Most of my time taking the short bus trip south from Zagreb to Banja Luka was spent at the border. I did not dare to take any pictures. Close scrutiny both leaving Croatia and a few hundred yards further entering Bosnia.

There was no border here for most of the 20th century as that band-aid of a made up country, Yugoslavia held the Balkans together. Established after WWI, Yugoslavia lasted until the 1990s. But with its disintegration the old divisions and rivalries reemerged.

Historically this is a very important border, for this was the northern extent of the Turkish Ottoman occupation of Europe. Here I am visiting the remains of the Ottoman fortress on the Vrbas river in Banja Luka.

The Ottomans never made it north to Zagreb, so Croatia was part of Christendom. They use the western alphabet, and they are predominately Christians. South of this border the Ottoman empire held this area and the lands to the east for 500 years.

Today the north of Bosnia is occupied by Serbs, who use the Cyrillic alphabet and practice the Eastern Orthodox religion. Why not Muslims? Well, the Balkans are complicated.

Banja Luka is in Bosinia, but that is a nonfunctional country which has actually dissolved into three separate entities. This is now the Srpska Republic. They have their own stock exchange, and international airport (but the planes only go to Serbia).

This is really just a big country town in a very green, forested area. The city is pretty green too with lots of trees.

There is not much to see here.

But there are a number of photogenic churches.

The best way to make sense of the Balkans is to consider the major historical protagonists, the Ottomans, the Austrian Hungarian Empire (the Hapsburgs), and the Italians out of the Republic of Venice who occupied the coast and some inland areas such what is today Albania. Most local histories throughout the Balkans have these groups surging and retreating throughout the centuries.

The Serbs are a wild card. As the Ottoman empire began to decline and weaken large numbers of Serbs were able to migrate out of the Empire and into the region of Belgrade where they had dispensation from the Hapsburgs. Hence Serbia.

A serious source of animosity was the occupation of Yugoslavia during WWII by the Ustase regime, one of the nastiest groups in modern times. Originating in northern Italy they were fascists, severe racists .. and hated the Serbs. Their infamous extermination camp, Jasenovac, just over the border here in what is now Croatia murdered maybe a hundred thousand persons. Jews and Romas, but mainly Serbs, many from Banja Luka. There were no niceties like gas chambers. Taken from the work camps the victims were dispatched one on one with hatchets and knives.

The echo of the Ottoman Turks are the Bosniks, Muslim peoples who now live in the south of Bosinia. After Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990s and the Sepska Republic was established, the people of this area, supported by Serbia began to expel the Bosniks. (And the Croats). Here in Banja Luka they used explosives to destroy 16 mosques. They ran their own concentration camp for Bosniks, not really for extermination, but hundreds died. And they kept it up until NATO bombed Belgrade and Clinton partitioned Bosinia with the Dayton agreement.

Back to happier thoughts.

Since I would never suggest anyone come here except some history buff, here are some interesting (to me) peculiarities of Banja Luka.

There are a few classy and good restaurants, but the everyday food is not so good. Some kind of grilled sausages seems to be the main diet. I went to great lengths to find roasted lamb and pork and was very disappointed. If the Lecon roast pork in the Philippines is a 10 (and it is, the best in the world) this was a 1.5

There is a lot of old Communist housing, but also nice new investment.

They like fountains, throughout the city and even on roundabouts.

There are mounted police patrols.

Taxis are extremely clean. And cheap. Why can’t we have clean taxis? And as you see from these taxi drivers these people are strikingly big. Many many look six feet two and 240 pounds. With plenty of tall large women too.

If you buy firewood it is delivered on a pallet. What a good idea.

I have never seen residential electrical service where they run the wires over the rooftops.

There are Casinos and betting shops everywhere. I do not know what that means in a society but there are so many it is exceptional. Here are three on the same street corner.

American NATO troops are staying in my hotel. I did not take their pictures. Apparently, the military do not stay in tents in muddy fields these days but in the Marriott. But I am glad they are around.

If you were to think of Slovenia as the 40 years behind mirror country to Austria, then Zagreb, Capital City of Croatia, would be the Northern gateway to the Balkans, that compelling and fascinating hodgepodge of countries and cultures.

