SPISSKY HRAD

It is said that Spissky is the biggest surviving (although ruined) castle of Central and Eastern Europe. So, I ought to visit it. Especially that the first time I passed on the area, going from Levoca to Presov, I passed not far - but at the time I was not yet a fan of WH. The second time, touring the North of Hungary by car, I decided I should not miss Spassky Hrad and took a detour to Slavakia; the two countries were freshly EU members, but not yet "Schengenland" ones, so the border checks were in place, but on a relaxed mood.
At a curve of the road Spissiky Hrad appeared in the distance, bravely on top of a big hill. I stopped at Spissky Kapitula, the nearby small town, just down the hill; here you have fine views of the Hrad from an underneath position. Then I proceeded to the castle. Being in such a proeminent position, I could devise (it was a fine Summer day) the Tatra mountains in the distance. I took my time to stroll around the castle and also to walk outside its precinct on the grassed slopes around it.
Later I drove back to Hungary, via Kosice, and stopped for dinner and sleep at Tokaj, the town of the country's famed sweet wine. The next morning I walked on town and climbed up the vineyards on the hills follwing a copious hungarian-style breakfast - on a happy mood, having added two more WH sites to my personal "collection". Sadly on that evening Portugal was to loose the final of the football Euro 2004 championship. Life is never as perfect as one hopes!

VIRGIN GORDA

I took the small passanger ferry in Charlotte Amalie,United States Virgin Islands, in a gorgeous tropical morning and landed quietly in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands, an hour later or so. The name of the island is not that gracious, if you understand latin languages and Columbus is supposedly the man to blame, because from the distance it looked to him as a lying fat lady.
As it was the low season I did not care to reserve a hotel room, which on arrival the immigration control office disliked and ordered me to go for a room and return to get back my passaport after the booking, which I did with no problem, as I had already an idea where to stay. Later in the day the hotel esplanade and bar, just in front of the beach, gave me the opportunity of a very beautiful sunset, with some other BVI islands and islets in the distance. Before that the afternoon had been rather stiily, there is no argument for any stress in these islands of absolute non challence and tropical quietness. I had just a short walk to the the Baths, more or less the only island's tourist spot, apart from the resorts. One can have a bath in the warmness of the sea waters under the protection of huge granite boulders, sometimes creating grottoes open to the sea.

BAARLE-NASSAU

Know nothing about it? Do not even know where it is? No problem, it is not that important, it is more about the fun! It is about enclaves and exclaves: the concepts are not so complex in themselfes - but its praticalities always seem funny and odd. Notice for instance another case: Ras al-Kaimah Emirate has a round enclave inside an Oman territory, which is itself a round enclave of Ras al-Kaimah.
I kown about Baarle-Nassau since the winter of 1982, when I took a trip from my Luxembourg base to the Netherlands. After visiting the mushroom-like building of the science and technology Evoluon museum in Eindhoven, raised to celebrate the 75th aniversary of Phillips, a careful looking on a small entry of my travel guide led me to Baarle-Nassau.
Rights, claims and arrangements,in short History as it happens, are responsible for the strange situation. When Belgium separated from the Netherlands in 1830 the odd forms of "borders" simply followed the status quo dating back to XII century feudal times, when the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Holland were having conflicts about their respective possessions. We can now take advantage of such conflicts by seeing houses which are half in each country, passing to Belgium though an enclave to go to a sub-enclave of the Netherlands, having a drink - if my memory is still reliable! -in an "international" coffee shop which has a table with half of it in each country and other subtilities of the kind. Enjoy your drink and pay it now in euros, while earlier you could be tough with the owner about how to pay: dutch guilders or belgian francs.

SINTRA

Of all 890 WH sites, the nearest to my Estoril home is Sintra (and the nearest to my Brussels apartment is the Grand-Place). I shall not self-complain!
In fact Sintra's nomination does not pertain to any specific building or monument and is officialy labelled "Cultural Landscape of...". Anyhow some architectonical and vegetal structures are remarkable and must be considered: The Royal Palace in town, the Moors Castle, the Romantic Pena Palace, the Seteais and Monserrate Palaces, the masonic Quinta da Regaleira, the Capuchos Frairy, plus several ancient churches, parks, forests and the narrow crooked streets in the urban centre. Are the well known and well eaten "queijadas" (cheese cakes) also part of Sintra's cultural landscape? And what about Lord Byron verses in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" where he writes "Sintra's glorious Eden intervenes in variegated maze of mount and glen."? The word is for the heritage specialists - but for me both are also part of it: I have made up my mind since when I begun visiting Sintra, well before it was appointed a WH site.
In the picture: Quinta da Regaleira in a winter foggy day.

