Hotels

Cairo Egypt

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On April 21, 2002 while waiting for our flight from Athens to Cairo, we visited briefly with a gentleman sitting next to us who was on his way to Alexandria for what we thought was the dedication of the new Biblioteca Alexandrina (Alexandria Library). He was on the Board of Trustees I heard him tell an associate. When we boarded the plane a picture of the spectacular new library was on the cover of Horus, the Egypt Air magazine. The original library built by the Greeks in the fourth Century burned down in a fire so now President Mubarak and UNESCO has rebuilt the library. The design is a simple disc inclined toward the sea, partly submerged in a pool of water and is covered with Aswan granite engraved with calligraphic letters and representative inscriptions from the world civilizations. Really felt I’d missed something by not seeing it.

What we didn’t know at the time, however, was that there had been a huge student demonstration against Israel a few days before and a student had been killed by armed police whereupon Egypt cancelled indefinitely the dedication ceremonies in deference to the Palestinians.

Off the plane, a young Brit who had been in the country about 7 months as a volunteer teacher with the British version of our Peace Corps, jumped into the taxi with us for the ride into Cairo. He spent some time negotiating the fare with the driver. “20 pounds…you said!!” We found out later that they often tell you one price and then when it comes time to pay they up the price-or they will tell you one pound and then when you pull out the money they say “no, no English pounds!” So our taxi driver is getting double fare? “Yes,” he said, “that seems to often be the case here.”

We stayed on the island of Gezira in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. We stayed at the Mayfair Hotel in Zamelak, an area on the north end of the island where there are many embassies. The main street is named Sharia 26 of July to commemorate the fiery coup in 1952 that destroyed all the landmarks of 70 years of British rule.

There are several bridges that cross the Nile to Gezira, the one nearest us being the October 6 bridge, commemorating the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur when Egypt launched a surprise attack across the Suez Canal and restored Egypt’s national pride after the Israeli defeat of the Egyptian forces during the six day war in 1967 when Israel took control of the Sinai peninsula.

The capital of the Old Kingdom of Egypt has some extraordinary funerary monuments, including rock tombs, ornate mastabas, temples and pyramids. In ancient times, the site was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is now an UNESCO World Heritage Site

Santorini & Sifnos

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As the ferry approached the island through the caldera you see a red-brown black and pumice grey terraced cliff face that looms hundreds of feet above the water with brilliant-white buildings with blue trim reflecting the Aegean Sea hanging off the side. But all those beautiful buildings hanging off the cliffs of Santorini, as it turns out, are all hotels, boutique shops, cafes and restaurants with a few blue domed Byzantine churches mixed in.

Walked into a cafe for breakfast of coffee and pastry the first morning to the sounds of Portland’s own Pink Martini playing on the stereo. While walking around the town-Bob in his perennial shorts-we passed a group of Spanish teenagers and one was heard in English “look at that guy-he’s wearing shorts-makes no sense! Do you think it made any impression on Bob?

After exploring the island’s archaelogical and historical sites and lying on black sand beaches there was not much else to do unless you were twenty years old and wanted to spend all night in the discos-so we ferried it six hours to another, smaller island-Sifnos.

Sifnos
At the harbor port of Kamares we took a bus the five miles up a windy road to Apollonia where we checked late into the Sifnos Hotel-tired and hungry. There was only one other patron in the hotel, a French publisher who returns to the island every spring. Apostolos, the hotel proprietor, welcomed us each with an Ouzo. Then he treated the French woman and Bob and I with Mezedhes (appetizers) and we sat for the next two hours eating and talking culture and politics. This is what I had been waiting for! Marie, the French publisher was reading the memoirs of Edward W. Said the professor at Columbia University whose books are popular reading these days for an understanding of the middle east.

Apollonia is an amalgam of three very charming hilltop villages with connecting white-washed buildings with flower-draped balconies lining immaculate narrow marble footways. The people actually live and work here and one gets the feeling this is how they prefer things. The shops are only open during the summer so most of the locals have other work the remainder of the year, Apostolos says.

