Friday- Southbound

Come Friday morning and we where on the road again. This time we where on the coastal highway, on our way to Saranda. We where to spend the weekend moving along southern Albania. The aim was to see the “Greek” areas. So we passed by familiar landscape. Agricultural land as far as the eye could see. Then, at one point we reached the coastal city of Vlore. We ventured into the port, in order to find us something to eat. But, since the city is a port of entry from Italy, we did not manage to find anything that could suit us and any restaurant that was not a “tourist attraction” . So we stayed our southbound course. In the meantime the traffic was slowly becoming worse, and the roads where gradually deteriorating. After about an hour of trying to negotiate through local traffic, we finally left the city and continued moving on the coastal road to Saranda. We reached the beach where the old submarine base used to be. We stopped at a roadside fishing tavern to make our stomachs quiet down. Our instincts proved right once again and after a rich but cheap meal we where back on our way to Saranda. This time the landscape was changing. We where slowly going up the mountains. Traffic was scarce too. It was as if nobody was using this road. We would find out a little later. For the moment we where driving with the windows down, getting the mid-spring breeze on our faces. Suddenly the freeze turned into a chill, when almost midway into our mountain climb we ran into thick fog. We could see no further than 5 metres ahead of us. Instinctively the speed lowered significantly, and we where driving with the constant fear of falling of an open cliff or something like that. As we where reaching the mountaintop, the fog was beginning to clear. Meanwhile the turns where multiplying rapidly, so where the potholes and the bumps on the road. But, once again, the Touareg prove to be a valuable and loyal companion. Despite its size, it was taking turns smoothly, and we usually did not “feel” the bumps or any other anomalies on the road. As we where descending to the sea again, the road grew wider. Its sides where also filled with nationalist slogans and UCK signs. We where into the “Greek” area, and Albanian nationalists from the north (the slogans where signed by “students from Tirana” or some similarly named organisation) definately wanted to make themselves seen in the area. This was the only sign of ethnic tension we encountered throughout the whole trip, in reality. When we reached the first villages, the majority of which was dominantly greek, the picture was different. Serene, with no provocations whatsoever. After another fourty kilometres (or so) we where reaching the outskirts of Saranda. Now, everyone of you reading this blog, might have heard that Saranda is one of the most beautiful cities in Albania. This is partly misinformation. Saranda used to be o lovely town. Until the building boom destroyed it. Now it looks like Durres surrounded by hills. Few traditional pockets still survive, in the old town, but the reality is that most of the city was taken down to make way for apartment blocks and hotels. This looked like our idea, which was later confirmed by a local restauranteur . We lodged ourselves in a cheap third rate hotel and went for an afternoon nap. In the evening we converged on the balcony (which looked over the port and most of the city), had a bit of coffee and searched for a place to eat. Once again the Albanian connection worked, and this time we landed in an uber cozy restaurant, situated just over Dekko, Albania’s biggest and most exclusive summer club. The owner, as it turned out, had a long and illustrious career in the cuisine of some of Greece’s most exclusive and famous restaurants. And that was evident in the decoration of the restaurant and the luxurious plates too. It also looked like a place for a quite select clientele. A suit from the Austrian bank, one of the bigwigs as I learned from my stepfather, was expected to dine there the next day. We where dining there that evening. Our host said that Saranda used ton look like a beautiful village. But then, showing off newly gained cash from Greece, and trying to impress the tourists took over. Soon we found out that we were the sole customers in the establishment, for the whole night. It looked as if they had had it opened just for us. The answer as to why we where the sole customers came with the food, and the bill we had to pay. As it turned out, our insightful host had missed out on a couple of things. In fact he was swept away from the way greek fashion-omics work. That means mediocre food in a luxurious environment, complete with over-the-top prices. We where paying a totally “greek” check, which means thrice as expensive as Albanian prices. Truly, the concept of value for money had missed a guy. Or he was so carried away by serving the “elite”, that he forgot about common people. Anyway, with a bit of rage in our hearts we returned to the hotel, where I started to write, only to be stopped by a city-wide blackout, caused by a storm….

