Travel – Seite 9 – bruecken_schlag

Kategorie: Travel (Seite 9 von 15)

Wooden Trail in Lahemaa, Estonia

Juni 2, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / Kommentare deaktiviert

This may not even count as a bridge – but it gets one from A to B across a body of water, so I figured it counts.

My picture shows the wooden trail that you follow across the large bog in Lahemaa national park in Estonia. I spent my last birthday there and was completely taken by the variety that this gem of nature had to offer. The day finished by a visit to the bog where my friend Wiebke, who you see in the picture, and I took the chance and jumped into one of the lakes with their red waters. Swimming along surrounded by beautiful nature and under a bright blue summer evening sky, my skin looked as though it was covered in an ever so slight and even layer of rust. The water is not contaminated; in fact it is very healthy and full of minerals.

After the refreshing swim, we tried to catch up with our tour group and quickly made our way over the wooden footpath, careful not to tread to either side of it lest we destroy the plants and get very wet feet. The whole scenery seemed to me as though out of a fairytale. The footpath took us through a wonderland safely to a promising new end. And it didn’t connect the two sides of the bog going above and across, it didn’t elevate itself to higher levels, but it was a bridge that stayed level with what it was overcoming. It was humbling to walk it.

If you have read My Mission statement, you know why I love bridges. To me they are the most universal symbol of connection, of bringing people together and overcoming anything that may seperate us. I want to present to you pictures of bridges that I really love in places that I really love on my blog every Sunday. If you have a picture of a bridge that you would like to share with my readers as a guest post, feel free to contact me!

Hanseatic Beauty – Pearls Along the Baltic

Mai 28, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 8 Kommentare

On my blog I have repeatedly referred to the „hanseatic beauty“ of certain places. I have also frequently linked back my passion for this specific beauty with my home town of Hamburg and the stamp it has left forever on my soul. Now I don’t know how much anyone who is not acquainted with Northern Europe might be acquainted with what I mean by hanseatic, but I think everyone should be, because really, if a city is a Hanse city, in my book it is pretty much down as a must see travel destination.

Lübeck, Germany – the city called the Queen of the Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League, or Hanse, was a trade union in the Middle Ages that linked together different port cities mainly in the Baltic, but also in the North Sea. Between the cities that were part of it, there were beneficial trade regulations and diplomatic privileges. They formed a network of support all over Northern Europe. In some ways, through their mutual history, they still feel obliged and connected to one another today. There used to be very many of them. In Germany, seven cities carry the name Hansestadt, Hanse city, until today: Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald and Wismar. In other countries, well known cities that used to be part of the Hanse are Gdańsk, Toruń and Szczecin in Poland, Riga in Latvia, Tallinn in Estonia, Stockholm in Sweden, Antwerp in Belgium and Groningen in the Netherlands.

What all these cities share is that they have been places of trade, mainly sea trade, for centuries. That means one thing above all: They are all connected to the water. Every Hanse city is located either directly by the sea or at least by a river, and in every one of them water plays a great role when you look at the city’s general build-up.

View to Tallinn’s dowtown over the Tallinn Bay in the Gulf of Finland

Where there is water, there are certain other things. Like bridges!! Hamburg, they say, has more bridges than Venice. That might be due to the fact that Hamburg is just a lot bigger than Venice, but it only makes sense that Hanse cities should have a lot of bridges given that their key feature is being built close to water. I have written about some of them in this post on Riga and this post on Greifswald.

My second favourite symbol after the bridge may be the ship, signifying travel, movement, and freedom, and yes, of course there are lots of ships in Hanse cities. I love the port atmosphere of Hamburg’s huge and bustling port, the second biggest in Europe after Rotterdam, with its cranes and its overall industrial charm, just as much as I love the cosy and cute museum port in Greifswald with its old sailing boats and wooden masts. Size doesn’t matter in this one, as long as the sound of seagulls is to be heard.

