Travelogue… with Bob Nicolaides
Join in on an India Exploration
Join Swan Hellenic’s Minerva in the Omani port of Muscat ‘still a very elegant town
with very fine houses’ as observed by Portuguese admiral Alfonso de
Albuquerque in the 16th century.
Spend the following two days cruising the Arabian Sea
settling into the stateroom and enjoying introductory talks by your guest
speakers, anticipating the sights to come. Gandhi’s birthplace, Porbandar, is
in the state of Gujarat. See colorful markets, as well as the mid-19th
century ‘haveli’ of the Gandhi family. Follow the traditional route of the
spice traders south to Mumbai. Admire the city’s elaborate Victorian
architecture where you’ll see Colonial relics such as the Gateway to India, or
discover the daily life and fascinating
work of the dabbawalas. In the ancient trading town of Mangalore explore the
Hindu Gokarnatha Temple or discover two spectacular and rarely visited Jain
Temples at Moodabidri and Karkala. Spend two days in Kerala recognized as one
of the most serenely beautiful states in India, discovering communities and the
riverine life of rural India on a backwater cruise. Round the very southern tip
of India to Tuticorin, offering a rare opportunity to discover the charming
little city of Palaymkottai, before concluding your cruise in Colombo, capital
of Sri Lamka.
Russia will send more tourists to Support Cyprus
economy
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| Russia-Cyprus talks |
The crisis in Ukraine and the Cyprus problem were among
issues discussed on Thursday between President Anastasiades and Russian Deputy
Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexey Meshkov.
Meshkov said they had an “important meeting” and that they
confirmed the “excellent relations” between the two countries. “We are going
forward. We want to send more Russian tourists to Cyprus and we will keep in
touch and work together”, he added. Asked if they discussed the crisis in
Ukraine and the Cyprus problem, Meshkov replied, “Of course”.
Athens marks return of Neolithic
artefacts
A low-key event was held in downtown Athens with Greek and German
officials to mark the successful return of over 10,600 Neolithic objects taken
out of Greece illegally during World War II.
The objects include pot shards, stone tools, obsidian and flint blades and
bone material that were dug up illegally between June and December 1941 by Nazi
occupation troops, in an effort to claim that northern peoples, ancestors of
Greeks, had an established presence in Europe from prehistoric times.
The event at the Culture ministry's Directorate of Registration and
Protection of Cultural Material was attended by the German ambassador, the
director of the Pfahlbaumuseum - which was instrumental in the return - and
Greek and German archaeologists. Culture and Sports Minister Konstantinos
Tassoulas also attended and spoke of the efforts of archaeologist Angelica
Douzougli to locate the missing artefacts.
Douzougli, an honorary ephor of antiquities whose doctoral dissertation
led to the discovery of the material, spoke of how her search began in the 70s,
from a prehistoric archaeology seminar at the University of Nuremberg, Germany,
where she was studying and where her interest focused on agricultural and
animal breeding communities of Thessaly.
The materials repatriated on Monday come from several sites in Thessaly,
an area in central Greece that has yielded a richness of Neolithic material.
Most of it can be traced to the Visviki Magoula, or tumulus, dated to between
5,000 and 8,000 years ago. The Visviki material was packed in 28 boxes, 5 of
which were returned to Greece in the 50s.
The material will be housed for now at the National Archaeological Museum,
which also has the material from the 50s. The study of the material will be
augmented by photographs from the 40s showing modern lake communities of
Thessaly in and around Lake Karla (no longer extant) which resemble those of
Lake Constantia, in Germany, recreated by Germany's Pfahlbau Museum
Unteruhldingen - focusing on Stone and Bronze Ages - which assisted in the
repatriation of the material. "Unfortunately, the most important material,
8 boxes that remained in Volos in 1941, is now lost," museum director
Gunter Schoebel said.
Ministry officials reviewed the directorate's efforts to repatriate
material stolen during the WWII occupation, including 26 cases handled by the
bureu involving 1,158 objects, 41 boxes with Hebrew manuscripts and other
paleolithic findings. Director Suzanna Houlia-Kapeloni said that of all the
cases, objects were returned to Greece by Germany (12 instances), Austria (3),
Switzerland (3), Italy (2), United States (2), Britain (2), Australia (1) and Bulgaria
(1).
The ministry's director of
Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, Maria Vlazaki, said the repatriation of the
material was "a double cause of joy...as German, Greek and Austrian
archaeologists worked closely together to make this happen."