Thursday-Hit the North (and come back within the day)

I wanted to see the towers. I also wanted to see the sanctuaries. I wanted to see what the areas described in the journey of Gjork Berisha, before he was killed by the Kryjekukke family. I wanted to witness all the wonders witnessed by those American scholars that where chasing after the voices of those singing Homeric narratives. But no. The plateau of Kosovo, described by the creator of all those characters, Albania’s prolific writer, Ismael Kandare, was too far away for a simple day trip. The furthest away from Tirana we could move was Shkoder. Well that could be enough too. At least for a first visit to the Albanian North, or what they called “deep Albania”. The part of the country where the tradition of prince Lek’s orders still survived. The Kanun. That is the traditional law that every Albanian must follow on just about every issue of his everyday life, from simple day-to-day matters, ‘till the settling, or continuity, of the famous Albanian blood feuds. Honour killings still exist in the north. So does the right of every family to claim vengeance over its members that where killed by a member of another family. And though these laws where banned during the Hoxha regime, they came back in the nineties, partly thanks to Sali Berisha (a northerner) turning a blind eye to the phenomenon. The road passed through a Northern Tirana suburb where “no one wants to end up” , as my stepfather’s friend Solace once said. That is because a lot of Northerners migrated there. The place looked run down and definitely is in a bad shape. Loads of traffic too. We where on our way up north where everything looked abandoned and derelict. No evidence of development here yet, except a wide array of furniture stores and some mini malls. The weather looked typical of the Albanian North. That meant that it was cloudy, moist, and pockets of rain followed out Touareg in its every step. Towns and villages passed by, even when we where, again, what looked like the typical Albanian highway. A narrow strip of grass was standing between northbound and southbound lanes. To our left and to our right, the mountain ranges that form Albania’s natural landscape where closing slowly closing in on us. All of a sudden we where off the highway and moving along the perimeter of a mountain. The weather had deteriorated and by now it was purely raining cats and dogs.. Even visibility was, at times, very limited. Thank god by the time we had reached the outskirts of Shkoder there was a break in the bad weather. The sun was shining again and we where beginning to get the feeling we could walk around town. We where fatally wrong, in this sense. First of all as soon as we entered town the stormy weather came in again. And then, there was nothing much to see in town too. It looked like the only things we could visit, the castle and the lake, where a hard catch for the day. And as we tried to negotiate the narrow road that goes around the lake and into Montenegro, the weather went from bad to much, much worse. We where mostly unable to see or spot anything from the windows, except what lay a few feet ahead of us. And again, it looked in a dreadful shape. In the following days Djodjas would tell us that this is what the weather is usually like, over there. Moist and rainy. We ate nearby, and went on our way back to Tirana. Along the way my stepfather tried to fill the Touareg’s tank with petrol for the first time in his two year stay in the country. The employee in the gas station (someplace in the middle of nowhere), did not speak any English, my Italian did not come in handy either, but my stepdad managed to explain what he wanted to him, using his limited Albanian vocabulary and some signs. A few seconds later, and while the machine was pumping in gas, he overheard me making a silly joke on the price (while the price was in Lek, there was a Euro Sign (remember the Euro to Lek rate is 1:140) painted next to the display, because the machines had been imported second-hand from Italy), understood what I was saying and laughed with us (explaining in greek that the price was in Lek). The jokes continued, and soon another car came in, the occupants of which joined in the conversation and the laughter. We met five guys who where speaking greek, in a gas station, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Northern Albania... The people I meet in my travel never cease to amaze me. Having a full tank now, we moved down toward Tirana, to gain some early sleep time. The next morning we where starting a three-day trek along the Albanian south….