View of the cranes in the port in Hamburg, Germany – from the ferris wheel at Hamburg’s funfair Hamburger Dom

Next to the water, there is usually another specific feature of a Hanse city – the granaries. Where there was trade, there had to be places where to store the goods. In Hamburg there is a whole district called Speicherstadt – granary city. Now, what could possibly be so interesting about a couple of old storage buildings? The architecture!! The typical hanseatic granary is built from red brick stone. It is my favourite material, above all because it looks different and equally beautiful in any weather. In sunshine it will glow fiery, and in grey and misty rain it will keep its earthy, honest feel.

Waterfront with granaries in Gdansk, Poland

Granary City – Speicherstadt – in Hamburg, with the brick stone granaries on the right

Not only the granaries feature red brick stone in Hanse cities. Most landmarks in any of the cities are made from this material. There is a style called Brick Gothic that is predominant along the Baltic Sea. This is of course because in this area, there were no natural stone ressources, but clay from which the bricks are burnt. Although this is not directly related to their hanseatic character, I love this style of architecture and it feels like home to me. Find a few iconic examples here:

Monastery ruins, Eldena / Greifswald, Germany

Monastery ruins of Eldena in Greifswald, Germany

House of Black Heads in Riga, Latvia

Holstentor in Lübeck, Germany – Lübeck was called the Queen of the Hanse in the Middle Ages and the richest and most important city in the league

By these elements – water, ports, and red brick stone architecture – I would recognize a Hanse city at any given moment. But what also factors in my love for these places is the mentality of the people. We are talking about places here that have been connected to the world via trade for ages, and that have therefore acquired an international feel for an equally long time. The Hamburg coat of arms has a city gate on it – the Gate to the World, they say. The Bremen coat of arms holds the Key to this very Gate to the World. Hanseats take pride in being open, curious, and worldly. They are direct, engaging, honourable people who make their word count. Sometimes they come across as a little blunt or harsh, but the warmth they display given a little time is heartfelt and true. They will usually greet you with a handshake – but when they hug you roughly, you will know that they mean it. I know where I am at with Hanseats.

In my honest opinion, all of these cities that I have mentioned here are horribly underrated as travel destinations. Most of them are close to one or even several beautiful beaches that grant you delicious summer fun when you come at the right time of year and that won’t be as overcrowded as Mediterranean beaches. The cities all have a long and proud history and a rich cultural life, of course each in relation to its size. The people are generally friendly and curious for the world, used to visitors and open to whatever travellers have to contribute to city life. Personally, I may at times have trouble with German patriotism, and what I say now may go against all I have said about pride so far – but I am truly proud of being a Hanseat.

Have you been to any of these places? Do you think they make good travel destinations?

I’ve Got the Month of May

Mai 22, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 14 Kommentare

May has been my favorite month ever since I can remember. That transition phase between spring and summer is so full of hope and opportunity, so bursting with expectation and dreaming. Nature is exploding in all her most beautiful colors and the sky has that special color that is both coyly pastel and stunningly intense and deep.

The train ride between Berlin and Gdańsk never ceases to be of indescribable beauty to me. Between Berlin and Frankfurt / Oder, the first hour of the ride, I can’t help but notice how different the landscape looks now from the way it did when I made the journey in the winter. The wide and rolling fields of Brandenburg are now not barren, brown and lifeless. They are juicy green and promising. And as I look out the window, suddenly I my heart starts leaping. Green has been substituted by garish and bright yellow.

It is the first rape field in blossom that I see this season. I could just cry. They say that up here, you can see with the naked eye if someone will be coming for a visit in three days. Everything is spread out into the open. Everything is just there. In this world and in this life that holds so many surprises for us on an everyday basis, I think it more than calming to find myself in this Northern Germany plain that doesn’t keep anything from me. Barren brown and grey fields in winter. Explosions of green grass, golden wheat and yellow rape in summer. This is home to me, a place where I can feel secure and at peace, unafraid of the surprises that may lurk around the corner.

