice to go, even if there isn’t a whole lot to do, the clean mountain air of the Jura and the green hills (even in December!) made the walking brisk and exhilarating. My lungs were certainly engaged more than my brain, especially for the short but steep walk to the citadel. So, now in Lyon, failing in my quest to not spend money. The youth hostel is closed until tomorrow afternoon, but recovering quickly, I called a hotel featured in my guide and snagged a 33 euro hotel room, extremely annoying but almost certainly the cheapest hotel in Lyon I’d be able to find on such short notice. Hotels are like those graphs in math – you can approach, but never actually reach, the best deal.

Freiburg

2007-01-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

Strasbourg, December 6

2006-12-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

Mulhouse

2006-12-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

Fritz Schlumpf

December 2, Mulhouse

Today I went to Mulhouse for the afternoon, the second largest city in Alsace, just a stone’s throw away from the Swiss city of Basel. Like Metz, Mulhouse is a city where people tend to come from, not go to. Mindful of its image amongst the French as an unremarkable, industrial city, and realizing that Mulhouse will be a disappointing climax for tourists traveling south along the Alsatian wine-route, Mulhouse markets itself under the slogan “Mulhouse, the other Alsace.” In fact, Mulhouse turned out to be a much more pleasant place that I had anticipated.

Mulhouse became part of France much later than the rest of Alsace, in 1798. Prior, Mulhouse had been an independent town of the Holy Roman Empire, with close ties to Switzerland. But of course, by 1798 the H.R.E. no longer really existed except in theory, so Mulhouse was for all intents and purposes a sovereign city-state surrounded by French territory, not a problem for the absolutists of the ancien regime, but completely unacceptable to the Republican radicals now in control in Paris. In an attempt to starve the city in submission, the French launched a complete trade embargo on Mulhouse. It took 7 years (I guess economic sanctions were no more effective back then as they are now), but in the end, the city elders unanimously agreed to negotiate terms for a French take-over. It seems as if Mulhouse is still enjoying the scrub-up and renewal in conjunction with the bicentennial of the “Reunion avec la France” in 1998.

Later, Mulhouse became known as the “Manchester of France” for its prosperous textile industry and was a center of the Industrial Revolution in France. The local Peugeot plant is still the largest employer in Alsace. After spending a few minutes wandering around the historical center, completely post-war and very small for a city of Mulhouse’s size, I took the new tram to the Cite de l’Automobile, also known locally as the Schlumpf Collection, one of the world’s most significant automobile collections with a history just as interesting as the cars themselves. The collection of over 400 cars dating from the 1890s to the 1970s was assembled secretly by reclusive Uncle Moneybags capitalist Fritz Schlumpf. When his dyed-wool company hit hard times in the latae 1970s and he was forced to lay off a large number of workers, the fired workers stormed and occupied what they thought was an empty mill-building owned by the company. Instead they found the 400 plus collection of the most expensive, luxurious, European automobiles spanning a century. And in that mill they have stayed, now owned by the French state (I don’t think Schlumpf was paying his taxes either). It’s one of France’s most popular museum destinations, and it’s not hard to see why. The majority of the cars, all in complete working order, are for the most part irreplaceable and priceless, a living monument to European auto-design. The collection is especially notable for its collection of Bughatti sportscars, assembled just down the road in Molsheim.

After the Schlumpf Collection, I went to the 31st floor of the Tour de l’Europe, which must be the tallest building in Alsace, for a drink and to watch the sunset over Mulhouse in the revolving restaurant. This was the highlight of the afternoon. Back on the ground, it was my favorite time of day, when it is still light but all the neon-signs are on, and I walked around the center taking pictures of people shopping and of the Christmas market. Mulhouse has a very warm ambience that was completely unexpected. At the central square, Place de la Reunion, I visited the Hotel de Ville and its Historical Museum, which was small but excellent, and like the Schlumpf Collection, excellently attended. But now it was dark and getting cold, the afternoon was definetly over, so I returned to the train station just in time to catch a train back to Strasbourg.