After one night in Milan I took the train to Rimini. Here, I did not have a reservation. So I simply walked into the first hotel that I saw near the station, asked for a single room and got it. The location of the Napoleon hotel was strategically important because on the following morning I […]
Rimini, Italy 2019 Read More »
This is my first post after a long break because I was stuck at home 7 months except for a quick getaway to Florida in February. Cataracts and a new macular hole blurred my vision. In December, I lost the ability to drive and watch TV. My universe was shrinking to a few feet around
Denver, USA – Milan, Italy 2019 Read More »
Getting from Bulgaria to Greece turned out to be a challenge. These two countries have a common border and no convenient way of crossing it. My initial plan was to travel to Alexandroupolis, the nearest to me Greek port, and to start island hopping from there. I wanted to avoid popular islands like Santorini and
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My night flight from Saint Petersburg, Russia was via Moscow. I arrived in Varna at 8 am, took the bus to Byala and one hour later I was in my apartment. Everything looked dusty; the air in the rooms was stuffy. The last time I stayed there was 7 months ago. I threw open all
Kaliningrad to St. Petersburg One of the places that I planned to visit in St. Petersburg was the General Staff Building on Palace Square. The complex was built to house the offices of the General Staff, the Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of Finance. In 1993, the East wing became part of the Hermitage. After
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The train Kaliningrad – St. Petersburg was old, probably made during the Soviet times. I was the only person in my compartment, but not for long. At the first stop, a man and a woman took the bunks on the opposite side from me. They were members of the train crew who traveled to St.
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Kaliningrad to Baltiysk Baltiysk (formerly known as Pillau) retained little of his German heritage. The entire Kaliningrad region was Russianized after World War II. Baltiysk’s old buildings stood out recognizable by their dark brick, thick walls. The town was green, clean and orderly which is typical for the places with heavy military presence. Men in
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Gdansk The bus Gdansk – Kaliningrad was half-full. Its passengers were Russians and Poles except for one Spanish-speaking family of four. Near Elblag, the only stop en route to Russia, we ran into thick fog that changed to rain. The bus was at the Polish border at 8:20 a.m., about 2 hours after it left
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Having left Krakow abruptly, I did not prepare myself for Gdansk as I would normally do. I knew that Gdansk (formerly known as Danzig) was a major port. It thrived as a trade center due to its location at the river mouth and on the Baltic Sea. The Teutonic Knights controlled the city whose population
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Coburg, Germany From Prague, I took the night train to Krakow, Poland. My ticket was for a 4-person sleeper. A train conductor checked it and told me to take a different compartment. I looked questioningly at him. ‘You are alone,’ he said. The guy was Czech; he struggled to find English words to explain what
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