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We have been in Greece for about a week already, relaxing in the company
of
Markella's parents (and their fridge!). This has been our most roundabout
way of geting to Greece throuh Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Our last stop in Romania was Bucharest, just for a day, mainly to see what
Causescu had done to the city. Old Bucharest was a town of beautiful leafy
streets, white marble mansions and small old churches. Some of that is
still
there, but very little, as Causescu decided that he was going to clear
vast
areas of the city to make way for his own megalomaniac plans. It's
difficult
to miss the 'House of the Republic', one of the largest buildings in the
world, that sticks out like a sore thumb. It's built in a typical
communist
style, a giant monstrosity of diabolical design, that has managed to
ignore
entirely all principles of grace, proportion, harmony and anything else
that
you might aim for as an architect, except for the enormous bill. The
minute
Causescu and his wife were shot in 1990, all building work stopped and the
giant cranes are still swaying limply above the building just rusting
away.
Causescu had some grand idea about him living in this building, that's
covered in marble from top to bottom, addressing the Romanian people from
a
specially-built rostrum, facing a specially-built square and a 1km-long
avenue that is lined with fountains, and people would be throwing rose
petals and clapping and cheering about how great a saviour Causecu was...
I
think power goes to your head eventually.
Causescu buildings aside, Bucharest isn't at all unlike the things you see
on TV: kids glue-sniffing in sewers, beggars and buildings still
pock-marked
from the 1989 shootout. We managed to escape unscathed, except for one
incident, where we were approached, in broad daylight, by a Romanian
asking
for directions ... in English. That smelled of something dodgy immediately
and sure enough his 'partner' pounced on us 30 seconds later with a fake
ID
card, supposedly from the tourist police (there isn't one in Romania),
telling us that we shouldn't be talking to this man, and can we show him
our
passport and money as evidence. We told him to "Go and **** himself" in no
uncertain terms, which we suppose he proceeded to do because he left us
alone. A bit further down another 'couple' were about to try the same
thing,
but they got the same treatment as the previous ones. I guess we were
lucky
this time round.
We left Bucharest with no more incidents and headed south to the Bulgarian
border, which is once again on the Danube. We only stayed in Bulgaria for
3
days, not because we didn't like it (quite the contrary), but we wanted to
head east to Istanbul. In Bulgaria we stayed in a beatiful town called
Veliko Tarnovo, built on a high rocky outcrop in a canyon in the middle of
the Stara Planina mountains. Several of the houses (including our hostel)
are built on the cliff face with a totally breathtaking view below. The
Bulgarians were extremely friendly, especially to Markella for being
Greek,
and kept telling her what good relations their respective countries have.
Wisely, she decided that this was not the time to mention that one of her
ancestors ('Basil the Bulgar-slayer') once blinded 15,000 Bulgarians and
sent them home led by a one-eyed Bulgarian, as it would not do diplomatic
relations a world of good.
Veliko Tarnovo has a really imposing citadel, where for several centuries
Bulgarians indulged in that quintessential Balkan hobby: impaling enemies.
Actually we wouldn't fancy trying to scale that cliff face, with fierce
Bulgarians waiting at the top. At night they had a brilliant light and
sound
show at the citadel, which we watched while drinking a delicious bottle of
red wine.
After 1 train ride, 3 bus rides and a 4-km walk across the border, we made
it to the Turkish side at Kaptan Andreevo, where Bulgaria, Turkey and
Greece
have a brief common border. The border crossing was a bit of a laugh: at
the
first post they give you a piece of paper with the time of your arrival
and
how many people you are (!??), and then you go through another 2 border
posts where fervent passport stamping takes place, and then you go through
a
fourth border post, where you have to hand that torn piece of paper back,
and where they check that you are still the same number of people and you
haven't been loitering aimlessly around the border post for hours, and
when
all that is done on the Bulgarian side, you have to go through the same
charade on the Turkish side with torn bits of paper and fervent stamping
and
checks for loitering and numbers of people. Oh, ... and there is a
disinfection pool (!) between Bulgaria and Turkey (just for your shoes).
We
seemed to have passed all stages of the test successfully, because we were
allowed out of Bulgaria and into Turkey without any hassles. 20 km into
Turkey at Edirne, and we were in a different world with mosques and
minarets
and thousands of kebab places (there was a bit of a dearth of eating
places
in Romania). We felt like millionaires, when we changed 100 pounds and got
100,000,000 Turkish lira in return. The following morning we made our way
to
Istanbul, and managed to find an extremely cheap hotel in a small alley
right in the centre of town, that wasn't quite a flea pit like the rest.
We
had all we needed in terms of food, tea and snacks and a barber at our
doorstep. There was one drawback: it was next to a mosque, so we were
woken
up at 5am every morning with the imam shouting practically in our ear. The
greatness of Allah didn't seem to affect our sleep, because by the second
night we could just turn over and fall asleep again. We really enjoyed
Istanbul, didn't fall for any carpet scams and saw all the main sights and
the inside of several coffee shops. It's a great, vibrant city, alive 24
hours a day, and despite what Greek/Turkish politicians say and do, the
people were so friendly, especially to Markella for being Greek. On our
last
night there we went to a hamam (=Turkish bath), where a huge, busty lady
(for Markella) and a bulky, mustachioed Turk (for Kristian) took a brillo
pad and scrubbed our tans off, and then gave us a soapy massage, which was
rather nice.
Finally, we took a bus to Izmir, and onto Cesme which faces the island of
Chios across the water. That's where Markella's family comes from and
where,
as some of you may remember, K. and M. got married. Having stared at Cesme
from Chios for 35 years, it was extremely weird for Markella to stare at
Chios from Cesme for the first time and seeing all the familiar landmarks
from 'the other side'. Actually Cesme feels almost like home, with several
people speaking Greek (puts us to shame for knowing so little Turkish),
listening to Greek music and selling Greek stuff in the shops. But we were
soon in Greece itself. Actually, just as we were queuing to board the
little
boat across to Greece, the computer broke down at passport control and all
sorts of panic ensued: "no you can't go to Greece now, the computers
aren't
working", "No, we don't know how to check passports manually anymore, you
can't go to Greece". At that point, swimming to Greece does cross your
mind.
The grave technical problem consisted of the keyboard locking up, but that
seemed to be beyond the ability of the customs officials. Markella
promptly
mentions that "my husband works with computers", which immediately raises
Kristian's status to that of a semi-god. With vast expertise, K. points
persistently at the socket, they unplugged the thing, plugged it back on
and
to the relief of everyone in the queue, the technical error was sorted
thanks to Kristian's intervention. We boarded the little boat and 40
minutes
later we were in Greece. We only stayed on Chios for 2 days, mainly to
renew
our tans that had been so cruelly removed, and then we caught the ferry to
Athens, where we are resting with M.'s parents and catching up on some
home-cooked food for the next 3 weeks!!!
We are now trying to find cheap ways of getting to Cyprus for Kristian's
cousin's wedding - unfortunately with islands, hitch-hiking is out.
Lots of love to everybody
Markella & Kristian
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