Minister Tassoulas referred to the symbolism of the gesture, noting that
such moves contribute decisively to the strengthening of bilateral ties.
Plane was hit by lightning as it was coming
in to land
Passenger on board the flight said it was 'absolutely
terrifying.' An easyJet,
owned by the Hadgioannou conglomerate, has been struck by lightning today while
flying with 156 passengers on board. Travelers on board the flight from Bristol
to Barcelona were left terrified when the bolt shook the plane, causing many to
burst into tears.
The
Airbus A319-111 was forced to land at Spain's Reus Airport due to thunderstorms
when the lightning strike happened. Passengers then were bussed back to their
destination more than an hour away. Izzy Ferris, 19, who was on board the flight,
said: ‘We were just flying over Barcelona and this
The
flight, from Bristol Airport, was due to arrive at Barcelona International at
10.10am local time. But, just minutes before landing, the plane was struck by
the freak storm. It is thought the airport is currently closed, with many other
planes also forced to land at Reus. Other passengers took to Twitter to speak
of their horror.
A
spokesman for easyJet said the plane had been diverted due to storms and had
been struck by lightning on its descent. 'The aircraft is equipped to safely
withstand lightning and at no point was the safety of the flight, passengers or
crew on board compromised,’ added the spokesperson.
'A
full inspection of the aircraft will be carried out in due course.'
Airbus to patent bicycle-style aircraft
seat
European
aircraft manufacturer Airbus wants to patent a design for a tiny bicycle style
seat for commercial jets. The design features a
retractable seat with a small backrest fixed to a horizontal bar with no
headrest, tray table and little legroom. The European patent submission says
the design is simply to reduce the bulk of an airline seat, enabling airlines
to fit in more paying passengers. The application states: "To increase the
number of cabin seats, the space allotted to each passenger must be
reduced."
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| The airbus prpoposal for airplane seats |
Airbus said there are no plans to
put the idea into production, but simply to safeguard intellectual property. "Many,
if not most, of these concepts will never be developed, but in case the future
of commercial aviation makes one of our patents relevant, our work is
protected," said Airbus spokeswoman Mary Anne Greczyn. "Right now
these patent filings are simply conceptual."
This follows a report published
last week looking at the possibility of 'standing seats' for short range
aircraft. The study suggested passenger numbers could be typically increased by
21% while ticket prices could fall by as much as 44%.
The year of Sarajevo: War history tours
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| A Sarajevo cemetery |
Sarajevo, the capital, is perfectly safe. The one drawback
is that there are no direct flights from the UK. The best connection is with
Croatia Airlines via Zagreb then a walk of about 50 yards to the next aircraft.
From the Heathrow boarding gate to my hotel took four hours.
'Our war is something that many foreign people can relate to
as it was fairly recent and Sarajevo often appeared on television news,' says
my guide Lorenc. It did indeed. The images of Snipers Alley, hardship and
suffering touched many of us deeply at the time. The Siege of Sarajevo in the
1990s lasted three and a half years and around 11,000 people died – the exact
figure will never be known.
Today, war history tours are the best-selling excursions in
Sarajevo. Near the airport, the Kolar family handed over their family home to
local defenders. The Sarajevo War Tunnel known as 'the tunnel of hope' is
another popular attraction. Oh, and the shopping is good, too, with plenty of
bargains.
The beautiful bazaar is a covered market on the site of the
old caravanserai (or inn), built in 1543 by the city’s greatest benefactor,
Gazi Husrev Bey, with stonework crafted by artisans from Dubrovnik in
neighboring Croatia. Silks and incense have been replaced by jewellery, mobile
phones and designer bags. The Vuitton and YSL wares are especially impressive.
'Are they genuine or fakes?' I ask. 'We have both,' comes the reply. On
Ferhadija Street, the Saraj Bursa tailor’s shop offers to make suits by hand
for around £90 and most shops boast 30-40 per cent discounts all year round.
With the local fast food 'cevapi' - delicious meatballs with
kamjac (cream cheese) in a special spongy pitta- type bread - priced at £1.70
and a G&T at the five-star Hotel Europe bar around £2, Sarajevo takes your
weekend break budget a long way.
