Greece - the land of milk and honey

Once upon a time....

Since we were looking for a nice place to be during our holidays, we thought Greece would fulfill our requirements: sun, beach, something to explore, a little bit of ancient history maybe.

Except the history part, everything was really nice. We landed in Volos, at a civil and military airport - the fighters regularly took of from there and were to be heard on the whole peninsula Pilion. From Volos we headed south, air-line distance about 25 km, but by car it took us 1,5 hours because of the serpentines:


Finally we reached our Hotel Leda in the little village Horto(n) (always reminds us on "Horton hears a Hoo"). The service there depended on who occupied the reception, sometimes we thought the credo of the Greekes was like in Spain: manana, manana. Looking out of our window, we saw the following:


It`s not a postcard!! Nice pool, short walk to the pebbly beach and the restaurant, where the breakfast was served as well, opportunities to play mini golf and tennis/table tennis.
Many times we favoured the little snackbar of Maria, an elder German-French lady living in Greece, right next to the hotel. In her oriental-styled bar you could get crepes, salads, milkshakes, desserts, omelettes, drinks etc.:


You might recognizes somebody you know on that picture. One day we decided to look around Volos for shopping, sight-seeing etc. Volos did not exactly meet our expectations, our travellers book told us, that there was the famous ship of Jason and his fellows, the Argonauts, to be seen. The ship emerged as a little sculpture made of bronze. Altogether the harbor was a nice place to have lunch (greek salad with feta cheese) and walk around:


The other day our smart book told us to look for some pure, sandy beaches with clear cold water and nearly nobody around. After we managed to struggle through the nature and over hills...

...we landed here:

During the high seasons millions of Germans and Austrians are said to cavort at this beach (not nice to imagine). In general, the peninsula Pilion at the northern east-coast of the greek mainland, seems to be THE secret place for german-speeking travellers. Guess who visited the Taverna (in the background) right after us?

Again another day we had the lovely plan to take a walk from the village Kalamos to the next one Lefokastro, unfortunately or luckily (depends) the way was kind of hidden and we oriented ourselves on the coast. Only once there was an selfmade sign directing us, another time a farmer told us where to go (not over his olive plantation!). We passed olive plantations, country estates, several beaches and bays, stopped at one to enjoy the cold water and finally ended up sitting in a Taverna, eating fresh fried calamari together with olives, bread and cheese-cream (yummy!!). The walk took us nearly the whole day, but the things to explore were worth to effort.

Maria was the best source of knowledge, so we asked her where and when to arrive in order to get a seat on the narrow-gauge railway (light railway) between Ano Lechonia and Milies. The little wooden train only takes his passengers from one place to another at the weekend and at bank holidays. Because Maria told us to be at the starting point earlier, we left the hotel at eight a.m. although the train was supposed to pull out at eleven. Luckily we did so, because there were only ten tickets for tourists, the other tickets we reserved for a huge group of elder ladies (of the town) and a group of greek pupils. Funnily this group of elder ladies was organized like an Army troup. In other words they were marching lock-step.
That was our little train:

Then the fight for a seat began. As you might see the seats were limited. Therefore we shot two pics. The one is before:

And the other as you can guess the typical after picture:

The railway line is unfortunately nothing for people with a sensitive stomach, as you can see:

Our conducter:

The benefit for travelling with that train was a seat on the main square among the well organized troups of elder ladies, having a lovely lunch:

The resume of our trip is: take a flight to Pilion (Volos) and enjoy yourself.

....and they lived happily ever after.....

Winter holidays in the Czech Republic

Our plan for last years New Years Eve was no other than spending some time with friends and the family at a place where snow (and therefore fun) is guaranteed as well as a nice place to warm up after exhausting snowball fights.

Before our trip to the Czech Republic to a small village (nowhere found on the map) called Benesova Hora, we celebrated Christmas in Cottbus (bigger town near Berlin):

Everyone will really envy Kerstin because of her new, nice handbag.
(Not to be mixed up with body bag. It is told that a marketing manager in Germany once advertised a sportive bag as a "body bag" just because English is quite fashionable and promotional.)


What might be in there? (Ah... a book, of course everybody would want to have this book!)


Our Christmas tree, decorated with love and care (looks kind of spooky).


On a Christmas walk in order to spend the time with something more useful then cooking and eating. As a suggestion for 2008: Sportive activities can be fun, as this picture shows.


In his spare time Georg likes to jump over trees. That is also the way he prepares for the next team handball match.

O.K. In the Czech Republic we found enough time for both sportive events and leisure. We occupied the whole second floor of a private house, as you can see:

At daytime we went skiing.... (cross-country)...