Zagreb is not big. Not sprawling over square miles like Paris or Budapest. But it has flavors of both of those cities. And since most visitors to Croatia only visit the fabulous cities on the Adriatic coast .. like Split and Dubrovnik, the city is comparatively unknown.

There is a small tourist area/restaurant/bar district around the old city center. But even here the central produce market just off the cathedral square tells me that this is still a simple, “real” city, not relying on tourists.

Today downtown Zagreb is under restoration everywhere. Beyond the normal Eastern European recovery from decades of Communist neglect there was a sharp earthquake about two years ago that damaged many of the old downtown buildings. It was bad. One of the towers of the thousand year old Cathedral came down.

The downtown has plenty of fine old buildings. Some now beautifully restored. Many still partially crumbling.

And there are a number of nice parks and lavish city squares.

Endless cafes. And restaurants, with world class food and wine offerings.

And being Europe , lots of fine to excellent groceries, delicatessens, bakeries, sweet shops, wine stores …

Overall this is a fine city. Still too much graffiti and grit, but with great potential for the future. And there are many things to appreciate for the traveler, such as: There is an amazing, modern public transport system, cars and trolleys stop for you when you are in a crosswalk, everyone speaks English and there is no dog poop. None.

So, as you can see from these pictures I did not “do” a lot this week. Get over jet lag, eat and sleep too much. Poke aroung town. Last time I was here I was more energetic and so if you want to know some more about Zagreb you might open this previous post:

Zagreb. Last stop on the Fall Balkan tour.

I am leaving here soon to travel south into a country I have never visited, Bosnia. And I intend to scout both the Slavic north and the Muslim south. Perhaps you will check out my report.

It has been a very quiet week here in Athens.   I have done all the tourist things (and blogged about them here) over the past years.

I didn’t even make it to the National Archeological museum, one of the finest in the world.  About all I accomplished was moving my belt out a notch.

Athens continues to improve every winter I visit here.  Less graffiti, new pavement, new shops and restaurants.  Generally cleaner.  Still no garden spot for a visitor though. Plenty of graffiti, grit, beggars and poverty.

But the food is exceptional.   Every where are two of my favorite dishes in the world:  whole fish, that either steamed or grilled is in my opinion the best meal that can be had.  And the tiny Mediterranean lambs, a completely different food from the gigantic gamey muttons we sell for lamb in America.  (End of tirade).

It was cool when I arrived, but 71 degrees yesterday. 

But because of the China virus thing I am cancelling any more foreign travel this winter.  Will evacuate myself tomorrow to the chilly drizzly east coast of the USA.  Where rumor has it the seafood is superb. (an old photo from files).

Thanks for coming along on this half winter.  

Here are a few misc. photos you might enjoy.  

Actually I want to start with a recommendation for my favorite Roman restaurant, the Hostaria dal 31 near the Spanish Steps, in Via Carrozze.  Angelo has been serving up authentic Roman food for 35 years.

The dishes are of excellent quality and the prices are not excessive.  His roast suckling pig.

We had an apartment with a so-so kitchen and could shop..

.. and put together a few simple plates now and again.

Otherwise here without comment are some food pictures I snapped over two weeks, for people, like my family, who can never get enough of these.

I did not eat here.

Nor buy any of these.

Thanks for coming along !

Rome.  Capital city of the Roman Empire.  For a thousand years the richest, most powerful, and most important city in the western world.

The first settlement was here on the path using a ford on the Tiber River, the first ford upstream from the sea. The city grew to encompass seven knobby hills and a marshy lowland.  The first village was on the Palatine hill, the most fashionable address during the ancient times and home to 12 Caesars.

Visitors of all kinds have travelled to Rome over the centuries.  Here are the ruins of some first century apartments.

Our own apartment was just off the foot of the Spanish Steps in an area with good restaurants, and an easy climb up to the Villa Borghese to walk away from the pressing crowds and the traffic.

The ruins of the ancient city are a must see for visitors.  The forum, the remains of the temples, the surrounding ruins.

The giant baths.

The Circus Maximus.

The Colosseum.

Some of the most famous tourist sights outside of the ancient area include the Trevi Fountain.

The Spanish Steps.

The old racetrack, now the Piazza Navona.

