Jan 28, 2015

The discovery of Domodossola

From Milan I took the last train to Basel. The trains had only seats and should arrive early in the morning. That would have been OK since one can sleep enough later on at home. But once again the Italian railway people tricked me. Short before the train reached the border station I was told that my ticket is not valid because I don't have a seat reservation for Switzerland. The train was not very crowded so I didn't understand the problem and I have been traveling in Switzerland dozen times without a seat reservation. The conductor was strict and as I didn't want to have stress on the last day of the vacation I left the train at the border station in Domodossola. Unfortunately every hotel was fully booked. The people in the hotel receptions really did their best. But OK I enjoyed a mild summer evening and slept in the backyard of an apartment building.

I remembered this beautiful song: Sous la Lune (original by Paris Combo)

Sleeping outside in a mountain area has the advantage that the sleeping bag gets wet in the morning and one therefore wakes up with the first sun rays. Wiping my eyes I recognized the beautiful landscape and could not resist to climb up to a castle I saw. The road to up there is steep and in every of its serpentines is a chapel. It turned out that it is no castle but a catholic sanctuary. I found by chance a world heritage site - the Sacred Mount Calvary.

Two of the 14 chapels along the road up to the sanctuary.
A nice place around the sanctuary.



The sanctuary complex.
 

Inside the church. It was 5:30 in the morning
and the first church service had just begun.
The sun is rising over the Ossola valley.
Behind the mountain in the middle is the Simplon pass.
Another view at Domodossola.
 

In fact all the stress was worth that amazing place.

While descending back to the city to catch the train I noticed the heavy tourism they normally have in Domodossola. While I was up the hill the whole city was filled with market stalls where one could buy a lot of religious souvenirs and other touristic stuff. On some places it was hard to walk on because of the many people. In fact it was incredible that I had the sanctuary almost for my own and could enjoy an exceptional quietness.

Domodossola is a nice small town.
This is unfortunately the only photo I have to give an impression.


Eventually I got my train and the Swiss conductor told me of course that my ticket was valid and that one doesn't need a seat reservation. Moreover I was not the only passenger with this problem. This way I came in contact with a student from Bolivia and an "esoteric" guy from Kiribati or Tuvalu (I cannot remember). It was a pleasant train ride because the strange, esoteric opinions of that guy were perfect entertainment and I could speak some Spanish with the Bolivian.

That was the end of an amazing trip. I had no plan, did not expect anything and therefore discovered so many places, met so many interesting people, learned about societies and politics and additionally could recuperate from everyday life.

Jan 27, 2015

From sea to rails

As I already wrote I was convinced to take the ferry from Durrës to Bari because one could sleep there on deck and the sky and stars in the Adria nights should be magnificent. Indeed it was - for the first 30 minutes. Then the captain ordered everybody below the deck because of a thunderstorm and heavy sea. The passengers without cabins like me were seated in a restaurant to sleep there on the floor. What a night: The ferry is such a big vessel but when a wave crashed into the side walls the whole ship was vibrating like a big drum. It was impossible to sleep because the rocking motion of the ship kicked the passengers around and some kids were screaming for fear.

Tired people in the morning after the storm.
Welcome to Bari
The ferry.

Music for the ferry by Brian Ferry ;-): Don't Stop The Dance

The plan was to stay a day in Bari and to meet Roberta and Fulvio who live there. Unfortunately it was the day after a holiday and everything, yes, really everything was closed. It was the high tourist season and the gentle lady in the tourist office tried a lot but could find a single place to stay. Very strange to walk through the empty streets of a city that is full of people but not even the McDonald's is open. I got the advice to better take the next train instead staying there because it could be that all trains were overbooked the next day. But like a few months before the people of the Italian railway tricked me again. They said that all trains to Milan were overbooked. Only first class seats for the train leaving in half an hour were available and that I had to pay a seat reservation fee. OK, I payed it and could enjoy a long ride along the scenic Adriatic coast of Italy in an almost empty train. It was by the way my first ride in a first class coach ever.
There were only 4 persons on the coach so that I left my booked place to sit on a table. When the conductor appeared he got angry that I was sitting on the wrong place. To my luck I could not understand much and he could not speak English. He must have been so ridiculous that the others in the coach were laughing about him that he left the coach ashamed and never bothered us again.

In the evening I reached one of my favorite railway stations: Milano Centrale Its architecture is quite unique. It is a massive building and appears as being too large if you stay outside. But from inside it appears light and bright. Here are three impressions:

 
 
 

Jan 18, 2015

Last minute trip to Krujë

Durrës was neither very interesting nor a nice place to chill. It was one day left until the ferry went to Italy and the beautiful lady at the hotel reception proposed to visit Krujë.

