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Spent most of the week on the Isle of Skye.   Northwest Scotland. Found some fine restaurants but mostly the visit was about tramping along the bountiful hiking trails. 

We made the nice village of Portree our base. 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of tourists here in October.  I can’t imagine the place in the summer.  Some of the roads here are one lane with passing places.  And there are too many cars on them even now. 

There aren’t many trees on Skye, but the scenery is still spectacular.

 

 

 There are plenty of sheep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And peat bogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some views from the trails.  The spectacular cliffs are on the west coast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And here is a bonus picture of a cute country girl.

UnIt is the beginning of the winter travel season, and I have convinced CAMarchand to come along for a few weeks in the Scottish Highlands. Continue reading The Scottish Highlands – 1 →

Sanya is on the southern tip of Hainan Island and the southernmost point in China. It is roughly half way between Hong Kong and Hanoi Vietnam.

This place is promoted as the Hawaii of China.  I suppose the weather is similar.  They have nice beaches, hot sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palm trees, flowers, fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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But this is China.  China is crappy. It used to be crappy everywhere. Now one can find surprisingly beautiful things in China, like tiny islands in a huge sea of crappyness. Sanya city is crappy.  I am staying out at DaHongHai beach area, a mile or so from town and it is OK.

Having said those hard truthful things, let me also say: I love China.  I always feel genuinely welcome here, and over the years these people have done me a thousand kindnesses.

I live over the beach which has an endless strip of bar/restaurants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far I have only seen a few of Sanya’s diverse offerings..

The big golden pineapple mall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most expensive driving range I have ever encountered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dolphin Sports Bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of Russians come here. Not the skinny ones. So there is a lot of Russian language on the shops.

 

 

 

 

 

There are probably 20 seafood restaurants I can walk to.

My hotel is truly a pleasure.  There is no loud bar, touts, prostitutes or other BS.  Chinese families come here and there are lots of laughing children.  The staff are wonderful.

 

 

 

 

 

The don’t get many americans, Marriott platinum members or long stay guests. So I am a triple storm. Apparently I was discussed in a staff meeting where the General manager told them to do everything they could to keep me happy.  I have been upgraded to a big suite,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They gave me lots of welcome notes in English, and a little buddy to live with me..

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the special gift toothpaste !!

Drinking wine and talking with Richard the Assistant General manager, I made the mistake of telling him that his staff should only speak Mandarin Chinese with me,  so I could practice speaking.  Now I don’t know much about what is going on, and get helpful notes I cannot read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is hard to get out of the hotel. They have a large and wonderful buffet restaurant. Some stations have chefs who will wok up whatever you want. (Maybe I can show some of this next time). And they have afforded me free food and wine.  (oink) 

 

 

 

 

 

This week I am setting my alarm to get up in the middle of the night to watch the Masters Tournament.  The room has a little german machine that I can use to make pretty good coffee. I told them which kind of coffee I liked and now I have a surfeit.

 

 

 

 

 

So, although this is not paradise, I have made a good landing and am having fun with some really nice people.

More later.

 

 

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This is the end of my fall 2015 scouting tour of the Balkans. Tomorrow is the first day of winter and I am winging home for holidays in Minnesota.

There is not a lot to say about Zagreb. It is not a wealthy city. Not particularly historic. It is gritty and crumbling and there is a lot of graffiti and dog poop.

But I have enjoyed my stay here. There are lots of Museums. The Egyptian collection at the Archeological museum is surprisingly good.

The Technology museum has a very nice section on Nicholai Tesla, the genius who brought us Alternating Current, a native son. And there are nice areas of the city with shopping and restaurants and pubs.

The best thing about Zagreb is how the people who live here enjoy their city. They are walking everywhere, using the extensive tram system, enjoying the seasonal festivities, sitting outside eating sausages, drinking coffee or hot wine and smoking cigarettes.

Here are some random photos of Zagreb that speak for themselves:

 

Some Zagreb stories:

They count among their local inventions the Neck-tie and the Ball point Pen.

If you can think of one of the old sewing machines that was powered by rocking a plate with your feet… I was surprised to see in the technology museum that they were still manufacturing a version of these into the 1960’s.

 

The End

If you have looked at a post or two from this trip it may have looked like a random walk. But except for shooting up to Munich to spend time with CAMarchand I have been making a pretty methodical look around of the North East of this region.

I guess a brief summary statement is in order.

It has been a very interesting fall tour. It is easy to travel here if you don’t mind the occasional long bus ride. English is available everywhere. English music plays everywhere.

People have been kind and helpful to me.

Travelling here you are not overwhelmed with crushing population and alien-ness like in Asia.

The Balkans are a bit gritty. But they are real and certainly cost effective.

