Travel for Love

During the final few days of our Spain trip, Roberto and I managed to pry ourselves out of Cadiz to spend the last two nights in Sevilla before we had to catch our flights out of Madrid. Oh boy are we glad we did, this city is not to be missed!

We showed up at the train station and left our bags in the left luggage and walked in to the old town to find a place to stay for the night. As we walked, the streets got progressively narrower, the buildings older, and the scenery more and more unique. With every turn we came across a scene more beautiful than the last.

We wandered down the windy streets and found ourselves in the old Jewish quarter of Santa Cruz. Here, the streets are the most narrow and the buildings the oldest. Traditional white buildings with mustard yellow trim have geraniums and bouganvilla hanging from metal window boxes. This is where we needed to stay!

There are plenty of places to stay in this area, and to our delight most of them are little pensions, hostels, and little boutique hotels. We wandered in to a few places and got some quotes, and found a great little pension with a private room and WiFi for 35 Euros per night! The hostels and pensions in Andalusia often have very cute architecture: you walk in to a main common area (often open air like a little courtyard) with several floors and balconies overlooking the entrance. There are often beautiful tile work, potted plants and knick knacks, and even little water features.

Santa Cruz is the perfect base for seeing the sights of Sevilla. The barrio is full of cafes, one-of-a-kind restaurants, and little neighborhood bars full of old local men watching soccer games. The streets are alive with locals on scooters buzzing around and tourists getting lost in the maze of streets.

The neighborhood becomes truly magical at night. The streets are dimly lit and a warm breeze carries the fragrance of orange blossoms through the narrow corridors. At night the lively groups of tourists are replaced with couples from around the world slowly wandering the cobblestone streets together, discovering new magical spots around every turn.

The cathedral in Sevilla is magnificent, and reportedly the third largest in the world. Adjacent to the cathedral is Sevilla’s Real Alcazar, the city’s token Moorish palace, which is also beautiful. Popular things to do in the old town of Sevilla also include seeing a Flamenco show and attending a bull fight at the historic bullring. I also took a lovely Arab bath at the hammam right down the street from our Pension.

Sevilla is an incredible city with some very amazing influences. We had a very limited experience there and we didn’t venture out of the old town, but there are tons of other things to see and do throughout the city. Sevilla is a popular tourist destination, and was the first place on our trip through Andalusia where we saw significant numbers of Americans. I HIGHLY recommend a visit here and would definitely go back!

Unconventional, maybe. But visiting the Chernobyl site and surrounding area is definitely on my list of dream trips.

Luckily, my dad is a nuclear physicist and can get me government issued documents so I can enter the Chernobyl area. That way I can ride my Kawasaki Ninja all over the radioactive zone because I’m special. I’ll bring my very own personal Geiger counter and everything!

Just kidding!! Everyone’s favorite Chernobyl internet hoax aside (google ‘Chernobyl motorcycle lady’ if you’re one of the 5 people who haven’t seen this website), many people are surprised to learn that it’s now possible to take a tour of the Chernobyl area and the nearby deserted town of Pripyat.

drmonowsky via Flickr

For those of you who don’t know me in real life, I work in the nuclear industry. My particular engineering discipline actually requires a lot of understanding of how accidents can occur and progress in power plants, and which safety systems are needed to mitigate them. We’ve studied the Chernobyl accident and the sequence of events that caused it, although not in super great detail because we don’t work with that type of reactors.

Here are a couple facts about the accident.

1. The fuel did not explode. The Uranium-235 is not enriched enough to sustain a fusion-like explosion. What did happen was a large steam bubble formed due to the uncontrolled heatup of the cooling water, reacted with the core, and blew up due to the intense heat and pressure.

2. This accident could not happen in the US. All US plants (and most other plants around the world) have a reactor containment building of 3 foot thick concrete that would have prevented the release of fission products in the event of a meltdown (as with Three Mile Island).

3. “Fun” fact: the accident was not discovered internationally until a worker in Sweden entered a nuclear plant and set off the on-site radiation monitors due to low levels of airborne radiation in the air from Chernobyl. The Soviet government has been accused of trying to cover up the incident.

Given my background, I definitely want to visit the site.

stuckincustoms via Flickr

Here are some reasons a someone who’s not a nuclear engineer might want to visit Chernobyl.

It’s a Historical Site

Many of us remember hearing about this when it happened. I was only 3, but I definitely remember learning about it when I got a little older. It’s always interesting to visit a place we’ve seen on TV and heard about so often. It would definitely be neat to see the site in person, learn more about the history, and meet the people who were impacted by the incident.