There are many buses from Durrës that stop in Fushë-Krujë. From there to Krujë one can take a commuter bus. The road to Krujë is quite steep and the bus had general problems to climb up the road. Eventually the gear box suddenly broke. Fortunately Albanians are very kind - every car driver who passed our bus took some of the bus passengers. So within 5 minutes everybody found a car. (I cannot imagine that this would be possible in Germany. Here nobody would stop and help.)

Waiting for cars to be carried to Krujë.

The town of Krujë was built around the castle during the last decades. It was formerly only a small village below the castle while most of the people lived inside the castle. Therefore the town itself is not very pretty. It is nevertheless the only place where I have been where they try to build up a tourism industry. As this is still in the beginning they are still experimenting with service and prices. For example I wanted to buy a scoop of ice cream. All over the country a scoop costs maximal 50 cents but they wanted to have 3,50 €. The lady in the coffeehouse was surprised to hear that this price is higher than e.g. in Munich. She thought that tourists must be very rich but already noticed that only a few tourists came to her coffeehouse.

The castle.
At the entrance of the castle they
rebuilt some of the former market houses.
The town of Krujë.

Before continuing it is time for music: Purple Penguin - Mountain

The Krujë castle played an important role in Albanian history. For example the national hero Skanderbeg used it as headquarter during his fight against the Ottomans. In honor to Skanderbeg a museum was built in the communist era:
The building of the Skanderbeg museum.

In the southern part of the castle area are some older houses and further museums. One can for example visit the Teqe of Dollme. Only a türbe and a hamam were preserved from the old teqe. In the türbe are three graves of Bektaschi priests. Two of them are raised because these priests did a hajj while the third one did not. In 1967 religion was forbidden in Albania and so the teqe was closed and the paintings in the türbe were painted over.

The entrance to the teqe area. Note the large olive tree.
The amazing olive tree.
The graves
Paintings inside the türbe.

From the castle one can enjoy great views over the Gjole basin and one can even see Tirana.

The bergfried of the castle.
 
View from top of the bergfried to the Gjole basin and the southern part of the castle area.

The castle also contains the interesting national ethnographic museum. It is an original villa from 1764 with interior from that time:

The ethnographic museum.
The dining room.
The ceiling of the living room.
The living room.

Durrës

Sometimes life is funny. Driving back from Çorovodë to Berat I suddenly got diarrhea and the bus driver kindly stopped at the next gas station. In fact it was no serious problem but I missed the bus back to Tirana and had to wait in Berat. And who did I meet there? - Roberta and Fulvio who I already met at the beginning of the Albania trip.

In Çorovodë I met an older couple from Germany who is living since years in south Italy. (They are traveling the world as often as possible and one day the noticed that the have seen so many countries but not the nearest one - Albania. They were as amazed by the country as I was.) They convinced me not fly home but to take a ferry to Italy and then a train back home. OK. The next bus from Berat drove directly to Durrës so I drove there and booked a ferry.

As everybody also I have prejudices and one is that I don't like cities with large harbors. Durrës has a large harbor and is also not very beautiful. But OK, lets give it a chance:

View along the Bulevardi Epidamn.
The Durrës Amphitheatre.
A typical scenic view.
The town hall.
One of the few things I knew about Albania before the journey were the famous bunkers. The former Albanian leader Enver Hoxha got the idea to build a bunker for every fourth inhabitant to protect the country against an invasion of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia or whoever.. Due to their amount it will take decades to demolish them and so you can find a lot of them all over the country.
Pillbox bunkers in the park below the Royal Villa.
The Royal Villa of Durrës was heavily damaged during the lottery rebellion in 1997. It is therefore still closed but is used as scenic background for weddings. While reading the interesting article about the rebellion you might listen to the amazing live version of
Ton Steine Scherben - Der Traum ist aus.
The Royal Villa.

Satire im Zeichen von Terror im angeblichen Namen von Religion

Dank dreier Blödmänner, diskutieren aktuell Millionen ob man über Religion Witze machen darf.
Dazu sage ich ganz klar Ja!

Satire war schon immer kontrovers, hat unsere Welt aber gerade deswegen verändert. Ein Beispiel: Diese Karikatur von A. Paul Weber
"Hitler- ein deutsches Verhängnis"; Bildquelle
erschien 1931. Sie findet heute niemand mehr kontrovers. Als sie 1931 erschien, haben sich jedoch Zigtausende darüber empört.