At my most recent stay in Poland, after our visit to Grudziądz, Karol decides to not go back on the Autostrada – the large highway – but on the quiet country road by ways of the countless cute little villages on the way to Gdańsk. After the humid, hot day with stunning blue skies, small clouds has started to emerge, and now they are thickening across the wide dome above us. Nothing hinders the eye from wandering along the horizon on either side – no hills, no house, no tree distorts my view, and the sky looks different on every end in millions of shades of white, grey and blue as it meets the earth with its astonishingly juicy green fields. The rape is blossoming a little more carefully here than it was in Brandenburg – the fields are not of the same unbroken golden yellow colour, but they are intertwined with green. The rape is not entirely ripe yet, still waiting to give out its explosive force entirely.

On another day, Aga and I take the tram from the Gdańsk city center out to Brzeźno and walk from there to the park in Jelitkowo. It is too windy to walk right by the Baltic Sea beach, so we take the tarmaced trail behind the bank slope. Families with little children abound, young and old couples walking holding hands, friends chatting away, cyclists, skaters, buzzing life. The trees jutting out of the slope show leaves of such tender bright green that I feel any touch would have to destroy them. When we get to the park, we lie on the grass for an hour, sleeping, chatting and wreathing daisies.

Back in Berlin, the chestnut trees have exploded. In German the blossoms are called blossom candles, „Blütenkerzen“, as though they were something that shed light and was burning brightly into an already bright summer’s day. The pink ones have been my favorite trees since I was in high school. Their color is not subtle, it is crazed and screaming, exciting, fresh and fitting for visions of summer.

And speaking of blossoms, there are of course the cherry and apple trees that have their white beauty on display as though they were ready for their wedding. They never look as gorgeous as they do when in blossom, no matter the appeal of a tree carrying ripe fruit. I cannot help but think how the entire change of seasons and the idea of the passing of time is so iconically symbolized in the little white flowers on these trees. They remind me that every moment is precious, and they make the promise of a good tomorrow. I find hope in them.

Do you have a favorite month? What do you like about this time of year?

Камен мост / Stone Bridge in Skopje, Macedonia

Mai 19, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 3 Kommentare

This is a Bridge that may not be what it seems.

This is Камен мост (Stone bridge) in the Old Town of Macedonia’s capital Skopje. Now I haven’t nearly written enough about this enchanting and complicated little Balkan republic, but this bridge is a good starting point. You can recognize the style from some of the other bridges in the Balkans that I have shown you – in Bosnia, or in Kosovo. It is the Ottoman influence that brings it here. Like many other bridges of the sort, it was built in the 15th century and survived many trials and tribulations. Behind it, as you see, there is construction work being done on buildings that look old as well. But they are not. They are only just being built.

Macedonia hasn’t existed as an independent state ever – until 11 21 years ago (Mandy pointed out this mistake in the comments, sorry about that!!) when its independence of Yugoslavia commenced. It was always a region governed by a greater entity – Bulgaria, the Ottoman empire, or Yugoslavia. Now that the country is in fact independent, there is a struggle for identity. History is a great generator of identity, so in Skopje a lot of buildings are coming into existence that are built in styles of times past – adding to the necessity if that is the fact that large parts of the city’s historical buildings were destroyed in a severe earthquake in 1963. Macedonia is creating its own history, but they are not starting in the today. They are trying to catch up with at least a hundred years that they have missed. The bridge is one of the few things that is really old and is thus, again, a connector of time layers.

A Hidden Gem in Pomerania – Grudziądz

Mai 15, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 10 Kommentare

When I came to Gdańsk in February, my friend Karol suggested that one of these days he’d show me his home town Grudziądz, some 120 kilometers south of Trójmiasto (Tricity, the city complex Gdańsk is part of). Grudziądz is one of the countless middle sized towns in Western Poland with a long and difficult Polish-German history – and in that sense it might not be immensely unique. However, I have come to find out that each and every one of these places has their own charms and their own stories to tell; and all the more so when you get to discover them with a local. I never had to think twice. So on this beautiful day in May, Karol and our mutual friend Aga pick me up at the hostel. We pack up our umbrellas – it is supposed to be a warm but rainy day – and board Karol’s little old Opel to leave Gdańsk in bright sunshine.