Wednesday – Around Ohrid and a small ride to Durres

After a night of really heavy rainfall, and a lot of deliberation whether the weather would allow us to continue our trip we woke up to clear blue skies. The visibility was perfect and we could see across the lake, into the FYROM side. So after big breakfast, we moved toward the border. This time I would make it across. All of the car’s papers where in order. So where our papers. We started out and within fifteen minutes of driving on a non-descript narrow road, we reached the border. We cleared both immigration control and customs with great ease. The difference between the roads in Albania and the roads in FYROM became obvious. Though the roads in both countries where equally narrow, roads in FYROM where better maintained. We spotted about two potholes in 60 kilometres. After 20 kilometres on mountainous but lakeside terrain we reached Ohrid. Ohrid is a city of roughly 100,000 inhabitants. It is home to one of the best preserved medieval towns in the balkans, and some of the most beautiful Byzantine churches in the area. It is also a popular tourist attraction for German, Austrian, Yugoslav and Russian tourists. On a clear day one can see as far as the Albanian mountains on the other side of the lake. And, guess what, there’s machine gun nests here too. Seems like Tito was afraid of his neighbours too. Thinking of all this, we where approaching the city. Within a few hours we where passing by large hotels . We where in the outskirts.of the city. After a lot of rounds around holiday apartment blocks, we finally reached the centre of the city. Ohrid, in the summer months is a busy lakeside tourist port. Small boats do daily cruises that start from here, and move along the scenic shoreline. But the real beauty of the town is its historic centre. Its old town is one of the best preserved ones in the whole region, and a lot buildings with a design owing to Turkish, neo-classical and medieval influences are scattered in it, lying between it’s paved roads . There are a lot of Byzantine churches here. Most of the are basyllikas and they are decorated in a manner that is very common around the whole region. They follow the principles of the “Macedonian school”, a group of painters that where working in Northern Greece, Southern Bulgaria, Albania, FYROM and Serbia, the whole of the historic byzantine region of Macedonia. That means that there are more bright colours in the paintings inside the church, and even some characteristics of the bodies of the people depicted are visible, contrary to typical shapeless and dimly painted pictures of the era. Notable churches aside, the city is ideal for walks and maybe late night serenades. There is a lot to see in the old town, and one can get a beautiful sunset/sunrise, if one wants to climb on higher ground around the old town. After about five hours that seemed like ten minutes we decided to resume our circle around the lake and start the return journey. We left the shoreline a few miles before the city of Struga. We then started climbing a very scenic road, that looked as if it was climbing but, in the middle of a ravine. We finally crossed the border about an hour later. But by the time we had reached Elbasan, we decided that it was still early and we could still visit Durres for some lunch before we returned to Tirana. So we avoided the curvy road going straight ahead, and decided do move south-east to Kavaje, and then straight to Durres. After leaving Elbasan the quality of the road became much worse. And to make things even more difficult, there was an endless string of lorries on the road, that where moving to Durres, in order to get to the boat to Italy. It took us a few hours to reach what looked like a real highway (in the map). But when we reached it things did not really change. Although there was some sort of barrier in the middle dividing the upward with the downward lanes, there where again the usual holes on the road, accompanied with parts where the tarmac was non existent, or where works where in progress. But even there we could not see anybody working there. As it seems they where waiting for money to come in via some sort of a relief programme, so that they could complete the highway, or even repair it. We reached Durres at around four’o’clock. The outskirts are full of high-rises, expensive-looking apartment buildings for holiday lofts and expensive hotels. Clearly there was too much money pouring into the real-estate business there. Just enough to create a real-estate bubble. The rest of the city looks like a crossover between a port city and an expensive seaside resort-neighbourhood. The seaside is full of cosy restaurants and café’s. We decided not to inform Sollace of our whereabouts, for fear of him footing the bill for us again. But my stepfather wanted to take me to a tavern where he had eaten with my sister and friends, and could not remember its name. So we called another friend, the chief anesthysiologist, a man called Djodjas. He did not remember either but offered to ask around and call us back. The next call came from Sollace telling us that we should not go to that tavern, but a restaurant lying next to it. Nothing remains a secret in Albania, for no reason whatsoever. This is a small society of a little more than two million souls. So secrets tend to leak… Gossip on relationships, dates even corruption can be heard almost anywhere. It looks like everyone knows everybody here. Anyway a huge meal of fish and tons of laughter later we left and took the only well paved highway in the country. The one that leads to the airport and Tirana. We would have an early night because the next day we would hit the north for a day trip.

