In hidden europe 54 we feature a long-distance hiking trail in the Balkans, visit chess-mad Yerevan and spend a night in a castle in Austria's Burgenland region. We explore the art of salt harvesting in Lanzarote and combine our passion for wine and rail travel by reviewing some of the finest train trips through Europe's premier vine-growing regions. All this and much more besides.
hidden europe 54
In hidden europe 54 we follow a new long-distance hiking trail in the Balkans, lose a chess match in Armenia, spend a night in a castle in Austria's Burgenland region and meet salt workers in Lanzarote.
We also take the train through Europe's premier vine-growing regions, explore New Nature Writing, watch a film in Scotland's mobile cinema and discover a secret road crossing locks and sluices on the Dutch coast.
Picture above:
Salt pans in Janubio, Lanzarote (photo © Meinzahn / dreamstime.com).
Summary
In hidden europe 54 we follow a new long-distance hiking trail in the Balkans, lose a chess match in Armenia, spend a night in a castle in Austria's Burgenland region and meet salt workers in Lanzarote.
We also take the train through Europe's premier vine-growing regions, explore New Nature Writing, watch a film in Scotland's mobile cinema and discover a secret road crossing locks and sluices on the Dutch coast.
The Peaks of the Balkans trail is a long-distance hiking route, in the shape of a figure-of-eight, which takes in some of the finest mountain terrain in northern Albania and adjacent parts of Kosovo and Montenegro. Rudolf Abraham describes how the trail opens up international frontiers in a region where crossing borders was until recently rarely easy.
Armenia is the first country in the world to include chess on the school curriculum. Since 2011, all children in Armenia aged six to eight have compulsory chess lessons. Emma Levine explores how the great game of strategy is part of the fabric of Armenian life.
What better way to survey some of the world's great vineyards than from the comfort of a train cruising slowly through a region celebrated for its fine wines? Ideally with a glass of wine to hand! We explore opportunities for rail-wine tourism in Spain, Hungary, France, Portugal and further afield.
Guest writer Diego Vivanco takes us on a tour of the salt works at Janubio on Lanzarote, where Modesto Perdomo worked for over forty years. Now this industrial landscape is finding new life as a conservation zone where visitors can discover the Canarian art of salt harvesting.
New Nature Writing may not be so new after all. But it taps a vein of nostalgia, reasserting aspects of landscape and nature from which we have become detached by modernity. Whatever its history, a new cadre of nature writers are doing much to revitalise travel writing. It is part of a wider movement to rewild the English language.
We pay tribute to Paul Hadfield who died on 26 January 2018. Paul was an educator and a poet, a good friend and a deeply thoughtful man. He contributed to hidden europe on three occasions and as part of the tribute, we include a fourth poem by Paul in this issue.
In the early days of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks used mobile cinemas as a vehicle for political propaganda. These days, Scotland also has a mobile cinema, but here the purpose is pure entertainment. Everyone smiles when The Screen Machine rolls in, bringing mobile cinema to remote, rural communities far from any modern multiplex.
Guest contributor Duncan JD Smith conjures up the spirit of an Austro-Hungarian borderland when he visits Burg Bernstein - a fortified country house in the rippled hills of Austria's Burgenland region.
We explore a secret road which crosses locks and sluices to give access to an industrial landscape on the coast of Holland. It's a rare opportunity to see how work is progressing on Europe's largest sea-lock.
This is the story of the other United States, a territory which surely rates as one of the oddest polities ever to appear on the map of Europe. It had seven constituent states and existed from 1815 to 1864. It used the obol as its currency and its postage stamps featured the head of the English monarch.
In the future it may not be so easy to take the slow train from Sospel to Tende. Or from Clermont-Ferrand to Nîmes. Jean-Cyril Spinetta's February 2018 report to President Macron is not good news for regional rail routes in France. It may be overdoing it to call Spinetta the French Beeching - but the fallout from the report is worth watching.
Route 45 in our Europe by Rail book links Sofia with Zagreb via Belgrade and Brod. That's just the route once followed by the Orient Express. It features in both the 1974 and 2017 versions of the film Murder on the Orient Express. But neither film was shot on location in the Balkans.
To walk in solitude in the company of stars is indeed something special. It's a chance to attend to the beauty of the heavens. In the Austrian village of Großmugl, the 1500-metre long Sternenweg is a gift to stargazers.
A look ahead at hidden europe 55 which will be published on 11 July 2018.