There are places that have a special quality them. And this place, where the E75 reaches its terminus for now, is one. But first things first.

The A1, which is what the E75 has been called for many kilometers now, takes me to Gdansk. This A1 ends just shy of the city limits, fraying into the E28, the S6, the E77, the S7, then the E75, and a few more besides. Suddenly, my Europastrasse continues on like a secondary road. I follow it, of course. It takes me straight downtown, Continue reading →

I set out today in Łódź. It’s now six in the evening, and I’ve only made it to the edge of town. The E75 is like a Gordian knot, here. But—unlike in Greece—one with tons of traffic. Back then, Alexander the Great sliced through such a knot in order to free his chariot. Oh, If only I were on the Alexander Highway back in Macedonia—then there’d be some hope….

Everything’s changing. The days are getting longer, and even so, I’m driving away from summer. Driving against the season. But I have to look at this differently: I’m driving away from the summer I’m used to and into Finnish summer! Despite that fact, or precisely because of it, the lakes there will still be frozen over when I arrive in the second half of May.

It’s not just the days that are getting longer—the coffee is, as well. That’s something you really feel. I now have to order a ristretto to get an espresso. How’s that to continue?! The point is: in autumn, the days here will get shorter again, but the coffee won’t.

I usually take pictures until it gets dark. And in that sense, too, I’ll have to figure something out. A friend of mine made a bar chart showing how long the nights are in various places around the time I pass through them. Maybe that’s why the coffee’s getting longer…

The number of dark hours when I pass through each place (chart: Nikolaus Lehner)

PS: German-speakers and learners take note … if you look at just the left side of this graphic, the “bar chart” [Balkendiagramm] becomes a “Balkan chart” [Balkandiagramm].
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Earplugs on Wall-to-Wall Carpet

My current hotel, built in Czech log cabin style, is situated directly on the E75. There’s something cozy to it. Right out back is the ski slope. The trucks roar past the hotel in a thoroughly delightful way. I’m given a rear-facing room, looking towards the slope. The slope throws the road noise back at me. So the trucks also roar in my room in a thoroughly delightful way. There are earplugs on the nightstand, though. That strikes me as service-oriented. A real E75 hotel! I’ll stay here a second night.

The previous blog entry is hereby confirmed: I’m spending tonight in a ski area, with a surface lift just out the back door. It faces the E75. But the only snow I’ve seen on this trip so far was back in Greece—on Crete and atop Mount Olympus….

Tatra skiing … off-season

At some point yesterday, I crossed a horizon of some sort.  I’m not sure what horizon, exactly, but I feel it. I’m suddenly in the North. And then I tell myself, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, you have no idea what ‘North’ really is.” But I do sense a shift.

Whether it’s a different quality to the air, a different light, a change in the landscape, a certain vibe, or an overlapping of all these things. I don’t know. I’ve left the Balkans, of course. Exactly where is something I’m also not sure about. Does Bratislava still qualify as “Balkans?”

The E75 is beginning to reveal a new Continue reading →