Tuesday-moving toward lake Ohrid

For the first time, in a few years, I had seen something like this. We where on the highway to Elbasan, travelling on our way to Lake Ohrid. The highway, sort of speak, was a plain commercial road full of turns and lorries. The state of the tarmac showed, at times, that it was last repaired ages ago. And the state of the railroad tracks that they had not been used since the nineties (let alone the eighties). The first bumps appeared shortly after we had passed next to the gate of the Berisha residence. Up until then we where in an area where rich Albanians and government figureheads live. We passed a Greek private school, a new (huge) mall, and a tunnel which was under construction. The company undertaking this work is, which else, AKTOR A.E. owned by the Bobolas family, a family of Greek media and construction moguls. And this would be the last piece of progress we would see for the rest of the day. The rest of Albania seemed to be left awaiting its fate. So we where counting the turns and the holes in the tarmac appearing on the way to Elbasan. It took us about an hour to reach. The outskirts of the city, the second largest in Albania according to the latest statistics. The first thing to see when driving into the town are the chimneys of the steel mills.. Albania is an open ground for foreign investors and outsourcing. A lot of foreign multinational companies have set up shop here. Cheap labour and a small but financially powerful elite that can buy anything are the reason why this is happening. Low corporate taxes are another one. This steel mill is owned by a big Turkish company. Other than that, the area looks like a typical non-descript city of a country that used to belong to the East Block. Almost run-down housing projects, and derelict streets. With the help of the Touareg we march on eastward towards the lake. We pass over bridges and next to railway tunnels. Those where built in the fifties and the sixties by the Chinese and the Russians. Nowadays there is absolutely no Chinese or Russian presence in the country. Actually the presence of nationals coming from these countries was gradually suspended by the Hoxha regime, during the years. The first to invest in works in Albania where the Russians and the Yugoslavians. But when Tito and Stalin parted ways, Ho1§xha took Stalin’s side. So Yugoslavians where deemed a source of dangerous “revisionist” influence, and promptly expelled from the country. In 1953 the successors of Stalin started having a different political approach. This caused a rift between China and the USSR, and, Emver Hoxha sided with China. So, the Soviets where replaced by the Chinese. But when Mao died, another internal struggle occurred. China steered away from the Maoist Orthodoxy, and Albania decided to stay on its own, upholding the original ideas of Maoist and Stalinism. The Chinese, of course, where promptly kicked out. And when, in 1991, the government found out that the food surplus would last only six days, and Albanians started to flee the country by land or sea, suddenly the foreign inverstors came marching in. The economy became grossly unregulated, and pyramid schemes, owned by PM Sali Berisha, began to take (economically) the centre stage. But in 1997 these schemes collapsed, people took arms against the government, and ousted Berisha. He only returned to the political centre stage in the 00’s. Now he is still holding the Democratic Party with an Iron Grip, and is currently the PM. However despite these changes, there is no real change in the average Albanian’s life. The vast majority still lives in poverty. After passing a number of small towns with similar features we started to climb another mountain. And then there was the steep way down, towards the lake’s shores. It was a clear day and we could see the other side of the lake. There we came across our first machine-gun nest. The whole country is ridden with those. It seems like there was o shortage of soldiers, arms and ammunition in the country. And the nests where controlling strategic points and crossroads. Anyone found travelling without a permit was promptly arrested. Not only did the regime keep borders closed, but it also restricted movement between cities and villages. There was almost no freedom of movement in Hoxha’s Albania. The conditions on the road where deteriorating too. There was no lanes any more, just large holes and bumps on the tarmac. Along the lake there where a lot of stalls. The owners of these stalls where advertising their merchandise. It consisted of eels and perks. We stopped in downtown Pogradec to get some clean air, a view of the lake, and take a break. Our next stop would be a restaurant called St Naoumi, some seven kilometres away from town, according to a trusted friend of my father’s called Sollace. We took a walk on the lakeside. There was some empty bars in the area. Clearly it was tourist area, and clearly we had visited it during off-season. We walked the street a couple of times and left for our restaurant. Our friend proved unreliable in the matter of the distance. The place was fourteen kilometres away. But, nevertheless the food was excellent. And, to our astonishment,our friend had called the restaurant and asked to pay himself on his next trip there. Now that was a surprise. We moved on to Hoxha’s favourite holiday spot, which was a stone’s throw away from the border, where we would spend the night. After a good two hours we set off for the town. After discovering that there was nothing going on there (off-season being the reason), we decided to move to Korce, a big city about sixty kilometres to the south of Pogradec. But after an encounter with a traffic jam caused by a folded lorry, we decided to move back to our hotel. The next day we would cross the border…

Monday- First Impressions are the lasting ones (?)