I have already described my very first impression of the town in this post. We approach the city via Malinowski bridge and the cityscape touches upon those places in my heart reserved for a feeling of home. I love it instantaneously. As we pull into town, we park the car in the parking lot of Karol’s old school.

Beautiful red brick stone buildings abound, and students dressed up in suits and fancy dresses – Aga walks up to them and asks them how their matura went, the final exams in Polish high school. They smile shyly and say it went okay, and that the subject was English. I’m reminded of my own high school days. None of us really dressed smugly for the finals. I like it, it adds meaning to the occasion.

We walk back to the main street and buy tram tickets at the machine to take a little round trip of the city. The tram is old fashioned and cute.

It goes right through the narrow and tiny cobble stone streets in the old town. As Aga points out, in Gdańsk it only goes along the large alleys in specific tram trails. Here, cars drive over the tram tracks as well, the ride is thus very lively and gives you a good idea of city life in Grudziądz. We pass by beautiful old houses, in Polish they are called Kamienice which derives from the word kamień, meaning stone.

There are so many of them, the historic structure of the town is amazing – unfortunately they are not too well kept. I personally love the morbid charme that this entails, but Karol rightfully points out that the city deserves to be beautiful to its full potential, and that is not nearly reached. Many buildings are empty on their ground floors where there should be little shops and buzzing life. But I only notice that because Karol and Agnieszka point it out much to me. I revel in the towns gorgeous scenery and in its liveliness as people are walking down the streets in bright early summer sunshine.

After the tram ride, we walk through the narrow streets lined with Kamienice towards the Rynek, the market square.

It is your typical Polish market square with pretty old town houses and a monument in the middle. I love these wide open spaces in the middle of an urban area. They give me breathing space and let me see the sky, the add light and freshness to the comfort of narrow streets and tiny alleyways.

Karol then takes us up the castle hill and shows us beautiful views of the Vistula river to one side and over the town to the other. It smells like spring, and everything’s in blossom. The leaves on the trees haven’t sprung to their full-fledged green splendour yet – they are still young and light and careful, like symbols of hope.

After a walk through the botanical garden and a delicious lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we come back to the water front. It may well be my favorite place in Grudziądz. The granaries and the city gate Brama Wodna, Water Gate, sit proudly and eternally next to the glistening river that flows on ever so steadily, ever so calmly, with a certainty I wish I had when it comes to planning my own life.

Next to the raftman’s monument, there is a collection of street signs nailed onto wooden posts of streets all around Europe named after Grudziądz. There is one in Gdańsk, one in Hamburg, and one in Berlin:

I find it once more ever so meaningful how in German towns, the streets will be named after Graudenz, which is the German name of Grudziądz, when in Poland they will obviously use the city’s contemporary name. Of course there is German heritage in the city – many of the mentioned Kamienice were surely built when the place was German, and the granaries and the castle area remind of the Teutonic Knights who reigned here in the middle ages. Still, Grudziądz is nothing but Polish to me. I had a short conversation about this with a German guy in the hostel in Gdańsk who said he felt a certain melancholy in the presence of the German heritage of this area, and a sense of loss. I have no idea what that must feel like. This is not lost to me! This is more than accessible, and it is part of me in a new, great way, it is home away from home, it is Polish, but it is not strange or foreign.

To finish off the day, as we drive out of town, Karol turns soon enough after the other side of Malinowski bridge and takes us to the other shore of the Vistula river to show us this stunning view of his home town:

The sun has gone down a little, clouds are collecting. The Polish obłoki, tiny cute white fluffy clouds, have turned into chmury, big grey rain clouds, so the promised windstorm may come upon us after all – but for now the sky is still blue, and the summer’s day’s light is still bouncing off the glistening surface of the river. What a blessing to have friends to live through days like these with, and what a gift to be able to visit places like this one in this world.

