05/09/2017. Right from the earliest stages of their evolution people have been drawn to water. They settled at rivers, lakes, and seas. The water provided them with something to drink, and to eat; it watered their livestock, enabled farming, and ground grain. It is the ultimate lifeline, and it's [...]
04/09/2017. If we think about Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and the rest of the Balkans, regions that Pascal has been paddling through for weeks, then you can't avoid one particular topic, the treatment of the Sinti and Roma. Headlines on the topic are generally thought-provoking or sad. And somehow we [...]
03/09/2017. 500 years. No other European country was ruled for so long by the Ottomans as Bulgaria. Until 1878 the half-moon flag flew on the countries roofs. For a long time Bulgaria was considered unexplored by the Western Europeans, foreign, even, oriental, the very edge of the civilised world [...]
02/09/2017. Pascal heard of him through an ARTE documentary that Pascal watched a few months ago. He is a famous Romanian poet and writer who apparently built a cultural centre and guesthouse on the Danube in Cetate, and lives there today. He was one of Romanian literature's great hopes, [...]
01/09/2017. The ideal destinations? You might think of France, Italy, or Spain. But Romania? Hardly. And yet this country has so many features to offer. Cultural treasures like the old cities of the seven castles, the Maramures' wooden churches, the orthodox Bucovina monastery, the powerful Ceaușescu Palace in Bucharest, [...]
Pascal came across the book this year and it inspired him. The peace of nature, but also people with the courage to speak up, are the subjects of the book. https://www.piper.de/buecher/der-klang-der-stille-isbn-978-3-86612-389-2
http://www.wochenanzeiger.de/article/194695.html
31/08/2017. We are writing at the end of August. Pascal has now been underway for six whole weeks. The time is flying by. Now that he has also completed the middle phase of the Danube's course, it's on into the last third: the lower Danube. It is characterised above [...]
30/08/2017. It was 1964, Romania and the former Yugoslavia were panting for energy. The task was to transform poor farming countries into exemplary planned economy industrial nations. Nature conservation, the protection of creation? Of secondary importance. In 1972 the Iron Gate 1 Power Plant was finally completed. To do [...]
29/08/2017. In antiquity it was known as the "country of wild olives". There are colourful houses, cypress trees, fig trees, chestnut trees. There is the smell of Turkish coffee. And Turkish delight along with it. We are in the Far East. Well, it feels like it at least. More [...]