... or we went sledding (Ronny)...


... sometimes people pelt each other with snow (???) (Georg and Kerstin)...


WE LOVE SNOW!!

In the evenings we sat together to devour lots of nice dishes...

(Well done automatic release!!) We even had our own bartender (Maxi)...


... sometimes we even found time for conspirative sessions (some call it Poker)...



Winter impressions...


...


... of the south-west of the Czech Republic.

WE LOVE THE CZECH REPUBLIC.

Berlin Impressions

Here are some pictures of Berlin and the upcoming winter!!
We tried to catch the moments by using a car and here you can see the results!!

We name it - "Fast Moving"


"Just history?" Location: Unter den Linden

"Siegessäule" - 'Column of victory' (A Fallen Angel and the Heaven)

"Winter in Berlin"

"Time goes by Architecture remains".

"Night and Heaven" a street catch.

Istanbul in Transition?

I recently discovered this picture in my collection of unordered snapshots. From my point of view this pic is timeless and emphasizes another side of Istanbul, which could be discribed with the term "consistency" or "constancy". In other words, if I would show this picture and I would say this picture is from the 70's one could belief this is true. For a space that seems to underlie an permanent uncontrolled transition this point sounds surprising. But other than that space has an multivariable character and creates its own character even in a transition.

Vacaciones en Andalucia

Globalization or European influence?? A Latvian house built by moroccans in Andalucia!
It was our home for about a week.

Spanish mutant bulls - a genetic experiment or a freak of nature?

Arabic Windows

That is a real Paella!!!

The Arabic bath of Granada

Our Trip to Spain - some critical words

As some of our friends have noticed, we have been to Spain and yes it was again a trip to Malaga. For us it was more a step back to our roots, because 2 years ago we did for two month a Spanish course in Malaga at the "Universidad de Malaga".

It was kind of fascinating for us to see how the costa del sol (coast of the sun) has changed. The rising number of tourists coming to Spain unfourtunately changes the face of the mixed cultural countryside like Andalucia from a historical influenced towards an commercialized countryside with a brand that is history. In other words, the charm of small and typically white fishing villages gives way towards huge touristic clusters.

Neverthless the southern part of Spain still has to offer interesting things to visit: small restaurants nearby the sea, where you can relax, watch the people passing by and get another feeling for the time. Moreover you can search for one of the natural beaches like the one in Nerja or close to Rincon, where we found - oh wonder - a German Caribbean looking beach bar with - oh wonder - Germans sitting around.

Our accommodation was located right on top of a smaller mountain with a wonderful view over Malaga City and the cost line of Cala del Moral (little village). Behind our lovely mountain with a scent of herbs in the air and lizards sunbathing on the stones, they built huge gated community areas.

Thereby the current regional planning destroyes the character of its subjects. Moreover it seems that the regional planners of the costa del sol are following a kinky understanding of structure. This includes a big parque de commercial (shopping mall) in an US American way and the creation of huge gated community areas. Therefore we got the impression that the area around Malaga is plant for only two groups of people: upper class people of the Spanish society and for tourists. Unfortunately this will give this region a more commercialized character than a traditional one.

Besides the critics the trip was really nice, but short!! Ans still: Spain is a country were we could imagine to live in the future.

Pre-Summer Inspirations

Here are some pre-summer inspirations of Frankfurt/Oder.

The old inner-city library

The Hanseatic League building. In German we call it "Speicher" (the meaning is "Storehouse").

Our cinema and in the background the old St. Marien church, which was built during medival times and ...

... a more clother look to the Marien church.

But,

we also have a kind of a Turkish flavour in our city!!

German/Polish Music Festival

Despite the current cold German and Polish relations the twin cities Frankfurt (Oder) and Slubice organized a German and Polish music festival, which is always a highlight in our border region. During this festival there were no visible and noticeable prejudices between German and Polish people such like the political constructed ones, by the Kaczynski’s and there fellow ministers. The danger of such constructed prejudices is that they can become themselves prejudices, which could damage the relations not only of Germany and Poland rather the relations between Europe and Poland. But it is a kind of clever to construct a concept of a foreign enemy to deviate from inner policy. The question is how someone can govern a country which is still in an identity finding process.

Coming back to the topic this week, we` ve been together with our Polish friends at a concert in Slubice. Unfortunately, I was not up to date concerning Polish music, but after the concert of Anna Maria Jopek, I have to say, that I’m a fan now!!!! For everyone who is interested in Polish Music here is the official website of Anna Maria Jopek:

http://anna-maria-jopek.com/

Enjoy her music!!!