Books Shaping Travels – Part II

Mai 8, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 4 Kommentare

I explained last week in Part I of this post how before I left on my big trip to the Balkans in 2010, my friend Christoph came up with an idea. He wanted to give me a book that I could take, and when I was done with it I was to exchange it for a new book, and I was to do that with every book, and bring him back the last one. I loved the idea and agreed. I have told you about the first three books that took me through the first two countries, Hungary and Slovenia. Funnily enough, the next three books lasted me up until the end of my trip through nine more countries.

I couchsurfed in a lovely flat with five wonderful people in Maribor in Slovenia, and I asked them what books they could recommend for me to read that were related to their country or the Balkans in general. They came up with two suggestions: Vladimir Bartol’s Alamut and Ivo Andric’s The Bridge over the Drina. When I went to Lujbljana, after Maribor, I found the greatest English book shop in all my travels, Behemot. They happened to have copies of both books in English and I bought them without second thought. It stepped on the point of having to exchange books for one another a little bit, but I really wanted to read these two novels and exchanging books had proven difficult so far anyway.

Alamut is a novel by Slovenian author Vladimir Bartol – which is why I started with it, since I was still in Slovenia. At first sight one wouldn’t think that it had anything to do with the region. It is a story set in 11th century Persia and tells of the training of assasins in service of a political leader. It is a deeply moving story of almost epic proportions about love and friendship, sacrifice, honour, pride and deception. It would be easy to oversee the actual tie to its author, who wrote it as an allegory for Italian fascism under Mussolini, being part of the Slovene minority in Italy himself. I loved everything about the book that took me through Slovenia and Northern Croatia almost half way through Dalmatia.

I gave away Alamut to a girl I met at a hostel in Split. I had a feeling she would appreciate it and gave it to her gladly.

Following this was the reading of something particularly special to me. I have written about the meaning I attach to Ivo Andric’s wonderful novel The Bridge over the Drina when I wrote about, well, the bridge over the Drina – because it is an actual place in Eastern Bosnia not far from the Serbian border, the magnificent Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad. This picture certifies it for me that I did sit on the very bridge as I finished reading the book. It was not just a dream, I truly did it.

Ivo Andric actually won the nobel prize for literature for this book in 1961 – even if the book was published in 1945 already. In it, he connects the fates of people living in the small town of Višegrad to the fate of the mighty bridge. The town’s life seems to circle entirely around it, and as I sat on the bridge, I wished that someone would come by and sell me a piece of water melon, like it was described in the book, so that I could try and spit the seeds as far as I could into the turquoise waters of the Drina.

I finished reading The Bridge over the Drina and couldn’t just get myself to leave it somewhere for anyone to find. Besides I needed a new one in exchange. I went back to Mostar, that city of cities to me, and saw my Canadian friend Aasa again who I had met the time I had been atround before. She knew about the book and had wanted to read it for a long time, and now the prospect of getting her hands on it excited her much. I couldn’t have found a better person to give it to. In exchange, Aasa gave me Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.

An absolute classic in Balkan travel literature, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon has well over 1,000 pages and is a non-fiction account of a journey that Dame Rebecca West took through what then was Yugoslavia with her husband in 1937. It is a right brickstone, and quite a few people pronounced me completely whack carrying it around with me through Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, again Bulgaria, again Macedonia, and Kosovo.

I never finished the book. In fact I was not so much reading it as reading in it. I didn’t do a linear reading, chapter by chapter. Instead I went directly to parts Rebecca West had written about cities I got to know and love. I was indignant over the fact that the chapter on my beloved Mostar was so short, but I loved whenever there was talk of meeting locals and being welcomed with open arms in so many different situations. Often I marvelled at what had not changed, and sometimes I was startled by how different my own impressions were. All of the time I was thinking about how I would describe the places I read about in Rebecca West’s writing.

I left the book with my couchsurfing host in Prishtina, and Irish girl who had as desperately wanted to read it as my Canadian friend had the Ivo Andric novel. Again I am confident that I left it in good hands.