Their history is extremely long, and everywhere you look. It is both glorious in its scope and horrendous in how continuously bloody it has been.

They eat bread and meat and drink wine. So do I.

These are Europeans. I see the faces of friends and acquaintances everywhere. It makes me think that although it might be right culturally to say “I’m Irish, I’m German, I’m Hungarian, …” in the great scheme of things we are all poured out of the blender.

Best holiday wishes.  Thanks for coming along.

SPLIT

Split was to the Emperor Diocletian and the Romans what Taiwan was to Chang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang. In the late 400’s the Western Roman Empire had collapsed to just Italy and complete destruction was inevitable. Diocletian and his retinue moved to Split (within the Eastern Empire) and built a great Palace / Fortress in the harbor just south of Salona. Think four city blocks.

Today a world heritage site, and center of Split, a large city with a population around 300,000. Although the palace area has a distinct museum quality it is a lively town center with a large market and plenty of local people going about their lives.

This is, of course a very popular tourist destination. The big ferries come in and out of the harbor continuously going up and down the coast and to the offshore islands.

My friendly morning coffee concocter tells me never to come here in the summer when thousands of tourists make it impossible to walk in the narrow lanes.

Kastela

The area called Kastela is along the coast between Split and Trigor.

It has that name because a line of small towns were fortified in the 1400’s to protect against raids by the Ottomans. I went out to take a look but didn’t find much except some good immersion into the real Croatian coast.

Zadar

A very old city. To write its history it would be the entire history of this part of the world. Two guide books told me to give it a miss, and were right. There are a few historic churches there but they can be seen in an hour and a half. The city has been demolished so many times it is not so interesting today.

I did see the biggest sailboat I have ever seen. Note the small man on the dock.

Which reminds me to relate that there are boats of all sizes everywhere along the coast. Boat trips of all kinds are on offer. Charter sailing is big. There is a National Park near Zadar with 150 islands and protected sailing. There are many islands all along the coast with small towns to visit.

Other

Split is decorated for Christmas and full of families with children in the early evenings giving it a wonderful ambiance.

On Saturday I am climbing up into the park and around the stone houses in the old harbor and come back to the city and it is full with people walking and taking drinks, coffee and lunch.

On Sunday, walking back from and thinking about Salona. it is some kind of holy day and this historic church from three eras, which I come to see is busy and overflowing.

I should mention my apartment, in a Family “Palace” built in the 1300’s. It is a bit of a museum itself.

The apartment is in the walls of the old Peristil, which I look into out of my windows. The Emperor’s quarters were just behind.

He came out onto a balcony over this square to allow the populace to worship him as a god, son of Jupiter. On Sunday columns of singing priests paraded around town and through the Peristil.    So it goes.

 

Spurious comments.

• I get all my laundry done on two occasions for 7 dollars each time. Living on the road this is a major good thing.
• The fish market has little restaurants that serve up the seafood fresh from the sea.
• Styrofoam cups of hot spiced wine are 2 dollars each and should be avoided although they are delicious and comforting on chilly walks home from dinner.
• Split never stops eating, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

 

 

By bus is the way you travel on this coast.  I have been exploring travelling south and made it down to Split. I think that of all the places I have visited this fall scouting the Balkans, this area has been the most interesting.

TROGIR

From where I am standing here in Marjan Park, in Split, looking North up the coast, the gap between the island Ciovo on the left and the mainland narrows, and in that gap in around 300 BC the Greeks established Trigir.

Occupied over the years by everyone, today a World Heritage site.

SALONA

This was the Roman city just to the North of Split. I had a hard time finding the site although it sprawls over maybe 30 acres. During Roman times it had a population of up to 60,000.   Today, mined for stone, parts cleared for farming, and overgrown with Brambles only the largest of the ruins can be found. But that is still plenty. The Aqueduct, the Forum. Some walls and gates. Bases of the temples and the baths.

The city survived into the 700’s. Although by then it was occupied by the Byzantines and much of it reconfigured. The Colosseum stood intact into the 1700’s but the Venetians destroyed it for some reason having to do with a war with the Turks.

Today its ruin sits neglected between the highway and a cement plant.

I prowl around Salona for a long time and see no one else. There is no visitor’s center, no entrance fees, only two signs of explanation. Just the stones, inhabited by escargot and maybe ghosts. In one of the many many rubble piles I assemble in three minutes (and leave behind) these pottery fragments, which I would think would be treasures in some museum. I do pocket a small piece of a child’s toy as a momento.

 

 

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It is early December and the Alps are getting cold, so I have been heading south for warmer weather.

I plan to visit a few towns along the Adriatic coast, and I have started at the top of the food chain: Opatija.

About the same size as Bemidji in permanent population this is a popular tourist destination that reeks of old money.

