Here we are. In the European Union. A bit at home. We left the Bosphorus and the Asian shores behind to discover Southern Europe, like a first airlock before returning home. Totally ignorant of this region, we discover the Balkans with wonder. The wealth of these cities, which belonged to renowned empires, were embroiled in a thousand and one wars and caught up in the still recent upheavals of History, is undeniable.
The sweet chaos of Asia Minor accompanies us to the gates of Sofia, with a bus that drops us, instead of the 8:30 p.m. originally planned, at half past midnight at the bus station. It seems that the first capital after the Turkish border is all the more European as it is at the steps of the continent. Its heritage never ceases to remind us how much this territory has come up against external powers. There is here the desire to recall the bitter struggles led, in particular against the Ottoman Empire, which had pushed its power so far, and the marks of a history under Soviet influence which is still very present.
In some thirty years, Western Europe has joined the game of influences and the monument to the Soviet army, in the east of the city center, is perhaps the most visible link between these two European stories that ended up meeting. A column soars into the sky with a few deserving fighters at its top, while the bas-reliefs celebrate the various figures of the Soviet army. Graffiti have been invited into the decor to give a pop touch to this austere ensemble. Once upon a time, spray paint turned Stalin’s soldiers into Marvel superheroes. The two enemy powers of the Cold War thus temporarily united in bronze. Today, two lines symbolize the support from one Eastern country to another: a blue line and below it a yellow line. Sofia taggers support Ukraine with a different kind of bombshell.
Asia and Europe have not finished talking. Arriving in Slovenia, we continue to reconstruct the thread of the history of a continent that is now ours. Part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for several centuries, the small territory was then integrated into Yugoslavia, before being the first republic of this splintered state to integrate the European Union. More concretely, it is also our entry into the euro zone. The kind of little detail that counts every day. No more searching for a currency exchange office or an ATM as soon as you set foot at the station. We’re going to rest our brains on rough conversions in currencies whose names we’ve barely learned before we cross a border.
Logistics is less talked about, but nonetheless occupies a prominent place in our travel days. After our Istanbul break, we hit the road this week almost without realizing it. Nomadism has become our routine. Unpack and repack your bag. Take possession of a hotel room for twenty-four hours, as if it had been our home forever. Try your luck at the first restaurant or café in the neighborhood and go back the next day to give yourself the ephemeral impression of being regulars.
The logistical aspect pursues us until the last hours. Bus or train ticket reservations. Juggling schedules, arrivals, hotel availability. We talk less about these subjects, but keep the three t-shirts on board until you are safe, continue your daily laundry with Marseille soap to stay presentable. The adventure is also in these little less glorious and terribly everyday details. In fact or in fiction, great adventurer figures don’t make much of it. Explorers of the Taklamakan desert of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, like Marc Aurel Stein, talk about their great caravan, their tents and their quill frozen in the inkwell. Much less of their persistent stains on their overcoats or the insipid taste of their latest snack.
Alexandra David-Neel, on her difficult road to the assault of forbidden Tibet, does not dwell on the contents of her plate, except to underline the extraordinary side… by her splendor when she is received by a maharajah or by her extreme destitution when she is reduced to boiling pieces of leather. And needless to say, Hollywood never thought to have Indiana Jones wash his panties. We don’t have these flamboyant destinies, and we have to come to terms with these recurring moments of basely material pettiness.
We end the week closer than ever, geographically and culturally. Our last bus of the journey should drop us off in Venice. We will then rediscover the joys of the train. The city-lagoon is also the quintessential European stage of the Silk Roads, which all converged on this trading point and made it a fortune. Wealthy palazzi owners built financial empires on these trade routes and power struggles that stretched to the farthest reaches of Asia. A step that naturally brings us back to the sources on this side of the globe.