Sifnos is 16km by 8km-great for walking-so Bob took off the next day for a five hour walk following a trail with one great view after another along the way up to an acropolis with a church and some ruins from 600BC. Almost the entire island was terraced 2-3000 years ago when the islanders supported themselves with agricultural products but since the advent of tourism and vehicle ferries the walled terraces now mostly grow yellow and white daisies and blood-red poppies and support the lonely burro and the goats. It is interesting that the people built their town in and around the many ruins; Greece taking for granted its antiquity.

This island has given us a welcome respite from noise and activity; none of the shops were open yet and their owners were painting, sweeping, repairing all over-preparing for the summer-eager and hopeful.

Apostolos says the Greek Orthodox church is very powerful in Greece-and very conservative-legislating every aspect of family life which is the all-important institution next to the church. Families stay together always-even if/when children move away there is almost daily contact, he says. Marie, the French lady said that yes, the Greeks seem open and friendly but there it stops-they are very clannish and no one on the outside gets into the inner circles. She and Apostolos recommend reading “Three Summers” by Margareta Liberaki published also in English.

Women
My sense about the young women I have seen especially in the less developed countries of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Greece is that they are a pretty savvy lot. Nothing will hold them back now!

As there was a strike on the day we planned to take the ferry back to Athens, we asked Apostolos if we could have the hotel room for the afternoon. “Of course, of course,” he says, “life is simple, life is simple!” When we were ready to leave, he gave us each a going away drink of Ouzo. I don’t want to leave this place…I am grateful for this journey; I have learned these ways so far to say thank you: Greek-efsharisto, Spanish-Gracias, French-merci, Portuguese-obrigado/a, Italian-grazie.

Back in Athens, I sat in the internet cafe with a young Anglican priest from Britain who was bicycling his way to Haifa Israel. Not worried, he said. The other fellow, was a UN Police Observer from South Bend, Indiana stationed in Kosovo making 90,000 a year. He was in Athens on leave. Meeting people like this is one of the reasons I like going to Internet cafes.

Rome

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“Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major. I don’t like Rome, I said. It is hot and full of fleas. You don’t like Rome? Yes, I love Rome. Rome is the mother of nations. I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What? Nothing. Let’s all go to Rome. Let’s go to Rome tonight and never come back. Rome is a beautiful city, said the major.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms.

Took one of those plush high speed TGV trains from Florence to Rome-one and a half hours. Wish the U.S. could have a similar system. A nice young guy in Bayonne, France who, while selling me some wonderful French perfume, told me about his three months he spent in the states and Canada-by traveling and sleeping on buses!

In Rome we checked in Pensione Cortorillo near the Termini (train station). This time there is a lift to the fifth floor. However, it was about 3 feet by 3 feet square. Bob thought he was going to be smart so he turned around and backed in with his backpack on. I walked in face first flat up against him. The inner doors (like French doors) barely closed behind me. Ok, good to go. Press the button nothing happens. Then Bob realizes that there is an outer door. So I have to back up through the door, turn around and back in so I can close the outer door. We get to the fifth floor. The lift stops. I look down through the metal grate of the lift and see the next floor about 12 feet down. Bob can’t see anything but now we can hear voices so I am thinking that since I can hear them maybe they will hear us holler for help. After some few seconds (which is long enough for many different thoughts to race through your head) Bob manages to turn his head far enough to see that behind him is another metal grate door and through it he sees the hotel proprietor waving frantically and yelling for Bob to open the door behind him which he does with great difficulty. Saved from eternal imprisonment in Rome.

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter’s Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna.
We took a two-hour bus tour to get an overview of this city full of marble domes, Roman ruins with pieces lying willy nilly about, noseless and penusless statues and motorcycle dust. The tour was narrated in English but we only understood about half of it because of the Italian accent.