The town only dates from the late 1800’s when the railroads opened up this coast, but it was a preferred destination for the Austrian imperial family and nobility. The emperor Franz Joseph used to spent several months here in the winter. He funded the walk along the sea and it is named after him.

The wars and political disruptions of the past century led to some crumbling and decay as the city passed through the hands of the Italians, the Yugoslavians and now Croatia. But the Grand hotels and Villas are here for the Yachties and the privileged to come and be pampered.

The mountains rise so quickly from the sea that although there are a few side streets the town is basically just the two sides of the road.

The big city of Rijeka is just across the bay.

This road continues through town after town along the coast. The further away from Opatija the more “real” and to me interesting they become.

If one had a car there are many hotels grand and humble and all between up and down the coast. There are many marinas and water related tourist trips on offer: fishing, visiting islands, submarines, etc.

There are a number of Casinos. Wellness centers and Spas offer massages, treatments and procedures. But there is not much here that interests me. Before the coast was safe enough to populate there were a number of fortified towns in the mountains nearby, first mentioned in the 1400’s. I climb up to visit them. There are the remains of a number of ancient foot paths, very elaborate with set stones, but now eroded such that they are very rough.

And very steep. It is hard to imagine people using them daily carrying trade goods and produce and commodities up and down these trails.

The towns I find are ruins with a few modern houses around and one nice church from around 1500. But I am rewarded with some good views and photo ops.

Since Cathy and I were in Vienna I have been staying in small hotels, living in monkish cloisters, and so I check myself into a 5 star hotel to get the real experience of Opatija. With so little else to say, let me share a few snaps around my hotel, which has been enjoyable.

It is right on the water in the heart of town.

I have a corner room and the morning and evening views are lovely.

There are plenty of venues to hang out in and relax.

I never made it to the coffee/sweet lounge, or the Spa. And only came through the Lounge Bar to marvel at this little man who plays away endlessly.

There are things on the breakfast buffet that I usually would not associate with breakfast fare.

And in case one might have overlooked the idea of champagne at breakfast this agent of the devil tours around the dining room to tempt the unwary onto the road to perdition.

One morning at about 9AM, walking in Volosko I encounter some of his graduates. 

I have a very long bus ride south down the coast tomorrow. If the bus is comfortable at all it should be very interesting.

Ljubljana. Capital of Slovenia. I have been here a week and am still not sure I can pronounce it.

Just south of the Alps the city lies in a valley of rivers among foothills. There is an old fortification on a hilltop that looms over the city.

The river horseshoes around the fortress hill and the old town lines both sides of the river and spreads out like a fan with the fortress as the center of the radius.

The hilltop the fortress sits on is not really dramatic like say Edinburgh crowning its glacier scoured volcanic plug. These hills are what in Kentucky we would call knobs. But it is visible from almost any location and lends a special air to the old town.

If you have been reading some of these blogs you can write most of the town history yourself. Warring, partly settled tribes. Celts, etc. Then a Roman town, Emona, notable for the number of houses with central heating, running water and a city wide sewer system. But Attila and his Huns demolished it around 450.

Situated on a trade route, all of the regional characters: the Slovenes, the Franks, the Magyars, the Slavs, the French, the Italians, the Habsburgs, etc. etc. came to take over or sack the city. The fortress on the hill belonged to everyone.

Continuing with my point that that this condition of war is continuous in the Balkan’s, since 1800 Ljubljana has been within 10 different states. They have a nice city museum to explain all this, and quoting from the city museum: “a person born here in 1913 has seen two emperors, four kings and four presidents.

The old town itself is a whopping success. Beautifully restored, plenty of shops and people everywhere day and night.

There are some rough areas with graffiti issues, but in general this is a very clean city.

Weighing in at around 300 thousand persons, the town is only about the size of say Louisville and is not only a manageable size but English is spoken everywhere. Almost all of the music in the public places is in English. The city is pricy, but nothing like Munich or Vienna, and the quality is very good. So, overall I would recommend a visit if you are planning a European itinerary. This city is, for comparison, much more interesting and enjoyable than say Prague.

There are countless restaurants. Bars line the river and they fill up at sundown.

During the day (this time of year) the bars and many little shops are selling hot wine. For about a dollar fifty a glass. I should have but could not bring myself to try one. There is a lot of cigarette smoking, but all of it outdoors.

This weekend they turned on the seasonal lights and in the early evening the city was full of families with children of all ages giving the evenings a special ambiance.

Some interesting (to me) observations:

In all of the cities I have been visiting on this trip they have been extending their pedestrian only areas and working on their nearby streets so that the amount of space for cars is greatly reduced and the sidewalks widened and bike lanes installed. I think that this really contributes to the attractiveness of the areas for people to visit. And I wish we could do more of this in our American towns.