While writing this, I had completely forgotten how the story ended. I was already prepared to have to tell you now that it had just escaped my consciousness what had happened with Cristoph’s and my deal. In fact it only just came back to me that I gave Black Lamb and Grey Falcon away in Prishtina. And similarly, it just now came back to me what I brought back for Christoph. There is another fabulous little bookshop in Prishtina called Dit e Nat. It is a good place for meeting both locals and expats and the have a good selection of English books and delicious coffee – plus and unbeatable atmosphere. There, I bought an English a novel called Ministarstvo boli (The Ministry of Pain) by Croatian author Dubravka Ugrešić that I brought Christoph back to Germany. And thus it was a perfect circle – leaving with a novel in German, coming back with an English translation of a Croatian one, leaving with a book on academia, returning with one on war traumata and cultural identity.

What books in your travel has shaped your experience? Do you read when you travel?

Tower Bridge in London, England

Mai 5, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 4 Kommentare

Today’s Bridge on Bridges on Sundays is probably a bit more widely known then my regular pick.

This is, of course, London’s famous Tower Bridge.

I have been to England only once, which I regret very much, because I liked both London and Bristol – and in fact, looking out the window on the train ride between the two made me want to get off at about every stop, especially Bath. I felt travelling there to be very different from the places I usually travel to. The best description I can come up with is that I found England wholesome. Intact, if you will. Which may be nothing but a sign for the fact that I haven’t spent enough time there yet to discover its inconsistencies, its struggles and dark sides.

However, I think Tower Bridge supports this notion in its architecture, and here’s why: The prominent thing about Tower Bridge is not the part where people cross it. What catches everyone’s eye instead are the two impressive and beautiful towers. There is a dominance of the vertical when bridges usually put focus to the horizontal. It is as though here there’s not so much need for sketching, bridging, piecing together parts – but looking above and ahead, reaching for more, for the skies. I found myself in that, too. When we see eye to eye and the connection works, we should try to put our powers together and reach the next highest level. Most of the time, the sky is the limit.

Books Shaping Travels – Part I

Mai 2, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 8 Kommentare

Before I left on my big trip to the Balkans in 2010, I had coffee with my friend Christoph who asked me: „Which book are you taking?“ I replied: „Apart from my Lonely Planet Eastern Europe? None.“ He looked at me in utter disbelief and silence. When he found words again, he said that he couldn’t allow that to happen and came up with an idea. He wanted to give me a book that I could take, and when I was done with it I was to exchange it for a new book, and I was to do that with every book, and bring him back the last one. I loved the idea and agreed.

Now a lot of things about this plan did not work out. For one thing, Christoph never managed to get me a book before I left, so I bought one myself. It was Pascal Mercier’s novel Perlmanns Schweigen (Perlmann’s Silence). I was, and am still, in love with the same author’s work Night Train to Lisbon, and while I didn’t find Perlmann’s Silence to be quite as brilliant, it was a book I thoroughly enjoyed. It is about a linguistics professor who has run out of ideas and is trying to deal with pressure in the academic world, with his own terms of achievement and success and with language on the whole.

I put Christoph’s and my name on the title page in each book, along with all the places where I’d read it. That way, when I would leave the book anywhere, people would know where the book had been and that it was connected with the bond of friendship between two people.

So Perlmann’s Silence took me through Hungary, on trains and busses between the capital Budapest, Alföld (the Great Hungarian Plain) and the beautiful Lake Balaton. In Veszprém, a gorgeous little town not far from the famous lake, I couchsurfed with a family – th only time during my entire trip. They had a beautiful house and three precious children and showed such deep heartfelt warmth towards me that I don’t think I could ever forget them. I had finished my novel and asked Gabor, the father, who spoke both English and a little German, if he’d like my book and if he had another one I could take. He gave me Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael.