For the first time after a many years, I was getting airsick. The ride in the Bombardier Q400 of Olympic Air, was one of the bumpiest rides in my life. Below me lay a mountainous and forested terrain. We where taking the one of the four five Greek yuppie trails. One was to Sofia, one towards Bucharest, one towards Istanbul, and one towards Skopje. We where travelling one the remaining one., towards Tirana. Planeloads of Greek businessmen, CEO’S, brokers and directors travel along these trails. They are working, on weekdays, in Greek companies that have branched out in the Balkans. The main way is by plane, but some also travel by car. To my left I could see the city of Elbasan, with the river flowing by its side. Watery slides where forming on the window to my right. It was raining. As the airplane was continuing its descent on to the Nene Tereza airport of Tirana, my guts where making their presence more and more noisy. When we touched down at the airport, I was totally relieved. Within minutes we where in place and disembarking, and being moved across the tarmac towards the terminal. The next step of our adventure started there. We spent about thirty minutes waiting for passport control to stamp and wave us through. The desks where seriously undermanned. This was one of the wonders of capitalism and deregulation. We took our sole baggage (a small navy bag containing two vases of jam, cleared customs with great ease, walked out to find Armando and our car. Armando works as a driver for Ygeia hospital, where my stepfather works. He took us in a big VW Touareg, and drove us up to the hospital. My stepfather (who works as a director there) finished some small-time chores and then, we moved into the Touareg, to go to his apartment, for the night.. Meanwhile the rain was continuing uninterrupted. Meanwhile, the illustrious by nature Armando, was organising, by phone, a visit to the car’s insurance agent, to gain for us a green card for the vehicle. In 2010 I had been denied entry into FYROM, because my car had no green card. But this time, we where not to be barred from entry. We where going to beat the bureaucracy and see both sides of Lake Ohrid. Thirty minutes and thirty euros later, he told us that the next morning he would have the required paper and so we would be able to drive across the border. Our first stop toward the apartment was an Albanian shopping mall. We had to buy some food items, for the times when we would not venture to town in order to eat. At a glance I realised that a lot of brands on sale at the mall (and the supermarket) where Italian. There is a strong Italian influence in Albania, dating back to the middle ages, when Albanian mercenaries where working for the Italian kingdoms. But the great push toward the good relations with Italy, came with the Italian occupation during the Second World War. The Italians built most of the surface roads and all of the rail network. And most of these roads are still in use, in various degrees of decay. The Italian influence does not end in brands. A lot of Albanians study in Italy, and there is a huge Albanian migrant community there. Most of Albanians understand Italian. A lot of them understand and speak Greek too. There is a big Italian presence in the Albanian economy. Italians have some joint ventures with Albanians, and a good trading relationship with them. Even the Camora and the Sacra Corona Unita have Albanian contacts, and they trade between each other all sorts of contraband, from cigarettes, alcohol and stolen cars, to drugs, women and immigrant labour. There are also many foreign investors working in Albania. American Universities, Turkish-owned industrial areas, Greek constructors, Greek and American private healthcare companies, Greek, Austrian, Turkish and Italian bankers, Greek financiers, even industries producing Greek brands (like Alumil) and Greek Shopping Malls. Albania is a haven for outsourcing, investments and subsidiaries for foreign companies. Another thing I noticed within hours of the arrival in Tirana was the number of Mercedes cars in the streets. It is preposterous. After a short calculation about three out of ten cars moving in Albanian roads are Mercedes cars. That has an explanation that comes from the era of Emver Hoxha. The whole fleet of state limousines was comprised of Mercedes cars. And that happened when private car ownership was prohibited in the country. When, with the coming of capitalism, private car ownership became legal. About 300,000 Mercedes cars (mainly the W124) where imported (one way or another) in Albania. The Mercedes car is a strong status symbol in Albania. As an Albanian friend of my stepfather’s put it “ I still feel like a guy willing to double-cross his perfect wife for even a total minger, when a Mercedes passes by my car, even if it is a jalopy”. And this guy drives an Audi A4 All-road Quatro. After shopping we went to the apartment. He lives at the penthouse of a guarded community, in the vicinity of the heliport. The ride is a very bumpy one, through back-roads. But even the central roads in Tirana can prove a hard ride for most cars. The area surrounding the building looks like a derelict one. Anarchic building is also a feature of the area, and the suburbs of Tirana. There was absolutely no urban planning for these neighbourhoods. Most of the homes surrounding our guarded apartment building seemed to be in quite a bad shape. Most of their inhabitants are internal immigrants from the North. It was so anarchic that the monster my stepfather was driving had great difficulty in negotiating a lot of turns and manoeuvres. Thank God for the zillion of electronic gizmos it used. The sensors saved us from near collision a lot of times. The state of the roads was no help either We went for a small nap, and then went out for a meal. Our destination was a restaurant next to Qemal Stafa Stadium. Once again I noticed the state of roads in Tirana. A huge gaping hole was in front of us, right at the intersection with the road that would lead us to Kavaja Street. We passed through it with great care, turned the street, then made a left on Kavaja street. We passed right next to “The Block”, then made a right on Skenderberg Square, passed Hoxha’s pyramid, the polytechnic, a couple of private universities (there are loads of them in Tirana) , a couple of Embassies and finaly reached the Stadium. Mind you the ride from Skenderberg Square to the Stadium did not include any potholes or bumps. The tarmac was straight, and well preserved because we where in the area where the presidential palace, a lot of ministries and foreign embassies are situated. We arrived in the restaurant, and I toom my first taste of Albanian Cuisine. It is similar to the cuisine of most of the countries in the Balkans, though it includes a lot of vegetables. That suits the Albanian vegetarians perfectly. And there are a lot of them. I had a delicious spicy sausage and a salad of red, yellow and green peppers. Just delicious. In the end we returned to the comfort of the penthouse and our beds. On the next day we where visiting lake Ohrid.