Visiting the area would also afford an interesting glimpse into the former Soviet Union. Reportedly old Soviet propaganda was left (planted?) in the buildings, and the town of Pripyat is a good example of a planned “nuclear-city.”

See the Nuclear Ghost Town

The tours also include a visit to the nearby town of Pripyat, which was evacuated after the accident. I can’t think of too many places in the world you can tour a town that’s basically been abandoned as-is. While many areas around Pripyat are reportedly contaminated, some of the abandoned buildings of the community are included in the tours. It seems like the old school, ferris wheel, and swimming pool are very popular. Plus, the tours do offer an opportunity to meet “resettlers,” people who moved back to their homes in the exclusion zone to continue living as they always have. I think this would make for a memorable experience like no other.

drmonowsky via Flickr

Way off the Beaten Path

I’m sure lots of people have no interest in seeing this old beat up reactor or abandoned town. Ukraine certainly isn’t on the list of your typical Europe vacationer and many people don’t even know a tour to the Chernobyl site exists. It’s definitely a destination off the beaten path. Plus, it’s a bit tough to get to and not really easily accessible. There’s just a certain travel “street cred” associated with going here. I don’t know anyone who’s been on a Chernobyl tour.

Here are some specifics of the Chernobyl tour that I found through SoloEast Travel. They’ve been doing it since 1999.

It’s $160 per person (if you have a big enough group), they’ll pick you up in Kiev for a full day tour.

They have several selected days of each month that they’ll conduct tours.

The website even offers a special package that allows you to spend 1 or 2 nights in the Chernobyl hotel!

So far my list consists of places that start with “Bal,” since my first post about my list of places I want to go discussed Bali. It’s just a coincidence that I decided to write today about why I want to visit the Balkan countries, and there are lots of other places on my list (in my head) that don’t even start with B!

Here is a map of the Balkan countries, although if I were the one defining the region I would not include Romania. Not my decision though.

I first became interested in this part of the world when I saw a documentary about the falling lakes of Plitvice National Park in Croatia. The program gave a lengthy overview of this stunning area, including discussion of the interesting wildlife in the dense forest of the area, noting that tourism is finally starting to pick up now that the war is over.

Isn’t that stunning? I found this photo in a post about lakes on www.simonseeks.com.

I didn’t quite understand what war they were talking about until I started doing a little more research. I am just old enough to remember the news coverage of the wars that went on in the 90s, with terms like “Kosovo,” “NATO,” “Serbs,” “Slobodan Milosevic,” sounding very familiar. I just didn’t really make the connection at the time when hearing about these far off places that these wars were occurring right there in Europe, right next to Greece. So between seeing the beautiful Plitvice region and realizing that these borders were drawn during a war that I remember, I became very intrigued by the Balkan region.

Burning building in Sarajevo during the war in 1992… all over the internet.

I’ve done some research on this lesser-known region over the years and came up with some reason why I want to go there.

The History

The history of this region is so complex I have trouble understanding enough of it to summarize here. Just the recent history yields enough political changes in the Balkans to make your head spin! This fascinating map from Wikipedia shows how the region has changed since 1796. Considering the US has been it’s own country since before then (though not quite as large as it is today) it’s incredible how many changes the Balkan peninusla has had in the same time period.

Mostar, Bosnia (commons.wikimedia.org)

The region’s colorful past includes ruling by the Greeks, Normans, Slavs, Venetians, Byzantines, Ottoman Turks. Each empire undoubtedly left its mark on the region’s architecture, food, and culture. There are Roman ruins, Ottoman mosques and hammams, Serbian monasteries, and medieval castles. Some of the Crusade battles were fought here. And, the recent bloody wars in the Balkans give visitors a unique opportunity to see the consequences of modern warfare like nowhere else.

Beautiful Scenery and Nature

Beautiful mountain ranges, clear blue Adriatic beaches, and wilderness come to mind when I think about this area. The mountain regions offer hiking and skiing in the winter while the beautiful coasts and islands are popular for relaxing beach vacations. Dense forests in the area harbor wolves, bears, the Balkan lynx, and lots of Europe’s migrating birds. I think visiting some of the natural scenery would be a pleasant contrast to the deep and sometimes dark history travelers will find in the more urban areas.