ADEN

I have never visited Aden, or better said have only been once in its airport. It was in 1976 on an Aeroflot flight between Maputo and Moscow, with outbound stops in Aden and Cairo and inbound in Mogadishiu. All the family was in the plane, wife and three children.
I still remember perfectly well two things about this stopover.
First: as soon as the Tupolev touched down and braked, I begun seeing from my window seat some MIG15 jet fighters semi-hidden in between airfield buildings, a sequence of hangar-aircraft-hangar-aircraft-etc.. At the time Aden, as an independent country under a marxist regime, was a stategic ally of the Soviet Union, with strong air and sea facilities for the soviets. Years after and some conflicts, revolts and peace arrangements later, Aden (or South Yemen) agreed a reunification with North Yemen, to form what is today Yemen.
Second: the free shop was open (not sure how marxist-leninist the concept is!) and I got a bottle of VAT69 whisky for thee american dollars. Very cheap even by then prices and my first experience of spending dollars at the profit of communism.

TROMSO

The city has not much to offer indeed, but this is not an argument for a tourist who feels itself to be of a strong reputation. It has the Artic Cathedral, a modernist church from 1965 and a bridge linking downtown (in an island, which also contains the airport) with the mainland; both are visible on the back of the picture. Plus the Hurtigruten, the famous ferry line: a big one was on the port when I passed by.
With the exception of the Svalbard Islands, about which I will make entries later, Tromso is the northernnost city I have visited, more than Kiruna in Sweden and Rovaniemi in Finland. And of course at 69.4 degrees it is upper the Artic Circle. When I was there it was the midnight sun period, but frankly I can not confirm it: having already seen it in Narvik, I went to bed by 11pm and it was not dark.
Tromso has also an University, "the northernmost University of the world" and a beautiful well structured Artic-alpine Botanical Garden, where I strolled for more than an hour.

TSAVO PARKS

Suddenly the buffalo attacked and the driver speeded up the jeep without warning. The man on the left fell on his wife, the wife fell on me and hopefully I did not fell on the driver. Not because of these falls, I supppose, the bufallo decided to stop the atack and we all laughed.
I do not know whether this is a dayly scene in Tsavo East Park, but it happened! The rest of the day passed with less emotion but more beasts. Lunch was in the hotel inside the park, with a view to a herd of elephants. Later we left the park at the Voi gate, passed the town and drove to Tsavo West Park. The two parks have a long common border, the highway and the railway separating both, but not at Voi. The night was passed at Salt Lick Safari Lodge, a surprising hotel with the rooms built in hut-like houses above wet grassland, the dining room with direct view (not even glass windows) to elephants drinking on a pool and the reception door shut by night to avoid animals entering. From my room I saw elephants passing by!
The following morning we were graced with a tour to see buffalos, girafes, deers, zebras, cobras,monkeys, pheasants and so, including a somnolent lion lying around bushes. As a standard extra for everyone on gorgeous sunny days we saw perfectly Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance, at the best of its superb.

BAALBEK AND ANJAR

From Beirut it is up and up and up the mountains. No harm anyway, the enthusiasm to see Baalbek is too great. You look left and it is a nice valley, green and populated. You look behind and it is the magnificent coastal plain of Great Beirut. Then you reach Mt. Lebanon' hights and it is down and down and down. The Bekaa Valley, extense and fertile-looking, is in front of you, the syrian mountains also, more in the distance. As you reach the valley continue eastwards till Anjar. It is a huge ruined city, said to be "a unique testimony to city planning under the Umayyads". Take your time and stroll around, think about how all great human achievements do perish. When your soul is happy return back, go to Zahle and proceed North through the valley, in the middle of fruit trees and other plantations. When arriving in Baalbek breathe fully and begin enjoying such a marvel: a phoenician city, then Greek Heliopolis, then romanized to huge structures un-paralleled anywhere. The Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Bacchus and the Great Court are some of the features not to miss. Once again take yout time and try to feel in your skin as in your mind how much History is made of change.
On the return do not miss one of the vineyards chateaux which accept visits and wine tasting. Take your time and think how, whatever the changes of History are, there is allways some pleasure along the road.