In the Shadow of Frederico

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I woke up . The landscape around the train was full of double decker wagons, filled with new cars. I realized that we were at Linares-Baeza, home to SEAT’’s biggest production line. All those new cars where ready to get transported accross Europe and the mediteranean. We left the industrial landscape and I resumed my sleep.

I continued my uncomfortable sleep through the night, only to wake up as the Andalucian sun was begining to hit the train. I pulled back the curtains and realized that we were passing through endless olive groves. Man this was Andalucia.
My Odysey began as soon as I had left the train. I started negotiating the bus system. I took the wrong bus, stopped somewhere where I from where I could do nothing but retrace my steps up until the last turn of the bus, and got lost. Adding to my problems, was the fact that I could not really understand what tha locals where telling me (Andalucian is quite the odd dialect).
Eventually crawling through a web of missconceptions and mistakes, I eventually managed to negotiate my way to the next bus. As the minibus started to crawl the hill oposite the Alhambra, I finaly got to relax. My trip was finaly ending. I got off at the right stop, managed to follow all the instructions to the end. And there I was up for the next susrprise. I was DEFINATELY in front of the right building. But it seemed to be in a mess. Everything was out of the building and noone was answering the phone. After about half an hour of waiting, an Australian appeared at the door. He informed me that the hostel had been closed due to bugs that some guy contracted in Morroco and brought with him in the building in May.
Damn! There went my 15 euro deposit and I had to look all over again! I started my long descent into the city under the hot Andalucian sun. When I was close to the bottom of the hill, I decided it was time for a small rest. I sat down facing the Alhambra. The enormous fort was just sitting there, it’s windows gaping towards my direction. It was as if it was laughing at me. Stupid Westerner being angry and stressed over all these stupid things. I should have learned to go through this kind of problems.
That was when my father called to see how things where going. I asked him if he could find me someplace to stay via internet, because the hostel was shut. He told me to give him a few minutes but, to see if I could find something myself too, before closing the phone. I continued moving towards downtown Granada. I had not seen any hotel or hostel of any sort, when my dad called. He said he found a hostal someplace under the Cathedral, and that he could book something for me. I asked him to do it and send me the details. After a few moments an adress, a name and a phone number came up on my screen. I called as I was passing through the courtyard of the Cathedral. It took me a few calls to understand what the Andalucian at the other end of the line was telling me,
So after another wave of missunderstandings and craziness, I was dislodging my belongings at yet another room which had the bare necessities. I sat on the bed under the fan, and in a few seocnds I was sound asleep.. I woke up a few hours later. It was night and all the Alhambra would not be open until the next morning. I had some ways to kill time though. Granada is a town that depends a lot on its university (one of the best and the oldest in the Hiberian Peninsula), and that could mean a lot of things about the town’s bars and restaurants. I went downtown and drove myself crazy with the tapas and the beer. The night ended with me sitting outside one bar and watching some nice looking English girls chat. Any attempt to approach them though, seemed to be repealed by a wave of denial. Truth is that they were a bit too posh for my teeth, so the only thing I could do was just watch.
I woke up the next morning and decided to get into the Alhambra. I climbed aboard a small minibus and climbed again the hills surrounding the town. This time I did it from the opposite direction. As I was starting to ascend on my way to the magnificent palace, probably the best example of arabic presence in Europe, a canvas was unfolding to my left. For the first time Icould see the old residential neighborhoods of the town as a whole, and not from the viewpoint of a tired traveller navigating their streets. When I reached the palace, I realised what the Islamophobic knitpickers have been missing the whole time. The Alhambra was creates at a time when the christian west was either chasing witches, or being tormented by never-ending wars. At a time when the Arabs where rescuing artifacts, science and philosophy, the christians where operating like cross carrying jihadis . No wonder why the Arabic scholars of the time viewed Europeans as savages. The Alhambra was an architectural masterpiece in a time when Europe was being destroyed by religious fanaticism. Even if one counts out the tactical ingenuity of its fortification and the way it contacted its network of outposts (actually the Alhambra worked more as a coordination station between some outposts and barracks than as a defencive structure itself), one can sit and just watch the decorations and the craftsmanship of the interior of the buildings, a virtue that was then possessed by a lucky few craftsmen working of tiles drawings and building in the Arabic world.
After taking a close look into the castle, I decided to take a walk along the path passing right under the Alhambra. This path (or walkway if translated correctly), was closely linked with one of the most celebrated poets of Europe, friend to Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, and local hero. Frederico Garcia Lorca. Under any circumstances this quiet walkway, could be a lover’s spot. But at the moment when I was walking along the path, there where only a few tourists and pensioners enjoying the quiet street. I walked and walked until I got completely lost in the forest. Then I sat down and listened to the calls of nature. It was just magnificent and I was in the middle of it. Later as I was walking bck toward town, I saw a memorial plate, similar to the ones I had spotted in Bologna. This was dedicated to Frederico Garcia Lorca. Apparently the poet liked walking along this way. One of his poems was on this plate, not his photo nor his bust.