I did see PBS has a special “Nature” episode about the Balkans, which I am going to watch if I ever finish this post. It can be found here for anyone interested!

The Culture

The region is a bit of a melting pot of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Islam; it’s a bit of east meets west with influence from Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Balkan folk music sounds to me like a mix of Turkish, Middle Eastern, and Gypsy music (in a broad generalization – there are many diverse musical types). Belgrade, Serbia has a reputation for great nightlife. I can only guess that this region, at a crossroads of east and west, has a culture like that of nowhere else. Muslim call to prayer, women in Babushkas, Eastern Orthodox churches, shopping bazaars, those are what I picture. And they must really have some “street cred” for going through all they have.

Bosnian folk dress on www.HiddenBosnia.com

Off the Beaten Path

I don’t know anyone who’s been to this region except on a cruise stop in Dubrovnik, or coworkers who’ve visited Soviet Era Nuclear Plants in Bulgaria and Slovenia. It really seems to be off the radar, at least among American tourists. Prices are still supposed to be low here too, considering many of the countries are still rebuilding crumbled economies after the war. But that’s starting to change. Cruise ships stop regularly in Croatia now, and the region is becoming more and more popular among tourists. Paris Hilton even apparently owns a home somewhere in the area. This is all the more reason for me to want to visit the Balkan countries before everyone else does.

It was really ambitious of me to try to squeeze all these countries into one post, and hopefully I am not lumping them together too much or over-generalizing. It’s hard to write about a place I haven’t been, but I am totally fascinated with this region. And why not? It has everything – incredible history and culture, beautiful natural scenery and wildlife, and it’s an up and coming destination that desperately needs tourism to help its economy.

Old city of Dubrovnik (www.touristmaker.com)

What’s on your list?

Our family and friends thought we were crazy. My dad said we would be attacked by terrorists. We invited a friend who would not go because it would flag him as a security breach at his job. Others never even heard of Istanbul.

But that’s where we were headed. My mom and I. For both of our first trip outside North America and for my mom’s first trip needing a passport, we were flying to Istanbul, Turkey.

My mom and I had decided to go on a Mediterranean cruise in April 2008. We had many to choose from, but for some reason we were drawn to the more “off the beaten path” itineraries instead of a typical Western European cruise. The one we chose on Norwegian cruise lines went from Istanbul to Athens, including stops on several of the Greek Islands and in Alexandria Egypt with an opportunity to get down to Cairo. It was a pretty good deal and we thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of these places in a relatively stress-free and comfortable way on a cruise.

But, cruise or no cruise, we still had to start of the trip on our own with two nights in Istanbul. I guess we could have arranged everything through the cruise, with airport transfers and hotel stay, but we decided to be a little more independent. We found a boutique hotel, Hotel Mena, in the historic Sultanahmet area of the city and took a taxi in from the airport after surviving our first long haul flight ever.

I remember the first few things that struck me after arriving in a bit of a daze after an all night flight. One was that it didn’t seem all that strange or different or far away. Sure, the architecture was different and people spoke Turkish, but the sky was blue and the grass was green, and I didn’t feel far from home like I expected I would.

Since I really didn’t know what to expect of Turkey, I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I felt there and about the lack of culture shock. Also, people had told us about how friendly and helpful the Turks were, but I was still surprised at how welcome I felt there.

When we first got to our hotel, we looked out the window to find a minaret with it’s speaker pointed right at our window. We knew we wouldn’t have to go far to hear the call to prayer, which was just as exotic and haunting as it sounds on Youtube. Especially when it’s echoing from several different mosques all over the city!

We took a little nap and then decided we felt well enough to go out for the evening. We asked the front desk where we could see some belly dancing, and the next thing we knew, we were being whisked off in a van through the narrow winding Istanbul streets. We went to a pretty generic, touristy belly dancing dinner show, but we had a great time there!

The place asked everyone’s nationalities when they sat down, and put their country’s flag on their tables so we could see where everyone was from. My mom and I sat next two a chain smoking Swedish mother and daughter pair on one side, and a table of rowdy Iraqi businessmen on the other. It was definitely an interesting night when the Iraqis started getting drunk and asking us why we hated their country. It was a little awkward. Later they had quite a fun night of dancing!

The show and dancing were excellent, and we were very impressed with the skills of the ladies. They also had a great MC who spoke so many languages it made my head spin. It was alot of fun seeing other audience members from all over the world. Yes, it was a very touristy insulated experience, but it was perfect for our first night out in Istanbul.