422 METERS BELOW SEA LEVEL

This is currently were stands the water level of the Dead Sea; later it will be even lower, as the volume of liquid is receding every year, due to the capture of the river Jordan waters.
I have been three times at this lowest area on the land surface of Earth. The first, coming from Amman, was on the Jordanian side of the lake and included a lunch in a hotel facing the waters and a bath on its greasy waters with the classic picture of reading a newspaper while floating. The second, coming from Jerusalem, was on the Israeli side with a very similar tourist programme. The third, a few days later, was just passing by on a trip from Tiberias to Jerusalem and bypassing Jericho, which was not possible to visit because of the state of play of the relations between Palestine and Israel.
While descending from any of the two capitals, which are built on high ground, one must obviously pass by level zero. In both cases the points of the mean sea level are duly indicated by marks. You can see a picture of me on the Jordanian mark and imagine as if half my body was under water and the other half above water.

LOCKERBIE

The name of Lockerbie has again resurfed in the news, because of the Scottish Government's decision to allow the only convicted person of the plane's bombing to go free on compassion reasons.
In he Summer of 1990 I had a few days of political meetings near Limerick, Ireland and decided to go by car after inviting my old parents to come along. We used the weekend to travel: having crossed the Channel we headed North, instead of taking the short way through Wales. Before reaching the (un-controlled) border between England and Scotland, we took a detour to visit the Hadrian's Wall, a World Heritage site, as we did the next day in Northern Ireland to visit and walk on the Giant's Causeway, another WH place. Some ten minutes driving after the border we turned right to respectfully visit Lockerbie, a familiar name to me since in 1988 the PANAM flight 103 exploded in the skies and most of the wreckage landed in the village. I got a feeling that, given the plane was flying at around 800 kilometers per hour at an altitude of some 10,000 meters, the explosion may have ocurred still above England space and then inertia and gravity led the parts of the plane to finally touch down in the scotish village.
The next morning we crossed the North Channel from Stranraer to Larne.

4.335 METERS ABOVE SEA LEVEL

A journey by coach from Ollantaytambo to Puno looks like an adventure. Ollantaytambo is on the valley of the river Urubamba, better known to tourists as the Sacred Valley, in the Cusco Region; Puno is the capital of the Region with the same name, more to the South, on the Altiplano. The road passes by two interesting Inca villages, Calca and Pisac, this one with a major site of an Inca's fortress ruins; just after Pisac it crosses the river and begins climbing, as the valley comes to an end and is replaced by a canyon. From here till reaching the main highway linking Cusco and Puno it becomes a secondary road for some 60 kilometers, almost all the time up and up, the further up the more the vegetation gets rare. Here and there, towns and villages appear, notably San Pedro, which has the important Inca ruins of Raqchi, one of the holliest temples of all the Empire. Much later in the desolated landscape the coach stops for pictures: it's the separation point between the regions and the highest point in the road: a panel reads 4.335 meters above sea level. It's the highest spot I have been in so far! To the left, on the adjacent valley, I see passing the tired-looking train bound for Cusco. From here it's just going down till populated Juliaca, but not that much in fact: Juliaca is at 3.825 meters. Half an hour later on a now rather flat road the coach reaches Puno, by the Lake Titacaca and one feels happy for finally seing it.

THE BEST TRAIN STATIONS

Journalist Jaime Cuninngham recently published in NEWSWEEK a laudatory article about the best train stations he has spotted. I do not take this kind of exercises as something with the value of a doctrine, just a laudable point of view of a person with a degree of specialisation on the issue and who has travelled long enough to minimize the risks of what he has missed. Interestingly he chooses 9 "best" worldwide train stations, instead of the classic figure of 7 which has been favoured since long ago.
Let me divide the nine stations in two groups, those where I have been and those where not. I have been in St. Pancras (London), Grand Central Terminal (New York), Chhatrapati Shivaji (Mumbai), Central Station (Antwerpen), Central Railway Station (Maputo) and Atocha Station (Madrid). I have not (yet) been in Dare des Bénédictins (Limoges), Lahore Railway Station and Hua Hin Railway Station ( Hua Hin, Thailand), in spite of having already visited Lahore and Lomoges.
For several years the Maputo, earlier Lourenço Marques, station was very much familiar to me and I often passed by: the bank in which I worked was just some hunfred meters form the huge square which ensures the arquitectonical proeminence of the railway building. The one in Antwerp, which has enjoyed a big refurbishment years ago, is familiar to be, through my twenty years of living in nearby Brussels.
Had I been asked to pick one as the "biggest" I have no doubt on the choice: that in Mumbai (earlier Victoria Terminus). I suppose it is the number one, worldwide, in terms of size and number of daily passengers, but by "biggest" I do not mean it, rather the quality of its arquitecture and the overall beauty of the building. It is a real masterpiece and that's why it has been deservedly classified as a World Heritage site. Have a look at the picture!