What is special about it is that Gabor is the translator of this book into Hungarian. He came across it in the US, and felt it should be known to a wider public in Hungary. Ishmael consists mainly of philosophical dialogue between a nameless narrator and his teacher, a gorilla by the name of Ishmael who can communicate via telepathy. When I first heard of the plot, I wasn’t sure what to think about it, but upon reading the book, it raised questions that had me buried deep in thought. I finished it very quickly – just two stations, as you can see in the picture – and writing about it now I realise how much I would like to read it again. All the great philosophical issues of our time and maybe every time were in there: Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why did life come to be this way? It is a book that will have you contemplate your life and life as a concept, and try to place yourself as an individual in your surroundings more clearly.

Gabor had asked me to send the book back to him after reading it (although he had allowed me to write the two names and the stations of my journey in the book), so I couldn’t exchange it for another. In Maribor in Slovenia I thus went into a bookshop that had some English books and bought a novel called Guernica by Dave Boling.

Now while I am a big fan of historical events brought to me in literature, I am not a big fan of people from a completely other culture doing it. Dave Boling is American, and to be honest I haven’t bothered researching how he came to write about that famous Basque city that was bombed by the Germans during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. While I found the novel enjoyable on the whole, I couldn’t quite take the sentiment as seriously as I could have if the author had been from Spain (if not from the Basque country!). It was a quick and easy read though. I left the book in Koper in an internet cafe – I had bought the next one in one of the greatest English bookshops I have ever been to in Ljubljana, and I will talk about it in part 2 of the Books that shaped my Travels.

The One Hundredth – Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge

April 21, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 6 Kommentare

This is my one hundredth post on this blog. When I think back on the way I started out, I can’t believe what a journey it has been. I was a different person a little over three years ago, and for all the things that I was lucky enough to experience and write about since then, I am nothing but grateful. There is not a day that passes when I don’t think about one or the other experience that I have made travelling and that has shaped who I am today, and not a day that passes without saying a silent quick prayer of thanks for that.

The One Hundredth deserves to be celebrated with a truly special place, and what else could that be than a bridge. Next to Mostar’s Stari Most, this is the Bridge of Bridges to me: Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad, Bosnia & Hercegovina.

And what else could have inspired me to desperately want to see this beautiful and powerful piece of architecture, this work of art in itself, than literature. I mention Ivo Andrić’s monumental book Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina) in My Mission statement. It is a nobel prize winning novel about the small town of Višegrad, about its inhabitants and its culture, and the bridge around which the town revolves – from its construction in the 16th century to its destruction during World War I. The book encompasses four centuries of joy and pain, laughter, tears and blood. It is a collection of anecdotes and a compendium of beautifully drawn characters, a lesson in history as much as a lesson in humanity. No one who loves the book could possibly finish reading and not want to see the bridge.

I was so lucky as to come to Višegrad on a beautiful day in May three years ago, on a quiet and sunny day at that, and I sat down on the bridge an finished reading the book about the bridge. Words cannot express the elation I felt in that moment. Different parts of my world were coming together. Everything made sense. Surely it is my analytical mind that looks back on that day and notices how perfect it was more so than my actual self back then, but I do remember being completely and unconditionally happy in that moment when I sat on the Kapia and read the book. The kapia is the little balcony that you can see in the middle of the bridge, across from the stele you see rising up.

The Kapia

Central stele – the inscriptions are in Turkish, but they are mentioned in Ivo Andric’s novel and according to that, they tell of the construction history and ask God for his blessing of the bridge.