The Piazza del Popolo.

The Vatican.

And one of my favorites – the Pantheon.  A two-thousand-year-old concrete building that has been in constant use as a temple and then a church ever since it was constructed.  The dome is still considered an engineering marvel.

Some notable things to mention.

The ancient Romans erected these story columns to commemorate military campaign successes.  You read the column up the spiral to get the story.

After Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire there was a fashion to import these ancient Egyptian obelisks and erect them around the city.

There are so many delightful/notable things visitors can track down and here are a few of my favorites:

Nero’s aqueduct.  Michelangelo’s fountain.

Bernini’s little Elephant.

Our favorite museums are the incomparable Vatican Museums and the Etruscan museum, which I have introduced in these blogs.  The Galleria Borghese is excellent and contains some fine Bernini sculptures.

 When you choose your hotel do take into account the Villa Borghese.  Rome is very crowded and a quiet walk in the gardens of the Borghese is a welcome relief.

There are over 900 churches in Rome, mostly from 500 to a thousand years old, some quite plain and many paid for by rich European Royalty or Families to glorify themselves. The lavish marble work in the interiors is truly amazing.

It is impossible I visited the best, but without further comment, here are some church pictures to give you the idea.

It is hard to imagine visiting Rome without seeing some part of the Vatican. Separate tours include Saint Peters, the Vatican Museums, the Gardens, the catacombs.

  

This blog is an introduction to the Vatican Museums.  The Popes have been collecting artifacts here since the mid 1300s, and it is quite breathtaking in scope.   1400 rooms.  Endless artifacts and only a fraction on display.

Unfortunately these days the museum is very very crowded, which detracts from the experience.

Here are some photos help you appreciate the enormity of this collection.

Statues by the thousands.

Many other sculptures.

Maps

Tapestries

Exhibits of artifacts from other cultures, for example Assyrian, Etruscan, Egyptian.

Paintings

And the building itself.  For example here the ceiling in the Map corridor.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo is rightly revered, but the Popes invited a number of famous painters, including Raphael, to decorate ceilings and walls throughout the museum.

One can no longer take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, but I snagged these images from post cards in the gift shop to give you an idea of the paintings.

Like many people I love to visit Tuscany.  And sometimes I think that I am experiencing the echo of the Etruscan civilization coming down from nearly 3000 years ago.

For about 900 years before the Roman era, the Etruscans expanded in the Western Mediterranean, out of their core cities in the northwest parts of the Italian peninsula.  They were contemporaries of the Greeks who during the same period dominated the Eastern Mediterranean.  And over the centuries the two civilizations heavily influenced each other’s development.

The origin of the people who settled in northwest Italy and became the Etruscans is not known exactly.  What we can discern from their language is that it is quite different from the early foundation languages that became the classical European. Even now we can’t completely translate their writing.  These gold leaf tablets are similar to the Rosetta Stone in that they are a translation document from Etruscan to Phoenician. 

They were great metalworkers and artists in metal.  They controlled the largest sources of both tin and iron in the whole Mediterranean area. Their bronze work encompassed the range from weapons to household goods to personal articles.  Down to the safety pin.

These bronze mirrors, common throughout the ancient world, would have been formulated with a high tin content and when polished daily be highly reflective.

They also excelled as artists in pottery and terracotta.

The Greeks described them as decadent because their women had equal rights with men in the society. (Both the Greeks and Romans excluded women from almost everything except the home).  Etruscan women attended banquets, could go anywhere out of the home, be educated and own businesses.

All their towns were on hill tops, preferably with a river on one or two sides.  When Rome was in its infancy, the powerful Etruscan town of Veii was twelve miles away.  The little village on the Palatine hill that would become Rome was directly at the ford of the Tiber River, the first ford inland from the sea.

Somewhere in the mid-400s B.C., Syracuse defeated the Etruscans, who lost the sea power required to keep up their civilization.   On the peninsula, the Romans began to take their cities from the south and by around 250 B.C. the Etruscans’ time had ended.

Still, when you are in Tuscany and have some wild boar and beans and wine and polenta (theirs was from farro) .. and relax in the easy friendly atmosphere .. you can raise a glass to the ancient Etruscans.