Für politische Satire wurden und werden seit Jahrhunderten Menschen hingerichtet und dennoch hat Satire überlebt, denn der Mensch hat ein Bedürfnis danach. Vor allem in Zeiten von Zensur war und ist Satire die Möglichkeit, dass jemand Dinge anspricht, die man sich selbst nicht zu sagen traut. Die älteren Ostdeutschen erinnern sich beispielsweise noch an O.F. Weidlings legendären Auftritt zur Einweihung des Friedrichstadt-Palastes bei der er vor der komplett versammelten DDR-Führungsriege mal richtig vom Leder gezogen hat - und dafür praktisch Berufsverbot erhielt. Die DDR-Führung fühlte sich also persönlich verletzt und machte somit allen Anderen klar: Wer über uns Satire macht, bekommt ordentlich Ärger! Und dennoch wurden fleißig Witze über das System gemacht und heute gibt es dieses System nicht mehr.

In der aktuellen Diskussion höre ich oft die Argumentation, dass man sich ja nicht wundern darf, wenn man Dinge macht, die anderen nicht gefallen. Das ist, Entschuldigung, ein ziemlich dämliches Argument. Welchem Politiker gefallen Karikaturen über sich? Gefällt es mir, dass ich mir ständig Witze über meine Glatze anhören darf? Das gehört zum Leben nun mal dazu. Egal was man macht, bei Milliarden Menschen auf der Erde wird sich immer jemand finden, dem etwas nicht gefällt. Aber wem es nicht gefällt, kann ja weghören oder-sehen. Niemand wird gezwungen sich eine Satirezeitschrift zu kaufen. Es muss auch keiner im Fernsehen oder Internet Satiresendungen ansehen.
Als weiteres Argument höre ich oft, dass politische Satire OK ist aber das ja etwas ganz anderes als religiöse Satire ist. In vielen Ländern dieser Erde ist jedoch Religion und Politik nicht getrennt. Macht man beispielsweise darüber Satire, dass man in Israel nicht nicht einfach heiraten und sich scheiden lassen kann, macht man auch Satire über die Auslegung der jüdischen Religion. (In Deutschland war es vor dem Kulturkampf nicht anders und heute ist es normal, dass man zum Heiraten nicht religiös sein muss.)
"Aber man kann doch nicht religiöse Gefühle verletzen!" werden jetzt viele einwenden. Was ist eigentlich ein religiöses Gefühl? Angenommen ich stamme aus einem sehr buddhistischen Elternhaus würde mich vielleicht diese Karikatur verletzen:
Bildquelle
Für einen überzeugten Katholiken war diese Karikatur von 1898 sicher auch religiös verletzend:

"Madame La France, die in der letzten Zeit so unglaublich viel Verdruss gehabt hat, erlebt wieder einmal eine Freude, indem ein freilich schon alter Verehrer ihr eine kleine Aufmerksamkeit erweist"; Bildquelle

"Die Beispiele sind doch harmlos", könnte man meinen. Doch wer legt das fest? Ein "religiöses Gefühl" ist extrem subjektiv und zudem in jeder Gesellschaft und jedem Land verschieden. Von keinem Menschen die religiösen Gefühle zu verletzen ist so unmöglich wie es allen Recht zu tun, denn Religion wird von jedem anders empfunden und ausgelegt. So steht nirgendwo im Koran, dass man Mohammed nicht bildlich darstellen darf. Früher waren Darstellungen von Mohammed so normal wie es früher normal war, dass Päpste Kinder haben. Hier ein Beispiel aus Afghanistan von 1436:
Darstellung Mohammeds aus dem Mirâj Nâmeh; Bildquelle
Wie man sieht, ändern sich religiöse Ansichten mitunter gewaltig. Was früher keinen interessierte, kann heute ein Politikum sein und umgekehrt.
Es entstehen dadurch mitunter absurde Situationen. So wurde 2001 die South Park-Folge "Super Best Friends" ausgestrahlt, in der die Hauptpersonen aller großen Religionen zusammen verhindern dass Mitglieder einer Sekte Selbstmord begehen. Es ist eine tolle Parabel, dass keine Religion der anderen vorzuziehen ist, dass alle zusammenarbeiten können und was Sekten von Religionen unterscheidet. Einige Jahre später wurde die Folge aus dem Internet entfernt, da sich auf einmal Leute religiös verletzt fühlten, denn einer der Freunde ist Mohammed. Den verletzten Leuten geht es also gar nicht um den Inhalt und es ist ihnen auch gar nicht aufgefallen, dass Mohammed als Held dargestellt ist. Wieso sind sie aber "verletzt"?  Offensichtlich kann man das nicht beantworten. Das Beispiel zeigt, dass ein religiöses Gefühl ein Totschlagargument ist. Wenn sich Leute aufregen wollen, kann man sie nicht daran hindern.