I had wanted very much to see the Trevi Fountain across from which was a delightful guesthouse where Barbara and I, in 1965, could look out on the fountain from our second floor window. We weren’t looking, unfortunately, when every last single bit of our luggage, and film, was stolen out of the trunk of my little red Spitfire Triumph that night. Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the Fontana di Trevi, with its rumble of cascading water emerging from the back wall of the Palazzo, is ensured a speedy return to Rome and one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome. Well, in 1965 the first coin didn’t ensure such a speedy return but the second coin worked-my travel partner was charmed by a young Italian and spent a week longer in Rome while I went on toward Berlin by myself.

Rome is sensory overload of 2000 years of world history, art, architecture, politics and literature. We were exhausted after trying to absorb Florence and now Rome so we retreated gratefully to our room for a nap-falling asleep to the sound of music from “The Doors” and laughter from the young backpackers that filled the pension.

Barri Gotic Barcelona

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In Barcelona we stayed in the Lower Barri Gotic area at Hotel Peninsular at Carrer Sant Pau, 34. Two single beds; sink; window opens into central court; very clean and nice bathroom and shower down the hall; towels, soap, toilet paper even. The hotel was on a narrow side street off the Rhumba or main promenade; full of Middle Eastern and Indian businesses. Down the street away from the Rhumba and couple blocks toward the water was a pretty rough area with prostitutes standing facing the street always with one foot up flat against the wall. Excellent cafe around the corner toward Rhumba; internet about three blocks down the Rhumba toward a statue of Columbus pointing the way West.

Bob came back late to the hotel one night about midnight. Right in front of the
hotel doors three guys walked up by him. One of them asked for the time and as Bob tried to show him his watch the guy tried to trip him. The hotel proprietor, who was on the job and alert, came running out of the hotel with a club. The men run off leaving Bob rather shaken and leery.

Big Deal
The architect Gaudi has left some remarkably wonderful work including the cathedral called the Temple Expiatiori de la Sagrada Familia. It won’t be completed before 2020. I want to come back to see it even if someone has to wheel me in here! The Gaudi Park, originally built as a planned living community, failed and was taken over by the city.

Seven properties built by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in or near Barcelona testify to Gaudí’s exceptional creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Parque Güell, Palacio Büell, Casa Mila, Casa Vicens, Gaudí’s work on the Nativity façade and Crypt of the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Casa Batlló, and the Crypt in Colonia Güell represent an eclectic, as well as a very personal, style which was given free reign in the design of gardens, sculpture and all decorative arts, as well as architecture.

The work of Antoni Gaudí represents an exceptional and outstanding creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gaudí’s work exhibits an important interchange of values closely associated with the cultural and artistic currents of his time, as represented in el Modernisme of Catalonia. It anticipated and influenced many of the forms and techniques that were relevant to the development of modern construction in the 20th century.

Gaudí’s work represents a series of outstanding examples of the building typology in the architecture of the early 20th century, residential as well as public, to the development of which he made a significant and creative contribution. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Small things
How to feel stupid in another country: buy a Metro Pass and then stand there like a dummy because you cannot figure out how to get it into the intake slot where you walk through the stiles. Finally we both figured it out at once-take the paper pass out of it’s tight clear plastic cover! If you hate feeling out of control and disoriented be sure to travel-it’ll make you flexible and tolerant!

News
The International Herald Tribune co-produces a pull-out section with whatever country it is distributed in, so for example, in Spain, the paper co-produces the pull out with El Pais, the major Spanish daily. The chairmanship of the European Union changes every six months and Spain is taking its turn so the papers are covering the EU and Basque terrorism.

The Atlas Mountains

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We took an excursion trip south and east past incredible green terraced fields and old Berber kasbahs (ancient Moroccan self-contained communities made out of the rust colored mud of the countryside)-seemingly idyllic-to the Atlas Mountains.