If you live in the pedestrian areas and have a car you have a controller that will raise and lower blocking posts to allow access.

Also, this town has these nifty little electric taxis that will pick you up anywhere and take you anywhere in the downtown. A free service.

There is plenty of walking along the rivers and in large parks on the knobs.

There is also a walking trail that runs for over 20 miles completely around the city. It actually follows the route of a barbed wire fence that the Italian army constructed to imprison the city and cut down resistance activities during WWII.

There is a great central market with every kind of fast food stall imaginable and if I did not love going out to dinner so much I would eat there every day. I had a few dinners in the old town and the food and wines were excellent. In the places I tried the chefs were following either Italian training or French training, the stuff I cook, and somehow not really exotic enough for my mood.

Then I fell into the gravity well of a Serbian restaurant. These guys didn’t follow fancy culinary training, they grilled meats of all kinds and served it up with potato and beans and good wines. Rough and ready and perfect for me.

A chilling image, from the history museum.  Chilling to think of the suffering involved in this enterprise.But thank goodness the image could also be titled “Hubris before the fall”.

And on a lighter note was pleased and somewhat surprised to learn that on a Slovenian picnic the standard fare is a bottle of wine … … each !!

Leaving early tomorrow, heading south into Croatia and to the Adriatic coast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travelled very comfortably south from Vienna on the intercity (IC) train. A picturesque trip through the mountains. Stopped just over the border in Maribor, second largest city in Slovenia.

Besides three and a half hours on the train being enough, I wanted to stop here to pay homage to the oldest producing grapevine in the world, reckoned to be around 450 years old.

My guide book says that the town is “embraced in its wine growing hills”. I would have said it was squeezed between the Drava river and the foothills. Here in the early morning river mist.

But it is certainly true that the city stops and the vines begin.

In a few hours I have left Beer country and re-entered wine country.

My guide at the regional museum told me that this is one of the oldest wine growing regions in the world and that the Romans learned wine making here and took the knowledge to France, Spain, etc. The ones I tried are pretty good. Characteristically light and bright with fruit.

Surprisingly small, the city has a nice old town.

There are some very large restaurants in the old town, quiet now off season, but I expect full of tourists setting outdoors in the summer.

Unfortunately, like many towns in the world today, while the mall is crowded with shoppers

the downtown is not prospering and has too many shuttered store fronts and gritty avenues. But I am sure that summer sunshine and good low cost food and wine would gloss over much of this.

The old town is full of students, (all) night and day, providing a rollicking, lively ambiance.

They have some nice buildings,

A good regional museum in the old castle,

And a beautiful city park.

I have written more than once this fall about the turbulent and bloody history of the Balkans. Mostly about ancient armies clashing in the distant past. Surely Maribor had those, siege by the Turks, etc. etc. But this town has also endured ongoing tragedies just over the past 100 years.

This was a predominantly German city up until WWI.

But during that war the Austrian/Germans rounded up Slovenes and put them into detention. The resentment that built up prompted the Slovenes after the war to “persuade” the German population to leave the city.

Then in 1941 the Nazis swept in. I took this picture from the spot on the old bridge where Hitler stood and declared that the region would once again be German.

So throughout WWII Slovenes were rounded up for slave labor and death camps. The Nazis converted the heavy industry here into armament manufacture, and so the Allies targeted it with repeated air attacks. Maribor has the distinction of being the most bombed city in Yugoslavia.

After the war ended the Yugoslav army rounded up the collaborators, the “home guard” and their families and deposited them into mass graves around the city.

And so I really hope for those rollicking students in the old town to bring about a better future for this place.

Tomorrow I continue south to the “pint sized capital of Slovenia”: Ljubljana.

 

 

Vienna is a gorgeous city with the wealth of centuries on display.

The home of Empires: the Babenberg, the Habsburgs, the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This is the wealthiest city in the world and every year called the first or second world city with the best quality of life. From the humblest to the richest of goods for sale in the city all are top quality and top price.

The traditional European home of music and art.

The entire old town is now a UNESCO world heritage site.

Saint Steven’s Cathedral, parts dating from the 1200’s, is the symbol of the city.

Magnificent buildings, palaces, churches are literally on every corner and I could fill many blogs with pictures of them.

 

If you visit here please be sure to tour the Hofburg Castle, home to the Habsburg family for 600 years.

There are countless restaurants here, of course. Here are some fun food shots taken while walking around.  I could have shot hundreds.

A Vienna story. When the second Turkish siege of Vienna was lifted by the Polish army in 1687, the Turks left behind hundreds of bags of coffee. The enterprising Viennese used them to set up the first coffee houses. Their patrons did not like the grounds in their coffee typical of the Turkish brew and so they invented filter coffee.