Around the Blloku - Tirana

This post continues the blog posts about the 2013 Balkan journey.
From Gjakova in the Kosovo I went to Albania's capital Tirana by bus. The bus ended at the huge Skanderbeg square in the center of the city directly in front of the tourist information office - on a Saturday. Fortunately the office had tourist-friendly opening times ;-):

Walking around the Skanderbeg square is a pleasure because you find a good mixture of architecture and culture. Tirana is a very young city. Before it became Albania's capital in 1920 it was a small town and only a few houses, like parts the former castle, survived Tirana's growth. Albania became independent in 1912 and therefore everything that makes a city a capital had to be built at once. Therefore you find around the Skanderbeg place buildings for ministries, mosques, churches etc.:

The Et'hem Bey Mosque in front of the town hall.
The tower at the left side is the clock tower.

View into the mosque. Note that you see paintings of houses - which is an exception for mosques.

The Skanderbeg monument in front of the mosque

The very good National Historical Museum

The brand new Resurrection of Christ Orthodox Cathedral

The TID tower still under construction (after 6 years)

The neighborhood at the south-west of the Skanderbeg square was in the times of the dictator Enver Hoxha a closed suburb for Albania's leaders and their families. It is called Blloku and is now the party location for Tirana's youth with lots of bars, discos and restaurants.
This the call for dance music:
Fuse ODG - Antenna (so funny when he controls her "remote").

Along the Dëshmorët e Kombit boulevard at the south of the Skanderbeg square you find many interesting government buildings built in different periods; for example the Presidential Palace. At the end of the boulevard is the campus of the University of Tirana (has more than 100.000 students):

The impressive main building of the university.

The rectorate building of the university

The ministry of finance.

At the south-east of the Skanderbeg square you find the Murat Toptani street which is a nice boulevard. Along the boulevard is the national art gallery, the castle a huge and beautiful garden restaurant, the building of the National Assembly and the the Ura e Tabakëve.

In my opinion Tirana is a nice city with many places to discover and super friendly inhabitants. Even the new-built outskirts look OK and clean. The only drawback is its "chaos" in terms of information and transport. For example Tirana has a large network of bus lines but nobody, not even the bus or taxi drivers know it. There is no network map and no timetables and often also no numbers of the lines at the bus stops. But as I wrote in my first post about Albania the key is communication. For example Tirana is surrounded by high mountains and there is a cable car to the Mount Dajt. But how to get there? Well I drunk a beer with some locals and they called a taxi driver who called a bus driver who explained how to get there by bus. The bus is very cheap while the taxi is not but the taxi driver abstained to make money to drive me there. That is what I really liked. In many tourist places people try to get your money but not in Albania where tourism plays almost no role. OK, this is the reason for funny things like the new bicycle renting system: There are several places where you can rent a bike but the bikes are all locked and the persons to unlock them don't work on weekends. I never saw anybody renting the bikes also not during the week but I admit that the bikes give the city a modern touch ;-)

One of the bike rental stations.

Typical urban housing close to the center of Tirana

The Lanë river in the inner city.

The cable car to the Mount Dajt is so expensive that most of the Tiranians cannot use it (nevertheless cheap for Western-Europe tourists). The ride up the mountain lasts some minutes and the views are magnificent. The area at the top consists of a restaurant and an astonishingly cheap and modern hotel. Some hiking routes start there too but the real top of the mountain is unfortunately a closed military zone.

The mount Dajt.

The new outskirts if Tirana at the bottom station of the cable car

View at misty Tirana. The lake at the left is one
of the two artificial lakes with large parks around them

At the top of the Dajt.

I repeat myself but Tirana is really worth a trip for a long weekend. The nightlife is good and the museums are the best ones I have been on the Balkan. The surrounding is beautiful and the city still has an adventurous touch while it is super safe. I never felt so safe in such a big city - no matter where and when.

Über die Evolution

Ich mag einfach Vince Eberts Art der Unterhaltung, daher hier ein Link zu seinem aktuellen Programm über Evolution:

Vince Ebert - Evolution

Dazu passt perfekt das Video zu Fatboy Slim - Right Here, Right Now

Ansonsten muss ich oft an Vinces schönes Experiment zum "Individualismus als Massenphänomen" denken.

Über die Überbevölkerung der Welt

In Bolivien ist mir bewusst geworden, was Überbevölkerung für Probleme mit sich bringt, siehe meinen Blogartikel dazu. Dass einige Länder unter einer hohen Geburtenrate leiden ist Fakt, aber wie geht es weiter? In den westlichen Medien wird meist ein sehr pessimistisches Bild der Welt gezeichnet:

• "In naher Zukunft werden Kriege ums Wasser geführt"
• "Die Weltbevölkerung wird immer weiter wachsen"
• "Der Hunger wird zunehmen"
• ...

Zudem liegt der mediale Fokus immer auf den handvoll Ländern, in denen es gerade Krieg oder eine große Naturkatastrophe gibt.
 Aber wie sehen die Fakten wirklich aus? Dazu sollte man fix einmal diesen Test/Quiz machen:

Ignoranz-Test

Erstaunlich oder? Der schwedische Arzt Hans Rosling hält dazu gute Vorträge. Einer davon ist derzeit in der ZDF Mediathek abrufbar:

Mythos-Überbevölkerung

Es sieht also gar nicht so schlecht aus.