Our group consisted of Bob and I, a young couple from New Zealand in their thirties-one a computer/internet analyst and his partner a pharmacist, another couple about our age from Boston. He had been the president of a University in Iran before the Shah was deposed and she obviously was also well educated. He was able to escape and she soon after. He now teaches theoretical physics at a University in Boston. The fourth couple was young-he a music major at a California school. The last two were a couple of great guys from Italy that we called �The Italians! who gave us some menu items we could order when we got to Italy.

On the way to the Sahara we passed over the Atlas Mountains (about 12,000 feet) and through the towns of Tinerhir and Boumalne. The first night we slept in a small Berber Hotel that was in the process of being renovated at the head of the Dades Gorge. The room was cold with a concrete floor but offered
several very thick heavy blankets-like the blankets used on the camels. The evening included a walk up an incredibly beautiful gorge and a dinner of Chicken Tangine. Oddly there were only two small pieces of chicken for every four people but otherwise it was very good. In the morning we had a breakfast of rolls, coffee, butter and jam before continuing on to Erfoud and then to Merzouga. We stopped in Kassah for lunch. (The cafes with the best toilettes get the most tourist business!) We all had beef kabobs and moroccan salad (tomatoes, cucumber, olives, onions) and water.

In the afternoon we walked through a Berber kasbah. We took a trail through the fields to learn about tribal farming; then walked through the kasbah and into a building where some women weavers presented their carpets. Bob was a sitting duck by this time and we are now the proud owners of a small Berber carpet.

By evening we reached an area where we were put astride camels that walked single file for a couple hours at sunset through the largest sand dunes in the world (the Al-chabbi sand dunes) to a Berber tent camp. One rides a camel on a big thick blanket just behind the camel�s hump with the pubic bone rocking back and forth against the hump. I told Bob to be careful or I�d trade him in for a camel! The Berber guy leading the trek cautioned the men to be careful of their ‘iggs.”

The encampment consisted of cloth tents joined together with heavy blankets and pads on the ground. Two good looking young Berber men cooked delicious Tagine with beef, carrots, onions and potatoes which we ate sitting in a circle on the ground with bread and our hands in groups of four. They served orange slices sprinkled with cinnamon and mint tea for dessert. Afterward the boys played Berber beats on the drums. Roosters from a nearby encampment woke us up at a breathtaking sunrise over the dunes.

The next day offered an eleven hour brutal van ride back to Marrakech with a short stop to eat lunch on a terrace at a small restaurant in Tirhan. We both ordered a �hamburger� that turned out to be a stew of tiny meatballs in tomato, onion, eggplant mixture. It surprised the heck out of us but was very good.

A few hours out of Marrakech we were pretty nervous about the narrow and curvy mountain road and we begged the driver to stop and take a break-which he did. The roadside stand had fresh Tangine, soup mint tea, coffee and soft drinks. The very friendly older man standing behind the food bench was offering me a small bowl of soup for 1.5 euros when I heard the driver in a scolding voice tell the food seller to charge 5 euros.

In Marakech that night the Ali Hotel was full because there was a holiday that weekend (we never did figure out what it was.) There also was an international meeting of some kind in the city during this time. So we stayed in the Hotel Eddakhla-a pretty basic hotel on a pretty rough street with a lot of beggars, no lift-just stairs-very deep and steep and narrow and on top of that the WC and shower was down on the first floor. The room had a sink and bidet but was very stuffy with no window to the outside. Bob bristled when a young man at the desk demanded his passport �for the police,� Bob of course thinking he wanted to take the passport which would violate rule number one: never give up your passport to anyone for any reason!

Ate dinner at one of the hundreds of eating stalls set up in the square every night that serve harira, kabobs and fish stews. Some of the stalls specialized in goat head meat-complete with whole goat heads set up in a row for viewing-that was patronized almost entirely by the locals. However, we sat at a stall that was probably set up to attract the tourists. We had beef kebobs peppers, spinach, fish, moroccan salad olives and mint tea. It was the worst meal in Morocco and Bob was very offended when the waiter slammed a small tin plate down on the table and demanded a tip. There goes those filters again!

