Zadar to Orléans 25th August 2022 – 11th December 2022

Update

Izmir – 30th March 2023

Hi from Izmir, Türkey … you may be excused for thinking I had fallen off the edge of the planet! Still here … the path to date has been determined roughly by three criteria. #1. Moving south to keep warm, #2. Moving east towards Cairns and #3. Attempting to avoid flying … the actions of a slightly green cheapskate. The latter word recently uttered by a Turkish carpet salesperson in the tourist bazaar in Istanbul who couldn’t understand why I didn’t need a prayer mat … the truth of the matter is, I probably will as the Azerbaijan, China and Myanmar boarders are presently closed.

The last post some 6 months ago from Zadar, Croatia had me about to head to Sofia, Bulgaria and then on to Central Asia. Well … got as far as Sofia and then headed back to Falkirk as Callum was re-hospitalised with a relapse of ‘immigration psychosis’. After 2 months it became clear he was in good Scottish hands and well on his way to resume work as a medical scientist in the same hospital. Hats off to the Scottish NHS for a brilliant approach to mental health. This combined with my 6-month UK visa expiring meant it was time to start the journey back to Cairns, pausing in Europe until my 3 month Schengen visa expired, which it did a few days after leaving Syracuse.

This blog only extends to Orléans as although I have tales drafted up to Izmir, it’s a bit like a log jam, if I don’t start releasing the odd log then nothing’s going to be coming down the river! And the notion that I’ve fallen off the edge of the planet may start to be celebrated!

Brutalism

Sophia, Bulgaria – 7th – 14th September,

When booking tickets to Plovdiv at Sofia’s main railway station above, I was taken back by it’s scale. A vast brutalist building opened in 1974, under the guidance of the Bulgarian Communist Party. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, the Bulgarian Railways (BDZ) became cash-strapped and could no longer afford to maintain or heat such a huge space in winter. The building soon became derelict but in 2016 was partially rejuvenated and bought back to its former glory. Walking around the parts that are yet to be renovated gives an eerie feeling of how difficult it was for Bulgaria to recover from the transition to a Republic.

The Party House above completed in 1954 is a delicious example of Soviet influenced Bulgarian triumphant monumentalism. Currently used as the offices of the National Assembly, prior to 1990 it housed the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party. On 26 August as the Soviet Union was disintegrating crowds gathered around the building and mysteriously a fire broke out inside, destroying almost 100 rooms and blackening the façade. Subsequently on the morning of October 4, 1990 the red star symbolising socialism that adorned the mast top was removed by helicopter. A potent mark on the foundation of the contemporary Bulgarian psyche.

The bubble in the foreground of the Party House covers an underground network of open spaces which contained the remains of eight Roman streets. When I visited, there was an exhibition of historical photographs from Sofia’s past. One of the photographs that caught my eye was of Festival Hall, which I found out later was within walking distance from where I was staying.

Festival Hall is as brutal as you get … it was completed in 1968 as the Athletics Sports Hall for the Ninth World Youth Festival of Youth and Students for Solidarity, Peace and Friendship. The organic mechano like repetitive concrete elements that support and make up the sunscreens along with the expressive tapered machine-like column and beam exoskeleton structure combine to form a brutalist masterpiece. With the fall of the Bulgarian Communist Party along with the transition to a democracy and free market economy, operational funds to maintain public buildings dried up. The lack of maintenance has taken its toll on the Festival Hall with concrete cancer, waterproofing issues and unsympathetic service installation apparent. The buildings front has been recently shrouded with printed shade cloth, timber cladding and plastic lettering in an attempt to make it more commercially acceptable. – photo here. Conversely the interior is in constant use and in well maintained which gives some hope that Festival Hall’s pure brutality may return one day. Additional images of the Festival Hall can be seen here and here.

One last example of Sofia’s rich brutalist legacy below – out walking I came across three residential towers with an intriguing interlocking post and beam structural language. Further investigation revealed it was constructed for the foreign diplomatic corps by female Architect Stefka Georgieva (1923–2004) during the Communist period in 1972. Stefka Georgieva was an official architect of the state and worked as head of a design group at the largest Sofia-based state owned architecture and urban planning institute, “Glavproekt”, which still operates today. Despite operating under a socialist veil she somehow managed to build in a distinct “pro-Western” style. Today her body of work remains amongst the strongest examples of architectural brutalism as practiced in socialist Bulgaria.

Unfortunately I have only just discovered the website ‘SOS Brutalism’, a global survey of brutalist buildings, so if you’re interested clickthe link to SOS Brutalism here. WARNING the website includes a map, so now I know where they are you are likely to be subjected to more of this!

Time to go east

Falkirk, Scotland – 15th September – 10th November 2022

Waved goodbye to Callum and the Falkirk Grahamston railway Station on the 10th November and headed by train to London with daughter Ellen who was on her way back to Cairns after a month visiting. While in Scotland we hunted down some of the Butter’s old haunts NW of Perth and got a better idea of where the family name originated, revisited the pineapple and spent a week bushwalking on the Island of Skye which was pretty special.

Product of geography

The location of Calais on the narrowest point of the English Channel has shaped the town’s past and continues to do so today.

Calais, France – 11th – 27th November 2022

Riding around Calais on ‘Silver’ (will introduce Silver the fold up bike in the next blog) it became evident pre 1940’s buildings were conspicuous by their absence. It’s Geography of being the shortest English Channel crossing point resulted in Calais being flattened in WW2 to disrupt supply to England. As a result many of the replacement building were rebuilt in the ‘Bauhaus style’. Modernist apartment blocks weave thru the town centre crossing roads and addressing the main square and Port front.

Recently Calais’s geographical location has been the catalyst for attracting 1000’s of refugees waiting for a chance to settle in the UK. A bottleneck fuelled by fear and stoked by political opportunism resulted in the ‘Calais Jungle’ and other chanty towns forming around Calais. The infamous camp at its height contained an an estimated 8,000+ migrants from Eritrea, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq and other conflict zones waiting to enter the UK or have their French asylum claims processed.

Unlike Australia where we hide our asylum seekers away on remote islands and declare amnesia, the streets of Calais are a constraint reminder of the political policies of France and the UK’s sloth like response to their claims. Street posters are an additional silent echo of the woe’s asylum seekers endure.

Squirrels hibenate … don’t they?

Orleans, France – 28th November – 11th December 2022

This following video is for the adventurous traveller wanting to visit Orléans during December and wondering where to go and what to see. Not only does it answer these questions but it also includes a bonus message about the effects of short days and cold weather and how for someone from the tropics it blurs the line between dreams, memory and reality. As would be the case with a squirrel if it forgot to hibernate.

Public Transport?

Sofia – Calais – to be continued

If you get to Sofia treat yourself to a ride on the local trams. Built like soviet tanks, probably by the same company. Their arrhythmic motion and symphony of screeching steel is better than any ride in Dreamworld.

The following clip may be the beginning of a longer one which was inspired by the trams in Sofia and aims to take you on a Public Transport journey from Falkirk to Cairns. Currently land boarders are closed in Azerbaijan, China and Myanmar so a continuous trip is unlikely … who knows, may need that prayer mat?

Time to tidy the house