The dressing room of Nada Split smells like heroic wins, crushing defeats and sweaty textiles. Baseball bats, gloves and beer bottles are lying around. A week ago the team lost its national final against their archrival Olimpija Karlovac. It is no time for training now for Split’s local baseball team but time for grief. People in Split are crazy about sports.

Thousands of Albanians are leaving their homes to get to the EU. Especially Germany is a popular destination. There people are trying to figure out how to deal with the large number of newcomers. But what is it like on the other side, in a country that is slowly running out of people?

We are learning about traditional local food in every country we are traveling through. In our last article we talked to Josip, Domagoj and Šimun Živković about the olive harvest in their groves. But Domagoj also told us about traditional food in his village Zečevo in Croatia.

If you were to draw the family tree of the Živkovićs it would probably be an olive tree. For generations the life of the family has been all about the fruit and the groves on the stony coast near Zečevo in Croatia.

We are cooking traditional food of every country we are traveling through. In Montenegro we are learning a recipe from Silvana Nedovic.

Dubrovnik’s history is one filled with conflict. In the spring of 1992 the city is burning. It is under siege from the Yugoslav Poeple’s Army. 25 years later tourists are flooding the streets. But many of them don’t care about the real history of the city. They are here because of a fictional siege.

At the edge of the town Budva in Montenegro Krsto Niklanovic is waiting. Always. For everyone. Hoisted several metres up in the air, his image is looking down on everyone entering the town. He is sitting on his Harley, his long grey hair flowing out from underneath his helmet. With this poster Krsto is advertising his Beer & Bike Club. But it is only in the evening when he is a biker. During the day he is a successful business man.

When day turns to night in Shkodra the stray dogs come out and fight bitterly over each thigh bone and cow’s jaw they can find in the leftovers of local butchers. It is a battle for survival that thousands of stray dogs have to fight every single day in Albania.

A short introduction into the Albanien infrastructure

A countries taste is part of its culture. Therefore we collect recipies from every country we visit. Here is one from Albania.

Christos Adrianos, the fisherman we met on Salamina, didn’t only tell us about his fishing trips. He also told us about his childhood in Greece in a time when the Nazis occupied the country:

Shortly after we started our journey in Athens we reached an island called Salamina. Most people on this island used to make their living from the fishing industry. There we met the old fisherman Christos Adrianos and his son Prokopios. We recorded our conversation:

Igoumenitsa is a town with a harbour in the north-west of Greece. It is the last city before the the border to Albania. From here ships are mainly going to Italy or the holiday island Corfu. Igoumenitsa is mainly a transitional city for most people. Aside from the harbour and the seaside promenade with its cafés, restaurants and a funfair there is not much going on in the rest of the city. During the day Igoumenitsa looks deserted, but in the evening as soon as the sun has gone down the people come out to the streets. Focal point of the city is the terminal of the harbour. It is relatively cool inside the grey building and the people are buying their tickets, waiting for their ships or just taking shelter from the afternoon heat. Here are three stories from that place.

Doctor Harry Gouvas is a surgeon, author and specialist for nuclear and biochemical warfare.
He is also the owner of a small museum somewhere along a Greek national road, 16 kilometers north of the city of Preveza.

Back in Athens we talked with the man who owns the hostel we slept in. Here are his thoughts on Athens and everything else:

Meanwhile we have arrived in the northwestern corners of Greece. We have been travelling for almost two weaks now. Time to look back at what we have experienced so far.

The way from Kineta to Corinth is not beautiful. I am thinking of this poem the whole day.

The last five days took us from Athens to Kineta. Today we will walk towards Corinth. It will probably take us two days to arrive in the city. To recap our experience so far we recorded our impressions of the last five days. Here is our talk [in german].

Kostas Buraselis is a professor of Ancient History at the University of Athens. We met him at the university to talk about the ancient Greek civilization and the beginnings of Europe.

My first “European” experience, something I could clearly attribute to some greater construct called “Europe” or the “European Union”, took place in 2002.

It’s not a question of if but when I will hit rock bottom, when I will wake up after not sleeping well and just want to leave it all behind and go home. And for some reason I am looking forward to it.

It is hard to write about a journey that hasn’t started yet. But we each want to give you our personal reasons for participating in this project. Our solely selfish reasons to walk 2000 kilometres. I, Lovis, will start.