How people experience a country seems almost accidental at times!

Pink And Tent-like Marrakech

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Founded in 1070–72 by the Almoravids, the Medina of Marrakesh remained a political, economic and cultural centre for a long period. Its influence was felt throughout the western Muslim world, from North Africa to Andalusia. It has several impressive monuments dating from that period: the Koutoubiya Mosque, the Kasbah, the battlements, monumental doors, gardens, etc. Later architectural jewels include the Bandiâ Palace, the Ben Youssef Madrasa, the Saadian Tombs, several great residences and Place Jamaâ El Fna, a veritable open-air theatre. The area is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There is no chance of an American avoiding his/her cultural filters in a country like Morocco-just as I suspected! “Lets Go” travel guide describes Marrakech as a city of immense beauty, low, pink and tent-like before a great shaft of mountains and the book is right on. Its an immediately exciting place especially around the central square, Djemaa el Fna, the stage for shifting circles of onlookers who gather around groups of acrobats, drummers, pipe musicians, dancers, story-tellers, snake charmers and comedians.
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Hip Notting Hill

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We didn’t realize that our neighborhood was “hip” until we were sitting in our hotel/bar in Notting Hill a couple days ago and I noticed a newspaper clipping pinned up on the wall above me with a picture of Clinton standing at the same bar with local beer in hand. He and 9 presidential guards had stopped here at the Portobello Gold Pub for a beer and bite to eat on the recommendation of the British Ambassador’s daughter who comes here with her friends. Then I guess because of some hitch they left without paying and of course it made the front page of one of the neighborhood tabloids.

Our $70 room room above the Portobello Gold Pub is barely big enough to turn around in. Toilet down the hall. Tiny sink in the shower which is barely big enough to turn around in. The food is great in the pub downstairs. And all the free internet you want!

The movie, Nottinghill, with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant was filmed here…Grant’s travel bookstore, now a tourist destination, is just down the street. Diana used to come here to eat-Nicole Kidman comes here to shop.

The story is that the area used to be racially intolerant in 50’s and 60’s so the black community took charge of creating a multicultural festival here which has became the biggest and most outrageous festival in Europe…drawing thousands from all over the world every August.

A Dacha In Samarkand

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After coming off the Kyrgyzstan trek, Peter, our trip leader, had arranged for us to go to Samarkand in Uzbekistan before continuing on up to Tashkent for the flight home via a week in Istanbul Turkey.

Beautiful…magical Samarkand…with more history than you can imagine. The population (412,300 in 2005) is the third-largest city in Uzbekistan and the capital of Samarkand Province. The city is most noted for it’s central position on the Asian Silk Road between China and the west.

We stayed at an old Russian “dacha” (summer home) used by Communist party members before the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Everyone was excited about a real shower, a real sit-down toilet and real beds. You line up there for toilet paper…someone said…pointing to a heavy babushka (old woman) sitting officiously behind a small table in the entry way. “No! No! Not tonight,” she grumbled loudly. “Tomorrow morning…toilet paper!” We were incredulous! But the sit-down toilets have no paper….we groaned. “No, No, Not tonight” she repeated. Someone else’s room didn’t have electric lights so an old guy was sent off to investigate…never did find out if light was discovered. Some rooms had tv’s with snowy reception of Russian programs…we were hoping to get some news but there was nothing we could decipher.

So gratefully, we all sat down on real sit-down benches at a real table in the garden outside the dacha for a feast after 18 days and nights eating on the ground. There was a smattering of Russians who joined us that were not on the trek…police…Peter said. One, who had too much too drink, bragged menacingly about how much power he used to have and now he was nobody. “Don’t answer him,” Peter advises.

Despite its status as the second city of Uzbekistan, the majority of the city’s inhabitants are Tajik-speaking. In 2001, after several abortive attempts, UNESCO inscribed the 2700-year-old city on the World Heritage List as Samarkand – Crossroads of Cultures.