Guidebooks focus strongly on Sarajevo’s ‘east meets west’s
split identity. Domes remain where Ottoman hammam baths once steamed, and
nowhere else in Europe have I seen mosques, Catholic and Orthodox churches,
synagogues, religious schools, cocktail bars, internet cafés and restaurants in
such cheek by jowl profusion. You can walk unhurriedly from one end of the
pedestrian-friendly city to the other in an hour. It’s worth stopping at
Egipat, an exquisite cake shop run by Ana Ristovski Korac who lost her husband
during the siege.
Ana has become a symbol of the new Sarajevo, and she’s all
smiles as she describes visits by Bill Clinton and Penelope Cruz. She insists I
take a box of cream macaroons for my journey home. At the base of a building I
pick out a ‘Sarajevo rose’. These are concrete scars caused by the explosion of
mortar shells during the horrific years, and are painted red lest anyone ever
forgets.
Life has changed beyond recognition for the Bosnian capital,
but its past is never far away.
The capital of nudism has a decline in interest
MANY Germans still love to bask naked on the beaches of
Spain and France but at home, long the land of the all-over tan, the nudist
movement is in decline. For almost a century, German sun-worshippers have been
known to rip off their clothes at the first sighting of the country’s
all-too-rare summer rays. Especially since the carefree 1970s, naturists,
unencumbered by clothing and their parents’ prudish mores, have frolicked in
the buff on beaches, lakes and in city parks.
The trend was especially popular in the former communist
East Germany, whose people celebrated it as a rare expression of personal
liberty in an otherwise highly oppressive society. But times are changing for
the movement known in German simply as “FKK”, short for Frei-Koerper-Kultur or
“free body culture”. “Society is changing,” laments Kurt Fischer, president of
the German Federation of Naturist Clubs (DFK).
The energetic septuagenarian has been counting membership
forms and says total numbers for Germany’s 145 clubs have fallen two per cent a
year to about 40,000. Followers of the bronze cult are now ageing fast. The
largest contingent is currently in the 50 to 60-year-old bracket, and members
under 25 have become rare.
Fischer blames radical changes in people’s working lives,
with irregular hours making it hard to commit to FKK clubs and associations. “Twenty
years ago almost everyone had the weekends off,” he said. “Now in almost all
jobs, we must be flexible and free time is dictated by the employer.
“This is a problem for organizations that have their own
structures and that want to bring people together for an event at a specific
time.” From bowling to table tennis and even sailing holidays in Greece, the
FKK clubs offer a wide range of outdoor activities and competitions. But rival
leisure opportunities have also exploded in recent decades. “People no longer
want to commit,” said the DFK president. “They say ‘one weekend I do this,
another weekend I do that’.”
This is especially true for younger people who are far less
likely than their parents to strip off their trunks or bikinis in public, in
part because they regard fashion as a crucial marker of group identity. “Skateboarding
is trendy, but skateboarding stark naked, no!” laughed Fischer. Young people
with immigrant backgrounds and from Muslim cultures, where the unclothed body
remains taboo, have proven impervious to the lure of nudism.
Paradoxically, “uncommitted” naturism, such as taking a dip
in a lake in one’s birthday suit, is still going strong in Germany. “It has
become natural, it’s part of a lifestyle where we want to reconnect with nature,”
said Peter Zellmann of the Vienna-based Research Centre for Leisure and
Tourism. “We no longer need to be part of an association, of a structured
organization.” In Munich, the capital of the conservative and mainly Catholic
southern state of Bavaria, the largest city park, the Englischer Garten, has a
space reserved for naturists.
Many a foreign tourist strolling through the green space has
been stunned to come face-to-face with exposed female breasts, not to mention
disrobed men playing frisbee. The same goes for the windswept beaches on the
Baltic and North Sea, which are strictly divided between swimwear and “fabric-free”
areas.
When summer comes to Europe, between eight and 12 million
Germans still engage in nudism, said French geographer Emmanuel Jaurand, author
of a comparative study on the naked cult in Germany, where nudism has been
legal since the 1920s, and in France where it was authorized only in 1956. In
his study, Jaurand concluded that Germany remains committed to “urban public
nudity that is uninhibited and quiet” and “detached from any sexual
connotation”.
Restoration of Frankish Tower on Acrocorinth
The restoration works of the Frankish Tower
The castle was declared a
Byzantine monument in 1922.
The Acrocorinth hill was
fortified from the antiquity and its walls are connected with the walls of the
city of Corinth and with the important ancient harbor of Lechaion.
