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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

VALENCIA

My two-times experience tells me Valencia definitely deserves a visit and by this I mean more than just two or three hours of strolling around the historical center.
If you go for futurism pay a visit to Santiago Calatrava's multi-fonctional City of Arts and Sciences and cross the bridge over the dry river to walk on the gardens.
If you go for ancient streets and lots of people during business hours try Barrio del Carmen for churches, including the cathedral, medieval towers and comtemporary restaurants and taverns with plenty of fish to be eaten and paid.
If you are, as is my case, more addict to World Heritage sites go first to the Llotja de la Seda, a XV/XVI architectonic masterpiece in rich late Gothic style where silk has been traded for long. A disappeared earlier building nearby was the oil (olive oil) exchange. This means, I assume, that at a certain point in time economic evolution, or development as our state of mind prefer nowadays, led to silk becoming more wealthier than oil and showing it in stone and prestige.
The picture shows the huge Sala de Contractació with its twisted columns in a rather dark mood (silk is not traded there anymore, just visitors go forth and back, so there is no need to carefully read the contracts).

TAXILA

I went twice to Pakistan in official missions as staff representative of the EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament. The second time the pourpose of the visit was to have bilateral political discussions with the Pakistani Parliament. On the last day of the mission one of the meetings was cancelled and I suggested that, on condition of giving up the lunch break, the European Members and officials could visit the Taxila World Heritage site, some 30 kilometers west of Islamabad, on the way to Peshawar. Our hosts promptly endorsed the idea and some half an hour later the bus was on the road - and my camera in the hotel.
Well, I had not studied much about the site, except that it was archeological and not that far from the capital. Too little I knew! Taxila is indeed a composite site of several ruins which spread along many kilometers: different civilisations succeeded one another in the area, but not exactly by superposing their locations. In short there are ruins of three cities in three different time periods, plus stupas and monasteries.
On arrival the european team was greeted by the Museum Director, a very knowledgable lady who guided us on a long and comprehensive tour of the fantastic riches of the house, namely the Gandara ones. Gandara art, the specialists say, is a "cultural syncretism between the classical greek cukture and Buddhism", originated through the presence in the region of the Alexander the Great armies. It was emotionally and intelectually very rewarding to see so many greek-like stone marvels with oriental motives. After the museum tour there was no more time for field visits, except an en-route quick glimpse of the Bhir Mound - because it can be seen from the road.
The attached picture, from the Pakistani Parliament photographer, shows our team with the Museum Director. One of the Members is Mr. Jacques Santer, who has been Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the European Commission.

DOÑANA NATIONAL PARK AND EL ROCIO

With a total of 41, Spain is one of the biggest contributors to the 890 World Heritage sites: I have already the majority of the spanish sites on my personnal acount and in March this year added one more: The Doñana National Park, in Andalucia, which out of curiosity is the Spanish site most near to Portugal. The Park is on the right bank of the lower part of the Guadalquivir river and also borders the sea for a lot of kilometers. A notable variety of biotopes is available: lagoons, marshlands, dunes, both fixed and mobile, scrub woodland and maquis, plus lots of birds, namely herons. Visitors only can go inside in guided tours and are taken in busses which can afford to be driven on sand and climb dunes.
Just bordering the Park fences lies the very typical village of El Rocio, famed for the spectacular Pilgrimage of the same name, with many pilgrims riding horses from far way and families travelling on covered wagons pulled by horses as well. It is said that about one million people do this annual religious exercise. The rest of the year, like when I went there, the place is much quiet, but visitors and pilgrims are not missing anyway.

MALTESE EXPERIENCES

My first visit to Malta happenned in 1992. I strolled for long in Valletta, which has probably the biggest fortress in the world and is located in a really vintage point, at the tip of a peninsula in the middle of a bay with a very short way-out to the sea. I did the same in Mdina, the old capital in the middle of the island, inside another smaller fortress from where we can observe the sea in several directions. Malta is so much linked with wars, invasions and the likes that city-fortresses are indeed the main tourist attractions. Gozo, the second island in size, has also its walled city, Victoria, almost perfectly put in its middle.
Second visit was last Summer, a relaxed week with my dear wife, finnaly not so relaxed because we travelled a lot around, using the extensive buses services; they are the best way to mix with locals and are a real experience in themselves. I strolled again in Valletta, Mdina and Victoria, with a bonus comming from having taken a hotel in St. Paul's Bay - a mushrums-like location for foreign tourists.
The country has three World Heritage properties inscribed. No one misses of course one of the theree: the City of Valletta. The others, out of the rushing tourists paths, are the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, in Paola, outskirsts of Valletta and the Magalithic Temples, seven in total, spread over the two islands, of wich we visited Gozo's two Ggantija temples and the Tarxien ones in Paola. As for the Hypogeum it was a matter of persistence and faith on fate. On arrival we were surprised to be informed it was essencial to pre-book well in advance ( maximum 10 visitors per hour!): the first visits were available ... fifteen days ahead, after our return. Unless you take a seat and wait for some possible no-show. We came the next day, waited and waited and my wife managed to go. We came again the following day and I managed too. My recommendation for anyone going to Malta: this Hypogeum is a real must, you feel going back four and a half millenia in time to understand how our ancestors were able to rig limestone blocks and build underground structures in a succession of floors.

THE WORLD HERITAGE: NEW SITES

The UNESCO's WH list got a kick-off in 1978, when the 12 initial sites were inscribed. Every year a specialised committee meets to decide on new inscriptions, the respective Member States where the sites are located being solely able to submit candidacies. After the 2009 meeting, just finished in Seville, the list is made of 890 sites. A dedicated admirer of this cultural concept since some years, I make efforts to visit as many sites as I can: although I have not updated the figures since some time, I assume having visited so far around 375/380 sites, which represent more than 40%. The sites added this year are 13 and of those I have been already in 6: the Wadden Sea (coastal areas of Netherlands and North-West Germany), the Dolomites (Italy), the Stoclet House (Brussels), the Cidade Velha ruins (ex-capital of Cape Vert ), the Hercules Tower (La Coruña) and twin-towns La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle.
The annexed picture shows Kizhi Pogost, a wooden church in Russia's Lake Onega, which I visited in 2007.

PETRA

UNESCO describes it as "one of the most precious properties of man's cultural heritage". I would not desaggree after having visited it. The ancient capital of the Nabataeans has been inscribed in the World Heritage list since 1985; has also been declared one of the New Seven Wonders of the World by world-wide voting in 2007.
Petra is a grandiose festival of rock and architecture in an unique combination: the "buildings" are indeed not built, but escavated on the rock. I think I can call it "negative architecture".
In 1845 John William Burgon wrote a long poem about Petra, which apparently he never visited and had just heard described by others:

But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,
that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,
match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.

I took a lot of pictures during my visit. Instead of the classical ones, showing the frontage of buildings or the tombs, I add to this note two more unnusual ones, which portray the strange colours of the rock and the rare configuration of the east entrance, which acts as a waterway when there are (rarely) heavy rains. You will note that there is more than the red and rose Burgon referred to. He should have visited Petra for the sake of the colours' truth

TORUN

Copernicus, the one who found out that the Sun was not exactly turning around himself, was born here. Additionally still partially-walled Torun is classified a World Heritage town ( some more sites world-wide should be classified in a couple of days). Having witnessed the birth of the famous astronomer may have had some psycological effect on the minds of those who made the WH application and those who decided on it, but there was no need for such emotional element. The city fully deserves per se its WH status, although the Vistula river, passing by in an indolent fashion, does not seem to remark it.
But I did: by strolling twice around the walls, the gothic houses on the Rynek (old town market place), the ruins and the parks, the remnants of the Teutonic Knights castle, one during day light, another by night. After what I went fully and peacefully sleep in my hotel fifty meters from one of the walls gates.

BRUSSELS

I am now in Brussels. Having worked for the European Parliament for twenty years till my retirement, I keep my appartment and have resident status. Travelling between Brussels and Lisbon looks to me more as a shuttle than a standard flight.
I know Brussels since 1970. That year I transited here in-between a flight from Lisbon and a train to Cologne, where I had to pick my new car, later to be sent to Angola. It was a Summer Sunday and, near to the Grand Place, I watched on a TV café the second half of the Football World Cup (in Mexico); Brazil won superbly, to my enjoyment (almost every portuguese is a Brazil fan, if the opponent is not Portugal!).
Later I was a regular of the Grand Place every time I came to Brussels. I keep the memory of the its traffic changes: in 1981 the Grand Place was (still, in today's understanding) a big parking place; later the cars could come in and tour it, but no more parking; and later no more cars, just people.
Moving to Brussels, I had for some months a small apartment very near to the Grand Place, so I was quite acquainted with the new "just people" environment. Then, one Winter Sunday I woke up very early, went to the Grand Place and saw it as never more: there was no one but me in the profound beauty of that grey and half-foggy morning. Guess very few have seen it such a way! Later the Grand-Place was approved as a World Heritage site...

EL JADIDA, MOROCCO

I am back from Morocco and fully succeded my aims for this travel; additionally I visited Rabat, Casablanca and Meknés in more detail than my first trip there. Later a post for every one of the cities will appear. Today I am just adding a picture of the El Jadida "Cité Portuguaise" (Marzagão, as called by my ancesters), where some thing funny happened.

A team of the portuguese state-controlled television was there for a film on the "7 Portuguese Wonders world-wide"; it's a game, or contest, on the same model of the " 7 World Wonders" privately organised two or three years ago. We crossed them and entered into conversation - the outcome is that they wanted me for a short interview on my motivations to visit the place. We were told that films of the kind are being prepared about the 27 out-of-Portugal locations and will be shown in several distint days to allow the TV audience to vote for the 7 nominations.

MOROCCO

Next Sunday I will travel to Casablanca, from Lisbon, for some days there.
My main aim in to visit two World Heritage sites: El Jadida ( old portuguese Mazagão ) and Volubilis. If I do it, I will have already visited 6 of the 8 WH sites in Morocco.
JSM