TOWERS IN THE MIDDLE OF RIVERS

Few castles in the middle of rivers? Well, what about church towers in the middle of rivers? May be even fewer, or may be not.
The fact is that I know two of them and have passed by. Both are in the rivers, lakes and canals system which links Moscow and Saint Petersburg by water, a gigantic public works project carried on during the harshest period of Stalin rule. A lot of villages were "sacrificed" by the project and are now below water level. In some cases the towers of the respective churches were high enough not to be fully engulfed by the waters, so they now remain lone witnesses of a bygone past.
Free of charge, I allow you to see them as exactly as I did from my boat.

ALMOUROL

How many castles in the middle of rivers do you know? Not many for sure, as few do exist.
I only know two so far, both visited: one in the Rhine, the Pfalz by Caub, in a small sandy island and Almourol, a solid medieval fortress standing on a granite rocky island in the medium river Tagus. The name Almourol explains it all, although I do not know the exact meaning: it's related to the moors, who built some defensive structure on a site earlier occupied by the romans. After the moors were defeated, the island was given to the Templar Knigts and they built the castle still existing today, with the external walls and towers almost intact, but with the interior a lot ruined. The view from the higher tower is imposing and refreshing, as you may see yourselves, first best by paying a visit ( nearest town is Constância, where lived Camões, the great Portuguese XVI century poet), or, second best, by looking my annexed picture.
If I may argue with myself, there is a third castle I know in the middle of a river: facts are that it is more just a tower than a castle and it was in the middle of a river but it is no more, as the river shore advanced. It is the Belém Tower, in Lisbon, which is a World Heritage site.

THE FORBIDDEN CITY

It was forbidden to non welcomed visitors during the imperial times, it is now available to every one during the opening hours once the entry fee has been paid. I paid mine and was by no means alone: my stay in Beijing coincided with a holiday week for all (comemoration of the declaration of the establishment of Communist China on October the 1st) and the city was crowded with chinese tourists from other Provinces.
One never enters the world's largest palaces complex without some sense of humility and also, in my personal case, with some pride on accomplishing an youth dream of a semi-mithycal nature I had well before the place was declared a WH site. My wanderings in the palatial city took the full day, as I only left with the last ones under the pressure from the staff. Being fully surrounded by a high thick wall plus partially by a large water moat, the Forbidden City does not feel the permanent human turmoil which goes on outside; more than forbidden it is probably secluded. In its conception it was perceived as a place for those happy humans who are far above the other humans, purer and nicer on their superiority. Just get an idea through the nomenclature of some of the building structures: the Gate of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, the Hall of Mental Cultivation, the Palace of Tranquil Longevity, the Gate of Divine Might, the East Glorious Gate, and so on!
When I left all these marvellous concepts and skilled adorned rooms it was like falling into the standard routine, hopes and headaches of normal people.

THE MARKET IN NOUAKCHOTT

The market in Nouakchott is as much colourful as you may imagine. There is not much to visit, indeed, apart from two big mosques donated by Saudi Arabia and Morocco and a catholic church near the French Embassy. I may also mention the Presidencial Palace, but this one is not really easy to visit.
For the sake of the truth it has to be mentionned that the city is meerely 59 years old: it was found in order to give the new country, a partition of the French West-Africa, a place were the new leaders could get empowered and meet and the new Embassies have their premises. The French would have preferred to keep the unity of the colony, but the arabic nomads in the North did not favour to become part of an independent black Senegal.
So, if you have one day or two in Nouakchott and have already been at the not-so-far beach where the waves are not that keen you will naturally finish having your time in every market in town. Buyer or not buyer, you will not escape the feeling of popular enjoyment and probably even less the extraordinary colourfulness of the garments and the scents of the food and drink makers. If in doubt see the pictures for the colours; sorry, for the smells the internet does not allow, yet, for them to be felt.