Humor kannte noch nie Grenzen. Aber es gibt eine Grenzen wenn etwas nicht mehr Humor ist: Einerseits wenn man Satire nicht ausweichen kann. Wenn man z.B. in einem Hindu-Tempel während einer Zeremonie nackt herumläuft, können die Leute nicht wegschauen und werden in ihrer Religionsausübung gestört. Andererseits wenn körperliche Gewalt angedroht wird. Gott, egal welchen Namens und in welcher Form und Religion will, dass die Menschen friedlich zusammenleben. Da Gott allmächtig ist, kann er selbst für Strafe sorgen, wenn er es für notwendig hält. Dass er Menschen, die andere bedrohen oder gar töten, angeblich belohnt, haben sich Menschen ausgedacht nicht er!
Wer mir da widerspricht verletzt übrigens meine religiösen Gefühle.

Bildquelle

Jan 5, 2015

The magnificent Çorovodë canyon

The Albanians I met were not only very friendly but were also interested that I see the best parts of their country. For example in the Berat castle an owner of a restaurant invited me. He seemed to be impressed that there is a person outside in that incredible heat and spent me cold beer. His wive came over with a map showing me several points that one must see. This was funny because I couldn't understand a single word and also didn't expect to get tourist hints. But if one wants to communicate one will always find a way and so we made lots of drawings on napkins. I liked a drawing of a canyon the most and so they wrote something on a sheet of paper which I gave a local bus driver. This is how I came to Çorovodë - what a great way of traveling and what a fantastic surprise.

The bus ride from Berat is about 50 km along the nice Osum valley. In the bus I met a guy who once worked for the German army in the Kosovo so that I got valuable information. Çorovodë had only 2 hotels and I got the feeling that tourists are an exception in the town despite its breathtaking surrounding with the Osum canyon and the Pirogoshi cave. In spring the Osum has enough water that one can make kayak tours and a few times during the year the water level is perfect for tours where one gets a special swim suit and drifts in the water through the canyon. In summer the water level is too low and this might be the reason why no one is visiting it. This is incredible because the canyon walls are up to several hundred meters high and only a few meters wide. I took a taxi to the end of the canyon and walked back to Çorovodë. What a tour!:

Let's turn on some music: Urban Cone - Sadness Disease

At the start of the tour I met people bathing in the unexpectedly warm water of the Osum. It was a family with 3 kids from Poland who was traveling with a pickup truck and without a plan. They drove from Poland to Macedonia. The people there told them that they should also go to Albania - good to see that my favorite style of traveling is also possible with kids.

At the end of the canyon. The bathing people are the Poles.

One of the very narrow parts of the cayon.
This is the most narrow point
- as one can see the width is only a few meters.

And now some photos to enjoy the landscape:


The canyon must be perfect for climbing. The road out of the valley was under pavement so that a construction site with a concrete and asphalt fabrication was built along the road. Not spectacular, but look at this:

Part of the large and noisy construction site.
Note the wooden pavilions behind it.
Unbelievable but true -
the pavilions are part of a camping site!
The camping site and the construction side is at the upper left.

Who wants to tent besides a loud and also dusty concrete factory? Moreover the soil of the camping site consists of pure stone so that one can even not use tent pegs. Despite that nobody was tenting the bar of the tenting place was opened and it was the beginning one of the most strange experiences I ever had. Looking back I can now laugh about it but this story is nothing for a public blog.

I loved the landscape of the whole valley - there are nice gardens, sun flowers etc. Even the cemetery was full of flowers:

Çorovodë itself is not that beautiful because many houses were built as "worker locker box" (as we say in Germany).

I am still amazed that I was the only tourist in and along the canyon. Maybe this was the reason why local people waved me over to their gardens. I am still amazed how people can be so happy. We have never seen us before and could not understand a single word of our different languages but they were so happy to have a guest. They don't have much. It was the time of fresh plums and so I was served 3 plums as the best they could offer. But the best they gave was their happiness! Therefore the plums could have had worms but would still be the most tasty plums I ever ate.
Yes I might sometimes seem be too sentimental but why not when one doesn't expect anything but gets so much?

Here are some photos of the valley around the town of Poliçan:


Along the road to Berat are several companies producing stones for floorings etc.: