Bis immer... Bis Himmel...
Flying above Europe is flying above No Man's Land - a unified space of air and colors without origin and without borders; searching identity.What is that to define if you come or you go? For what you leave behind, there is No Time.
[Calendar counts already (and exactly) one month. Title translation: Until always... Until heaven...]
Islamic art on a greek island's harbour by an armenian...
Inside the only mosque perserved in the city of Chania, second city of the greek island Creta and capital of the perfecture with the same name, one can find nowadays temporary art exhibitions, open most often afternoons and nights during summer. That means, exactly at the peak touristic time of the outer and western harbour (Tombazi coast) one can keep sometimes distance from the noisy crowd and lose oneself in the insides of this mosque with the mystical atmosphere of other times... The Janissaries* Mosque presents an unusual sight with its cubistic shape covered by a large hemispherical dome without a spradrel supported by four elaborate stone arches and dates back to the second half of the 17th century. It was erected in honour of Kioutsouk Hassan, the first garrison commander of Chania in 1645 but was heavily damaged by the World War II bombings. After a research conducted by the 13th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, it has been discovered that there used to be an one-roomed temple in its current position.
The temple Kioutsouk (small) Hassan or Giali Tzamissi (seaside mosque), as it was commonly called, a brilliant sample of Islamic art of the Renaissance was a work of an Armenian architect and stopped operating in 1923. Today it is restored without the small and pituresque minaret, which was demolished in 1920. For a number of years the Information Office of the Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO) was housed there and it has been also occasionally used as an Archaeological Museum of Chania, a storehouse, a Museum of folklore art, while recently has served as Antiquity Department of the Harbour and as an event and exhibition hall. 
*
Janissaries:
Greek-born and Muslim-raised paramilitary units that laid down the law with particular brutality.
At the quay of the old Venetian harbor of Chania Town during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in Greece and Crete, the Turks often took children from the Christian families, raised them as Muslim and conditioned and trained them to be brutal law enforcers, so called the Janissaries. The ones of Chania Town built this mosque around 1650, in one of the most high profile and privileged spots in town. In 1690 their power and arrogance had grown so much that they murdered the Pasha of Chania and it is said that they fed his body to the dogs behind the mosque.
Μunicipality of Chania
Chania travel guide, Chania country (Creta, Greece)
Summertime in Greece
Loutsa is a small village on the east coast of Attica, 2km away from the ancient temple of godess Artemida - that's way Artemida is the second name of the place - and 38km away from Athens. In its beach one can find a thousand treasures, not necessarily ancient ones, but those of everyday life: peaceful moments and the definition of beauty...carved in relief on the gold cover of our existence
a dark spot that travels like a fish
in the dawn calm of the sea and you see it:
a void everywhere with us. [...] "King of Asine", George Seferis (one of Greece's most important men of letters ever, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963), Assini, summer '38 - Athens, Jan. '40
Chalkutsi, Oropos, St. Apostoloi, Shinias, Nea Makri, Zoumberi, Spata, Rafina (a harbour from where many ships depart to several islands of Agean Sea), Loutsa and Porto Rafti, are to be found in (and consist the) Eastern Attica, which is the east part of the larger perfecture of Athens, capital of Greece.
Spata are known world wide since the Athens International Airport is situated there, after having moved recently from the area of Elliniko.
Rafina is another harbor (the second largest one of the greek capital after Piraeus, first harbor of the country) from where ships take passengers to the islands.
Europeans having party
The legendary so called "Auditorum party", with more than 2000 visitors, is the largest student party in Eindhoven of the Netherlands. It takes place once every two years during the European Week Eindhoven (EWE), the biggest European student event of its kind, organised biennially by students of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e) with about 450 students from all over Europe gathered together in a challenging and eventful week of conferences, interactive discussion workshops and cultural activities.
This year the theme of the "Auditorium party" (EWE 2005) was "Colours of the music" with the idea of 6 "coloured" areas held in the very heart of the university, inside the main building of the Auditorium. Green area, the one of the photo, was meant to be the Main Stage, surely the meeting point of the party, with DJ Mason using a violin during his DJ set and Benny Rodrigues together with Noramn Soares doing a closing drum act.
All around one could visit peripherically - and on second floor - the smaller rooms of Red area (Live music - student bands: Shake and PromisQuity), Gold area ("urban" area, mixture of Hip-hop, Reaggae, R&B), Yellow area (Beach house: funky & groovy), Pink area (Palace of Luv), Blue area (Silent Disco: everyone wears headphones and swings on the 80's music).
No doubt - for everyone that had been there - this party was a great experience of tasting not only the dutch way of having parties but also the opportunity to mingle with students of all around Europe in a unique way of an all-cultures-blended night life that usually cannot get held in one and only place and time...
Fortifying the light against medieval shadows
Between Kielmeyerhaus and the New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) and then up above from the Small Market (Kleiner Markt) one can discover two ways up to Esslinger Burg: the one, more difficult, with the more than one hundred steps of the castle and the other, the easier one, through the vineyards.
Always choose the hard way to climb up: the gradual unfolding of Neckar valley and of the town's overview as you move upper step by step is gorgeous... While using the easy path down to the core of the Old Town, don't fail to drop a glance behind: the mass of this tower will keep the shadows away for you - meant in any way to be the remains of the outer fortification for the town of Esslingen to the north (first mentioned in 1314).
Esslingen am Neckar is situated in Baden-Württermberg (Schwabia), in south-west Germany, just a 15-minute S-Bahn ride from the main railway station of Stuttgart. It is maybe the only town in the larger area of Stuttgart still maintaining its original medieval core and having almost totally survived intact the World War II.
"Greece of the Greeks" says goodbye to the Poet M. Anagnostakis (1925-2005)
"There is no other Greek poet whose life has been so politically committed and who yet has channelled so little of his ideological identity into his poetic work ", so Nasos Vagenas said speaking about Manolis Anagnostakis.
As the Greeks say goodbye (αντίο) today to one of the most important poets of the postwar generation of this era, I 'm letting here the epilogue to be expressed by his own words - even through his own voice...
EPILOGUE (reads: Anagnostakis Manolis, O Mανόλης Aναγνωστάκης διαβάζει Aναγνωστάκη, Διόνυσος 1977) :
Oι στίχοι αυτοί μπορεί και νά 'ναι οι τελευταίοι ********These verses may be the last ones
Oι τελευταίοι στους τελευταίους που θα γραφτούν **The last of the last ones to get written
Γιατί οι μελλούμενοι ποιητές δε ζούνε πια ************For the oncoming poets are not alive any more
Aυτοί που θα μιλούσανε πεθάναν όλοι νέοι *********All those who would speak died young
Tα θλιβερά τραγούδια τους γενήκανε πουλιά ********Their dolesome songs turned out birds
Σε κάποιον άλλον ουρανό που λάμπει ξένος ήλιος*In another heaven where a stranger sun is shining
Γενήκαν άγριοι ποταμοί και τρέχουνε στη θάλασσα*Turned out wild rivers and now hurtle to the sea
Kαι τα νερά τους δεν μπορείς να ξεχωρίσεις *********And their waters you cannot divide them
Στα θλιβερά τραγούδια τους φύτρωσε ένας λωτός****In their dolesome songs sprouted up a lotus
Nα γεννηθούμε στο χυμό του εμείς πιο νέοι. *********For us to get born in its juice even younger. M. Anagnostakis ************************************************(translation by Elia Ntaousani)
He was the one to prove that "act and silence can be the same drastic expressions",
Γιατί η ποίηση δεν είναι ο τρόπος
Αλλά ο καλύτερος τοίχος να κρύψουμε τα πρόσωπα μας
For poetry is not the way
But the best wall to hide our faces
"Η ποίηση είναι έργο της νεότητας. Χρειάζεται ενθουσιασμό, αυταπάτες, ψευδαισθήσεις. Αυτά τα έχουν οι νέοι. Όσο μεγαλώνεις, κατέχεις καλύτερα τα μέσα σου. Γίνεσαι τεχνίτης, αλλά ένα ποίημα δεν χρειάζεται να είναι τέλειο για να είναι καλό. Στο αλλοιωμένο τοπίο της εποχής μας δεν θα ξαναγράψω. Το έργο μου το ολοκλήρωσα. Επιλέγω τη σιωπή."
I translate:
"Poetry is a youth's issue. Needs enthousiasm, illusions, delusions. These are things that only the young people possess. As you grow up, you hold over your means in a better way. You become a master of the kind, but a poem doesn't need to be perfect in order to be good. In this degrading landscape of our era, I won't write again. I have completed my task. I choose the silence."
* * *
THESSALONIKI, DAYS OF 1969 A.D.
In Egyptou Street -first turning right-
There now stands the Transaction Bank Building
Tourist agencies and emigration bureaus
And kids can no longer play with all the traffic
passing
In any case the kids have grown, the times you knew have
passed
They now no longer laugh, whisper secrets, share trust,
Those that survived, that is, as grave illnesses have
appeared since then
Floods, deluges, earthquakes, armoured soldiers;
They remember their fathers’ words: you’ll experience
better daysI
t’s of no importance in the end if they didn’t experience
them, they repeat the lesson to their own children
Always hoping that the chain will one day break
Perhaps with their children’s children or the children of their
children’s children.
For the time being, in the old street as was said, there stands
the Transactions Bank
-I transact, you transact, he transacts-
Tourist agencies and emigration bureaus
-we emigrate, you emigrate, they emigrate-
Wherever I travel Greece wounds me, as the Poet said
Greece with its lovely islands, lovely offices, lovely
churches
Greece of the Greeks.
Selections from THE TARGET (1970) by Manolis Anagnostakis (1925- )
translated by David Conolly Poems in greek:
Κλασσικά... Μανώλης Αναγνωστάκης: ποιήματα (Περιγραφής)
Δρόμοι παλιοί - Μανώλης Αναγνωστάκης
Κείμενα Α
Medieval Zurich of 2005
"[...]There were also accidental tourists, who had no idea that such a fair was taking place but were pleased to have stumbled upon it.[...]"
Outside the Fraumünster Church, on the free space between the colourful houses of several historical periods of Zurich, there was a Medieval Spectacular to be held during the last weekend of May 2005. Although this 3-days-event was officially considered as an opportunity to underline the very medieval origin of the Zurich's society as well as its strong heritage to the Zurchers of nowadays; and although one could really extract information about the folklore and the everyday life of that times, it seems to the 'external observer' that the most important could just be this extremely seductive diversity of times, peoples and cultures, so neatly bound and harmonically coexistant in one place and the same time - exactly as the colourful game of balance in this pic. Middle ages charm crowds in Zurich (article in NZZ online)
Portugal's Day - 10 June (1580)
Portugal celebrates today its National Day - also known as Camões & the Communities Day, the day that revered national poet Luis de Camoes (1524-80) died.
Given that opportunity, let's go for this bet; to condense in one eyeglance as much layers of spatiotemporal history and datas as possible. To be seen:- The flag of Lisbon, which is not just the capital of Portugal (since 1255) but the westernmost one in Europe as well, located on the Atlantic coast. There to be found:
- The Navigators of 15th and 16th century, respresented here by the Discoveries Monument, built in 1960 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator, promotor of the Discoveries and therefore of the so called "Portuguese Empire";
- The Carnation Revolution of the 25th April 1974, which subverted the authoritarian dictatorship to the regime of liberal democracy of nowadays, represented here by the April 25 Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in Europe, known as Ponte Salazar but renamed after the Revolution;
- The monument of Christ King / Cristo Rei, 113 meters above the level of the sea, on the west side of the river (in Almada), built on the basis of the promise done by the Bishop of Portugal to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, with the hope of keeping the country far from the horror of the 2nd World War;
- last but not least, river Tagus / Tejo, not only because it is the biggest river of the Iberian peninsula with its 275km in Portugal, but because could be said that is a symbol reminding that a big and important part of portuguese history is neatly connected with the aquatic element. A brief guide to Portugal
Portugal in wikipedia
Luís de Camões
Os Lusíadas
DiverCities
It is not by chance that I select that photo to inaugurate EuroTravelPrints. The diversity of languages shown and used, the diversity of ideas but - above all - the diversity of cultures, are three values chosen as fundamental to get promoted through this blog; three principles that dominate in the ruleboard of a true traveller. 'Njoy the trip...
In the very core of Europe, in the city of Strasbourg, whose cultural budget is secondly only to that of Paris, is to be found the building of European Parliament. The curved facade of the building traces for half a kilometer the banks of the Ill and of the Marne-Rhine canal. Floating slowly with the tourist boat on a rainy day can offer you audacious experience.
Visiting the European Parliament
Strasbourg info: European Parliament