All of these photos are from the excellent National Etruscan museum in Rome, housed in the 500 year old Villa Giulia.

We signed up for a tour of Pompeii. I have wanted to visit the archeological site for years.  But since the tour was from Rome we spent most of the day in a car coming and going, and the actual tour proved to be too superficial.

Still, even the little we could see was fascinating.

Pompeii was a Greek city, since the Greeks settled the coast of Italy from Naples south.  It was only a Roman city for about 250 years.  Sitting at that time right on the sea it was an important port city. 

As everyone knows it was buried under volcanic ash about 2000 years ago by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  Most of the 25,000 inhabitants escaped.

Some things that surprised me.

The city was badly damaged by an earthquake a few years before the eruption and was still being repaired when the eruption occurred.   It was buried pretty deep.  In this photo you can see the depth looking at this only partially excavated villa.

The layout of the city was surprisingly modern.  There were open spaces, municipal government buildings, judicial buildings. 

The lifestyle for the 50% that were not slaves was also pretty modern.  They had fancy houses.

Also fast food restaurants, markets, bakeries, etc.  Here are some pictures of a neighborhood bath.

Also, the city was not a dinky little village, but covered two square miles. 

There are some interior decorations still at the site but most have been taken to a museum in Naples.

Again, this is only a simple introduction.   You may want to search for more pictures and information, which can be easily accessed.

I will be posting some photos and comments from Rome soon.  Thanks for coming along.

Having persuaded CAMarchand to come spend some time in Italy we are now in an apartment in Florence, one of our favorite cities. 

This city has been acclaimed for centuries as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  Even today with Italy scrappy and backward and chaotic and overrun with tourists (and wonderful), this city is remarkable.  The entire center of Florence is a world heritage site.  But the beauty of the city is not just the great buildings and churches but the treasure of the art they contain.

Although we are living virtually in the shadow of the Duomo our neighborhood is certainly not posh.  But we are close to some nice markets and (as everywhere here) plenty of restaurants and shops. A few photos of nearby places.

There was nothing at the site of Florence before the Romans came to establish the city in the first century AD.  For the previous 900 years Tuscany was the country of the Etruscans, famous metalworkers and bean eaters.  But the Etruscan cities were all on the tops of hills for defensive reasons.  At that time the Romans were a military superpower and could build their towns where ever they pleased .. and set up their standard one-square-mile fortified city here in the valley of the Arno river. 

There were hot springs here then.  The Romans would bathe daily if they could and loved hot springs, which determined the sites of so many European cities – for example, Siena, Rome, Paris.

About 500 years ago there was a great awakening of thought in the western world which we call the Renaissance, and it mostly happened here.  So from between a bit before 1300 until a bit after 1500 this was the richest and most important city in the world.  The history of the city is truly incredible but beyond the scope of this simple blog. But it is well documented and plenty of photos of the preserved buildings and the art of Florence can be found with a search. For a nice overview I would direct you here:  wikitravel/en/Florence.

We have stayed a few times in hotels around the Piazza della Repubblica, which was the old roman forum.  And I would recommend this area as upscale and in the center of the bustle of the city.

We lived here for a summer back maybe twenty years ago while I went to Italian cooking school.  From this postcard photo .. we had an apartment just off the square you can see down river from the old bridge.   

I would recommend you not stay too close to the train station or over the river, but otherwise anywhere around the old town is good.  There are pedestrian-only areas in the old town, but it can be difficult to walk outside of that area because of the very narrow sidewalks, traffic, and the herds of tourists.  For exercise there is a great park down the river past the old walls where you can walk for quite long distances away from the congestion of the city. 

I love this old painting of the city looking upriver from where the park is today.

For me Italy is mostly about the food and the wine.   But any description I might offer would probably turn into a semi religious rant.  I will just say that there are restaurants everywhere and that even the simplest of meals can be tear-formingly delicious and even memorable.  The markets are filled with ingredients of the highest quality, bursting with flavor, to bring back to the apartment kitchen.  Even the little grocery stores are filled with excellent foods and wines.

The Tuscan countryside is picturesque with numerous interesting towns you can easily tour from Florence as a base. 