The next day we wandered around Sultanahmet on a beautiful sunny spring day. We were lucky enough to be in Istanbul during the annual tulip festival, and there were millions of gorgeous tulips of all colors all over the city. Despite being warned by every person and guidebook, we let ourselves get latched on to by a carpet store representative. He did show us all around the historic district and take our pictures everywhere before taking us to his carpet store. It really wasn’t a bad experience and my mom wanted to buy a rug anyway (she did!) and we did enjoy ourselves in the shop drinking apple tea and watching the salesman throw the rugs around. They really are spectacular! We were fortunate to end up in a shop we’d heard of and knew as reputable.

That evening we ended up having a blast out in the Taksim area of Istanbul, where they have a pedestrian street full of shopping and lots of bars and restaurants. We enjoyed talking with the young owner of a bar down one of the side streets in Taksim and spent the rest of the night upstairs in the bar listening to a live two man band play traditional Turkish music. We were the only foreigners in the place and it was really a wonderful way to experience a night out in Turkey. We ended up staying out until 3 am drinking Raki and enjoying the music.

The next day, we had just enough time to wander around the spice market and snap a few final photos before our ship sailed. We had definitely fallen in love with Istanbul and were very sorry to have to leave. There are still so many things I want to do there that we didn’t get to: a Turkish bath, Topkapi palace, Hagia Sofia, and just spending more time wandering around this beautiful city.

I think I learned a lot from this trip. It certainly made me want to continue to travel and see places off the beaten path. I’m really glad we got out of our comfort zone and took a risk on a destination that was “questionable” to some. I really loved how friendly and fun the Turks we met were, and enjoyed their sense of humor. Also, I did learn the ropes of the squat toilet there – that’s definitely come in handy since!

For anyone thinking of visiting Istanbul, do not hesitate! I felt very safe there, and the city is perfectly modern and developed. Many things are still a good bargain since Turkey is not on the Euro, and there are endless things to see and do. The history of Istanbul and the surrounding region is just fascinating, and the different empires that Istanbul has been under have left their marks on the city.

Where was your first trip abroad? Which destinations weren’t what you expected?

At the end of our trip to Brussels, Roberto and I took a day trip to the City of Bruges. It was highly recommended we visit this beautiful old city, so we took the Belgian train into the northern, Flemish part of the country. Our plan was to walk around the historic city center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for the day. Bruges is a canal city adjacent to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

The town center, with its old buildings and canals, was very quaint. It was delightful to walk around the winding cobblestone paths and cross the cute little bridges over the waterways. There were motorboats giving tours on the canals, pretty flowers and willow trees, and swans! It was a beautiful city for meandering.

Bruges also had a town square very similar to the Grand Place in Brussels. When we were there it looked like they were setting up for a concert that night. The square was lined with cafes and restaurants, one on top of the other, with surprisingly different menus and prices. We enjoyed a nice lunch, splitting a half roast chicken and some traditional Flemish soup. We also had to try some local beer.

We got purposely “lost” in the town trying to follow the canals as they meandered between the buildings. We took lots of pictures, went into some cathedrals, and took a couple coffee/beer breaks. The weather wasn’t the best that day – mostly overcast with occasional light rain.

Later in the day we paid I think 7 Euros to take the boat tour around the canals. There are several companies that offer this, and they are all the same price and from what I gather, the same tour. We picked the closest one and hopped on our boat. Wouldn’t you know we ended up in the boat with a group of Brazilian ladies on vacation. Roberto had fun chatting with them throughout the tour. We really enjoyed the boat ride and it was fun to get into some of the little corners that aren’t visible from the street level. I really enjoyed seeing the swans from the water.

One thing I didn’t care for about Bruges was how crowded it was. It’s definitely a very touristy spot, and it didn’t help that there were also hordes of cruise ship passengers roaming around either. And these were cruise ship passengers on the Princess cruise docked in Amsterdam, who decided to take a Princess tour to Bruges instead. Hmm…

There were lots of expensive restaurants and tons of shops. We really didn’t do much shopping but it looked like the stores were very boutique-like and expensive. There were some beautiful buildings and cathedrals, and the court house building looked like an old castle.

I really enjoyed walking around Bruges. We didn’t really make any plans or do any research on things to see or do there, we just walked around all day and discovered things. There are some adorable cafes and bars, and the scenery is really beautiful. The architecture and the canals were very different from anywhere I’ve been. And the swans were just delightful!