As I was descending back to town, I felt the warm Andalucian afternoon arrive. It was warmish but not hot. I went for a change of clothes and a bath. The night was coming and suddenly I was thinking of Frederico and the other three, executed some eight kilometres away from here, by the Fascists. As the big semifinal was coming, I was feeling a great shadow being cast over the town. I felt the ghost of Lorca lurking around, waiting to see the faces of those who murdered him, taking part in all this.

As the sun was setting I was more and more in need of one last drink. So I went back to the tapas bars and sipped one beer after another, eating one tapa after another, while I was watching the Furias Rojas waltz their way into the finals of the European Championship. I left a town painted red, to get to sleep. A twentyfour-hour trip awaited me next morning, and I needed all the rest I could take. So I surrendered to the warm Andalucian night, in anticipation of my 11:00 AM Cercania to Seville.

Abyss revisited-Easter in Paros

About nine months after my summer ordeal in Paros, I followed the family once again, to a search for the true heart of Paros. This time it was in the off-peak season, during the easter holidays. The boat was half full of Greeks who where going to pass their holidays on the islands.
For better, though, easter had come early this year, so it was completely off season. That meant that we would be able to confide in the best places , with the best food and the cleanest booze in town. Also, the weather was not very promising for the yaught owning part of the crowd, a meaning that we had avoided, momentarily, the glamourus crowd.
For worse, there was still a crowd of Athenian s willing to exchange the pollution for a few days in Paros. So that meant that a bit of overpricing on things was inevitable.
And the trouth lied in-between both things. The booze was reasonably clean, the crowd waas reasonable, and with a bit of searching we were able to distinguish the few good spots for spending the holidays. The hotels also had reasonable, by greek standards, prices. But overpricing in food was difficult to avoid.
The fact that it was off-season also helped us to do a better exploration of the island and get a better idea of the in-land villages. Probably those villages where the reason why I left the island with a beter perspective, vowing to give the place a third chance before having a clearer go at the situation in the island.
Nevertheless, the weather ruined things on easter Sunday, and we had to do the picnic indoors. The result of the day did not ruin our week at all though. In the end we all had a good time. Even during lonely moments, the island looked sweet, and things were going smoothly. I would return in August to see wether this idea could stand or not.