Volterra, capital of the Etruscans, is small but very interesting and has an excellent museum.   San Gimignano was a wealthy city on the ancient pilgrimage route to Rome and is famous for the peculiar tower houses and the region’s nice white wines.

Monteriggioni, a very small hilltop fortress dating from 1213, is worth a quick stop.

And Siena is a fascinating little city with a very rich history and I would highly recommend a visit.  Unfortunately, a bit gritty having never really recovered from the plague years and a sacking by the Florentines.  If you visit with CAMarchand she has a wonderful little book she constructed from days of photographing the city.

I do not pretend to know much about art, but living here it is so much around me I have to comment a bit.  First, Florence has the Uffizi, perhaps the best art gallery in the world. Then there are the churches. There are a lot of them and they are filled with art.

A renaissance art comment you might be interested in:  One of the most famous churches in the city is Santa Croce.  And one of the many paintings there is this depiction of the Last Supper painted by Gaddi in 1350. It is flood damaged but one can easily see the flat medieval faces depicted.

In 1480, just 130 years later, Ghirlandaio painted this depiction of the Last Supper in one of my favorite churches, the Chiesa di Ognissanti.  The difference is dramatic.  Ghirlandaio used plumblines to lay out the perspective to make the painting look like an extension of the hall. 

The painting depicts realistic characters dining in the double style of the medieval times. It also is filled with a very many interesting religious symbols from the middle ages, which I leave you to search if interested.

People who know art say that Michelangelo’s depiction of the Last Supper painted just before 1500, now in Milano, is the greatest.  But I still vote for Ghirlandaio because of how remarkably he set his painting to look like an extension of the dining hall of the church.

The Chiesa di Ognissanti, like all of these neighborhood churches, is in use every day.  It also contains the grave of Amerigo Vespucci, namesake of our country.

Again, CAMarchand has a book put together from a summer of photographing the churches of Florence.

Except for the art the churches are quite plain inside compared to those in Rome, where rich patrons and royalty competed to fill them with the most ornate marbles imaginable.

These churches were very plain on the outside too (raw bricks) until in the 1800s when ornate marble facades became fashionable.

There are some wonderful museums here. If you are a scientist you will enjoy the Galileo Museum. The Uffizi is amazing, but I confess that I get zoned out when facing the endless paintings.

I highly recommend the Bargello.  Filled with just enough of great (primarily) Renaissance art to understand what it was all about, and including some of the finest Renaissance sculptures.

And the building itself, a former prison, is wonderful.

And if bored you can meet some folks from the 1400s.

So, as a bonus for reading this far, photos of some remarkable things from a few church interiors:

Wood carvings from the 1400s.

Stained glass from the 1300s.

And both very old and quite new tombs of the famous:

Galileo.

Michelangelo.

Machiavelli.

Florence Nightingale.

Fermi.

Marconi.

Thanks for coming along. We will be moving down to another apartment in Rome in a while and I can check in from there. 

BRUSSELS, Capital of the European Union. 

There is a fair amount of new investment/construction going on, and some very nice areas of the city.

But Brussels is certainly not gaudy, and does not seem particularly prosperous.  It has a character more like a second tier French city, say Lyon.

This is the Capital of Belgium, complete with Palaces and government buildings.

There are a handful of gothic churches.

Founded around 900 the city was at the farthest navigable point up the river Senne.   This building is in the space of what was once an island where the city was founded. 

It is possible to track down glimples of the Senne but today it flows beneath the city.

The ground zero for the many tourists who visit Brussels is the Grand Place and the surrounding old town.

Belgium is famous for their hundreds of beers, Belgium waffles and Moules (Black Mussels).

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Just a few street pictures.

BRUGES, a world treasure.

We took a day trip over to Bruges. Why not, it is only an hour and the tickets cost less than two glasses of hot wine in the Bruges central square.

Bruges, West Capital of Flanders once was open to the sea, and was an important trading center in the middle ages.  Wealthy and urbanized the culture rivaled that of northern Italy.

Brugge is inundated with tourists because it is beautiful and unique in its degree of preservation.  Many of the city buildings from 500 to 700 years ago are still in everyday use. Without further comment here are some city photos .

We are returnng to the USA tomorrow for the holidays. But will be back on the road in January.

Thanks for coming along on this trip.