I only passed through Višegrad, I never spent the night. It is a small place that except for the bridge has not got a whole lot of amazing sights to offer. So I had my pack on me as I sat on the bridge. Walking by were two German soldiers I chatted up. They were stationed in Foča, if I remember correctly, and told me a bit about the international military supervision Bosnia & Hercegovina is still under after the wars of the 1990s. It felt weird to speak about this when all around me and inside of me there was this great sense of peace. I have another favorite book that is set there by an author who is not much older than me. He is called Saša Stanišić and the novel „How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone“. It is set in the 1990s and deals with the Balkan wars. I only read it after my trip down there, but I would like to go back to Višegrad having this second literary perspective on the town. It is, after all the sight of the Višegrad massacre in 1992 that included Bosniaks being murdered by Serb troops on the very bridge you see in these pictures. Now of course there is no talk of that in the novel by Andrić, which was published in 1945. History is yet more multi-layered than can be covered by the four centuries Andrić describes. Through all the history and all that can be learned from being in a place like the monumental Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, however, what sticks with me more than anything else is the beauty of the ancient construction, the coolness of the stone, the color of the Drina river and the peace and quiet that filled my heart and soul on that beautiful day in May 2010.

The Wonderful Astray

April 18, 2013 / bruecken_schlag / 4 Kommentare

Again I owe the inspiration to this blog post to my wonderful job that allows me to deal professionally with things I love very much. Last November, one of these things was the work of Polish cult poet Edward Stachura. Stachura was something of a Polish beatnik who mainly wrote poetry and songs. He committed suicide in his early fourties which made him even more popular with the underground scene. I came across his work mainly through the music of the wonderful band Stare Dobre Małżeństwo – the band name translates to Good Old Marriage. The first song by them that I fell in love with was “Jak”:

While the melody and the simple guitar instrumental caught me by their slight melancholy that I still felt to be light and hopeful, it was really the lyrics that got to me right away – especially the recurring line

Jak suchy szloch w tę dżdżystą noc…

Like a dry sob into this rainy night…

To me the Polish line consists of nothing but beautiful words. Szloch, sob, is a beautiful word that sounds exactly like the sound it represents. Dżdżysty, rainy, is a beautiful word that starts by a consonant cluster that only Polish could come up with. Many people ask me if Polish can be sung at all, with its many consonants. This song proves that it can be done, and beautifully so. It is also proof to me that lyrics don’t always need to be understood intellectually, but that the pure sound of language transports beauty all by itself, because I didn’t understand everything when I first heard this song.

What’s funny about the lyrics is that they never actually give an object of reference. „Jak“ can be translated by „as“ or „like“ or „when“ – all particles that would require something consequently following. That is as this is. That is like this is. That is when this happened. None of these sentences could pose a „this“ without posing a „that“ – but the song leaves out what „that“ is. It just gives a „this“. But in many lines, that proves to be enough. Like here:

Jak winny – li – niewinny sumienia wyrzut,
Że się żyje, gdy umarło tylu, tylu, tylu.

Like guilty unguilty twinges of conscience,
That you’re alive when there have died so many, many, many.

We don’t know what it is that is „like twinges of conscience“ – but that’s of no relevance to the emotional message of the line. I cannot say that I have felt that exact way, but it reminded me of a certain kind of feeling grateful for my life that sometimes is accompanied by a slight sense of disbelief that I should deserve to be so lucky. And it reminded me of the cemeteries of Sarajevo I have written about before:

The last bit of the lyrics says:

Jak biec do końca – potem odpoczniesz, potem odpoczniesz, cudne manowce,
cudne manowce, cudne, cudne manowce.

Like running till the end, after that you’ll relax, after that you’ll relax, wonderful astray,
wonderful astray, wonderful, wonderful astray.

The wonderful astray, or the magical astray, or the marvellous astray – what a beautiful notion that is. „Astray“, or „manowce“, has no German equivalent, it can only be translated in colloquialisms. My colleague once said that if there were to be a translation, it could certainly not be combined with terms such as „wonderful“ – German culture doesn’t care for the „astray“. In stereotype, that may be true. In fact, I am the counter example. I love the astray. I love getting lost. Being led wherever circumstance may. Letting life have its way with me.

In a story, this is what The Wonderful Astray means to me – I love just following a trampled out pathway on a remote Croatian island and coming across this:

When I found this place, I sang on the top of my lungs. I’m not sure, but I think Elton John’s „Can You Feel the Love Tonight“. If I ever return to this magical place, I’m going to sing „Jak“.

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