Bitter ist hingegen die Wahrheit, dass der Mensch in der Vergangenheit nie im Einklang mit der Umwelt gelebt hat, sondern im Einklang mit ihr gestorben ist.

Dazu einen Song zu finden ist nicht so einfach, aber der hier liegt nicht ganz so weit weg ;-):

Paul McCartney - Live and Let Die

Mal wieder Görlitz

Alle paar Jahre schaue ich in meiner Geburtsstadt vorbei und bin immer wieder begeistert wie schön sie wieder geworden ist und immer noch schöner wird. In einschlägigen Architektur-Foren gibt es tolle Vorher-Nachher-Fotos von Sanierungen. Die besten gibt es auch als Diashow:

• Görlitz 2013 vorher - nachher
• Görlitz 2014 Einst und jetzt, Teil 2

Auf der polnischen Seite der Neiße, in Zgorzelec, wurde auch der alte Postplatz nach originalem Vorbild wieder aufgebaut und die alten Straßenzüge genauso toll wie in Görlitz saniert.

Also falls man noch nichts für die kommenden Herbstferien hat, sollte man Görlitz in Betracht ziehen. Zumal man es mit einem Besuch in Zittau, Oybin und/oder Löbau verbinden kann.

Da noch keiner einen Song über Görlitz geschrieben hat, empfiehlt sich ein Lied über das, was die Sanierungen möglich macht:
Knorkator - Geld

Hier noch ein paar Impressionen aus dem Jahr 2011 (teilweise schon im Blog gezeigt aber trotzdem schön):

Blick über den Lutherplatz

Blick in Richtung Kaisertrutz

Der Demianiplatz

Rechts ist die Frauenkirche, dahinter das fantastische
Warenhaus und geradeaus der Dicke Turm

Blick über den Obermarkt in Richtung des
Rathausturms und der Dreifaltigkeitskirche

Am Obermarkt

Am Untermarkt

Am Untermarkt mit Blick auf das Neue Rathaus

Das Biblische Haus

In der Brüderstraße mit Blick auf den Schönhof

Die Oberlausitzer Gedenkhalle in Zgorzelec

Blick von der Peterskirche auf den Nikolaiturm

Montreux and the music

I wish I had more time for this blog because there are so many things I could write about. For example a weekend trip to the Montreux Jazz Festival.

I went there with the Bensnburner Backing Band who played together with the local band Bleep from the artist collective Loft A46. My job was to film the concert and it was the first time I filmed. Respect to all camera men! Up to 5 hours holding a camera as still as possible without the help of a tripod is a challenge for untrained muscles.

Thanks to the normal traffic jams on Swiss highways we arrived Montreux late. As side effect we hit a thunderstorm short before we arrived at the Lake Geneva. The mountains and the lake were the perfect scenery for the black and deep clouds. What an epic ride through lightnings hitting the ground close beside the car! I drove a quite old car that was slightly overloaded so that the descend to the lake on a the flooded highway released a nice dose of adrenaline.

Many people know Montreux from Deep Purple's song "Smoke on the water" and besides this hit many other famous songs were recorded there. For example Queen owned a recording studio in Montreux. In my opinion the beautiful landscape around Montreux is a main reason that this small town attracted many bands to stay longer than for the festival. I think you will second that:

View from the old town towards the French side of the lake.
 

View along the shore line to river mouth of the Rhône.
But what is this? Let's zoom in...

... it is the Château de Chillon.

The entrance to the Valais.

View from the Freddy Mercury statue.

The town is also quite nice. I like that special Art déco style:

View out of the window of our sleeping place.

The house where we slept.

In the Avenue des Alpes.

My favorite is the house Avenue des Alpes 80:

Doesn't look very special but note the details:

The old town is a bit up the hill:

High above the town are some grand hotels. This is the Palace hotel:

Here is an image of the impressive building.

There are also some nice hiking tracks and canyons around Montreux and two narrow gauge railway lines bringing you up to the mountains.
If you want to go to Montreux don't be shocked of the extreme prices. For example in a normal restaurant a steak (without anything else like potatoes etc.) cost about 42 €!

Back to music. The concert was given in the mentioned Loft A46 and was not part of the official Jazz festival program. As I had to film I only have images from the rehearsal:

The location.

Between the gigs of the two bands the singer-songwriter Mark Kelly played a few songs. I didn't know him before and he impressed my with his voice, with the deep thoughts in his texts but also with his ability to animate the audience. If you need a great voice and/or performer, contact him! Here are some of his songs: It's true, Oh my god and Can't give you more. He performed the latter just with the guitar - goose bump feeling.

Mark Kelly in concert.

The Jazz festival itself takes place in the Montreux Musique & Convention Centre as major venue. Although the prices are incredibly high, most of the concerts are sold out. But there is a stage in a park besides the centre where you have a program for free during the whole day. Along the lake promenade there are dozens of tents with small shops. Therefore it feels disappointingly like you are on an average village summer event.
The Jazz festival manages that their sound recordings became part of the UNESCO's Memory of the World. In their special Jazz festival museum the present somewhat strange things like a special room where you can listen to music from last year's festival recalculated by computers to hear it as if it was played in the old casino that burned down in 1971.
All in all the festival is a great opportunity to see some of the best artists on this planet live but I fear that the rich people who are able to buy a ticket won't dance and party as much as the artists and the music deserves it. (I also fear that I will never have enough money to check if this is true ;-) )

At the promenade.

In the Jazz festival museum.