SCHOKLAND "ISLAND"

The highway keeps going on an almost perfect flatland; the same once you leave it and turn right, the same again once you turn right again into a small country road. Then suddenly you notice a very small hill, a higher place your eye would not catch everywhere else but here; on the hill you note some well maintained ancient houses and especially a church. A small museum explains the island's way-of-life and constraints and there is also the old port and dyke protections. This was Schokland Island and is today Schokland "Island".
Let me explain: the place was a very small densely populated island in the Zuiderzee, or Zuider sea, inhabited for centuries by fishermen' families, till the tides increases forced them, poorest of the poor at the time I presume, to complete evacuation. The well known ingenuity of the Dutch people led to the total reclamation of all this area by the 40's of the XXth century, with the new region, to be called Flevoland, adding a reasonable increase to the land size of the country. Proud of its achievements in controlling water and nature, Netherlands proposed and UNESCO endorsed Schokland as its first WH site, symbolising the "never-ending struggle between man and the sea".

LA CORUÑA

This year the Tower of Hercules at the entry of La Coruña's port has been added to the acquis of UNESCO'S World Heritage. It is a high lighthouse, built initially by the Romans.
This makes me remember the first trip I paid with my money: while studying economy at ISCEF, Lisbon, I gave some lessons at the Oficinas de S. José school, were I had earlier been a pupil of the primary classes. I took a self-oriented tour of Galicia, using trains and buses. From Lisbon I had the first night at my grand-parents home, in Aveiro and then proceeded to Pontevedra, with a change of train in Porto; sign of evolution and accrued feelings of peace, no more visas were needed for Spain, like in 1954. Up north I went to Santiago de Compostela with its famous cathedral (later a WH site), the highlight of my week, as you may well guess, but in-between I took a stop in Padrón to visit the house and monument of Rosalía de Castro, a galician writer. La Coruña was the northern most nightstop, which surely included walking till the Tower of Hercules, a vintage point for the town and its bay. Yet, I still moved more to the north, by taking a ferry till El Ferrol, on the opposite side of the complex system of bays in the region. For the return I choose Galicia's interior, with nightstops at Lugo and its roman walls (later another WH site) and Ourense. I took a bus to Puente Barjas, as called at the time, today Ponte Barxas, as Galician language took its rights, and then it was walking for around one kilometer to the border; after the border, more walking to São Gregório, a bus to Melgaço and finnaly the portuguese train. This is how and where I crossed a border on foot for the first time. God permitting, I suppose I still have some more to do.

NEW ORLEANS

Till Hurricane Katrina shockingly struck New Orleans in 2005 I was not aware that most of the city and a vast surrounding area was below river and lake level. The huge Lake Pontchartrain, which acts as a natural reservoir for the complex meandering of the mighty Mississipi river, has got levees to protect the city from flooding, the same happening with a canal linking lake and river. The breaching of the canal levee was the main reason for the disaster.
In November 2008 I went to see and better understand what happened. My refurbished hotel, some six kilometers from downtown and three from the lake, was aside a big abandoned 12-floor office building. Well, I went indeed to feel the atmosphere of the just recleaned famous French Quarter, or Vieux Carré in french, which looks as something unique in the United States, for its really french creolean caracter in terms of architecture, nonchalance and art-de-vivre, particularly at night. In Rue Bourbon you just walk in the street and can perfectly listen (and dance, if in such a mood) the orchestras playing inside the bars and restaurants, as they keep the doors open. You can too have a word from the street with those partying upstairs in the iron balconies.
The old streetcars are the other inevitable icon to mention; there are two lines, the really interesting one running from downtown to St. Charles, an uptrend suburb to the west. It goes all the way through a tree-lined path in a nice avenue, with lots of late 19th century charming mansions.

ABU DHABI'S NEW GRAND MOSQUE

The brand new Grand Mosque, more precisely named Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, is for me the most interesting monument of the Emirate. It is so recent that work on the adjacent areas, gardens, roads and parks, was still going on when I visited it two months ago.
It can be freely visited by non muslin visitors at certain times and it is really worth to do it. My experience tells me how different from one country to another are the visiting policies for non Allah believers, till absolute forbidness in some ones.
Inlaid in marble vegetal decorations abound in the interior, which seems to be unusual for a mosque. A feeling of quietness and absence from day-to-day stress is part of the visitor's magic. As for the pride of this oil-rich Emirate, the mosque boosts three entries into the Guiness Book of records: the largest carpet in the world, the biggest chandelier and the largest dome of its kind.