Adventures of Mr.Behi

In Florence after a long walk

We arrived to Florence yesterday night and were walking all day today exploring it...It was a fantastic day just like other days in Italy that I am just going to start writing about. I updated the posts about Portugal though (below). Tomorrow we will drive to west to see the leaning tower of Pisa and from there will drive through Tuscany towards Rome where we will stay for three days and then head back to Libya.

I have just a few minutes before this internet shop closes and I shall catch up with some blogs and news sites that I normally would have read since this trip but it feel so good not to read news for a while...

Hello ITALIA!

Still a lot to write about Portugal and especially Lisbon and our two days adventures in there but for the moment, lets talk about our current location: We are in Milan.

We arrived yesterday, rented a car that I previously booked and it luckily had just enough space to accommodate us and our suitcases. My geeky trip planning paid off and the navigation system that I booked for the car was available. It was so comfortable to find the hotel using this...these are good inventions but can also eliminate part of the fun. You may go somewhere and find the place without knowing how you did it. However, considering our time frame and the tight schedule, this is the way to survive. Milan airport is kind of far from the city and we had to move around some highways exits to get to our hotel which is a small but cozy building in somewhere that looks like a busy working district of Milan.

The most hilarious thing happened to me on the highway toll yesterday and I bet Mrs.Behi had not laughed so hard for so long like that watching me making the complete foll of myelf. We got to the automated toll booth that had this little space to enter your card or money or voucher and I did not know what I supposed to put. The car in the front put a kind of highway toll card and I was wondering if I had to put my credit card or not...my hesitation and anxiety was so funny and I had the embarrassment feeling the cars behind me and was wondering: shall I put a Euro bill or the card, I tested the bill and it was not fitting and then finally I tested the card the machine was about to take the card in but as I was not sure what to do, I was wondering if the machine was considering another sort of card and might damage my credit card....finally we passed...and now it is the morning after. In a matter of an hour or so, we will leave to Sirmione which is a small peninsula in the middle of a beautiful lake, North of Italy...more to come.

Listening to Portugal’s history while leaving it

It is amazing how much you can learn about a country you visit by people who take you to places when you are there. Leaving Lisbon became like an informative session on Portuguese history with a cheerful taxi driver who took us from Cascais to Lisbon airport. The driver was a senior man on his seventies, a very fresh and sound though as he mentioned himself that he still works more hours than his eldest son (on his fifties) who was also a cab driver in a small family owned transportation company.

He started- and repeated several times- with his pride of the ancient empire of Portugal and places discovered by his people in Americas, Asia and Africa. Every now and then he used the opportunity to denounce that British Empire, did only discover Australia and the rest of their empire were discovered by Portuguese and Spanish and later captured by Britons in what he believed as power of gun. He was so proud to declare that Portuguese were first in India before the British and I could not help not to interrupt him that India had already been discovered and inhabited by its own people! 

He also felt very patriotic about the liberation of Lisbon from the Arabs, he was the one who told us that the flag of Portugal is in fact half red in memory of the blood spelled freeing it and green in respect for life and growth and the castles in the middle represent the castles freed from Arabs towards the victory.
We were close to the airport when his stories were shifted to the dark side of the empire with the slavery and how Portugal dictatorship was not letting go the colonies and how that resulted in many Portuguese to dies in far lands. 

Lisbon hills, breathtaking and beautiful-Part Two

Read Part one here....It was there - in  Praça do Comércio- where we decided to learn more about the area by taking the tram tour, which happened to be a great fun. This old fashioned tram still had the old decoration, the bell and a rope hanging inside as “stop” request.

The journey soon took us to a cruse within the narrow streets of alfama district with houses and apartments blocks stacking on top of each other. Many of those buildings were decorated with tiles outside reminding the visitors of the eastern influence on this area which in indeed true and the history of the neighborhood goes back to the time of Arab occupation of Lisbon. The tram continued taking us up and we could see building after building with either flowers or wet clothes hanging from their windows and balconies (Pictures: 1, 2, 3) The shaking tram carriage with its bells ringing every now and then, continued to take us uphill in streets that were just wide enough for it to pass (Picture). Finally, we reached the top of the hill and started the plunge from the other side. Down the hills, streets around the historic squares start to become more rationalized, making a grid geometry with similar apartments blocks one after another (Pictures: 1,2). Yet still, the old age was apparent from the face of many of the buildings. In there, we passed by some interesting attractions of Lisbon like the Santa Justa elevator that had a long queue of tourists and no time.

The Castle of Lisbon: The remains of our short day in Lisbon was spent in Saint Geogre’s Castle also knows as castle of Lisbon. This castle is part of the series of castles forming the center of Portuguese flag and together they show the pride of these people in winning back the land from the Arabs who took over this area for many years. In fact, a big part of this castle was built by the Arab rulers in the most amazing spot that enables a great view of anything moving below. The structure of the castle is simple and strong but beautifully preserved (or restored?) with refreshing rows of trees on the edge and view of old Lisbon below that looked like a big stack of orange domino pieces (See Portugal album for photos).

Lisbon hills, breathtaking and beautiful-Part one

We had only a day or so to see Lisbon and we only managed to see a bit of it. Coming from Cascais, we chose the reliable train service that starts from a beautiful little square in Cascais and ends in a busy crossroad in downtown Lisbon. The final part of the train was just before arriving to Lisbon is parallel to the coast line and gave us a glimpse of some famous Lisbon attractions that we did not get the time to see close like the “monument of the discoveries” and the big bridge over the river.

After arriving to Lisbon and riding the metro for two stations, we found ourselves in a square that had it all. Praça da Figueira or the square of the fig trees was a snapshot of everything else that we were about to see for the rest of the day. The black statue of king John the first was the very first to catch the eye that was just about the get distracted to the broad marble paved centre of the square –just like the experience that you would expect to have with a little juicy black fig! Which is not why the square is named after figs but as I read, the area used to be covered with fig trees. It was one of the best angles to see the castle of saint George, the must see place in every website on Lisbon attractions (My photos of the square here)

Aiming to go up the hills to the castle, we first got the wrong tram line and had to get back there again…all that happened thanks to the man in the tourist information booth who knew how to say the ticket charges in English but no more. Back tracking to the square of the fig trees feeling a little fagged, we decided to get off our tram in an earlier stop in another historic square where the marble pavement was much broader with elegant architecture around. Facing the water front, this was Praça do Comércio, or the commerce square. A nice photo spot with a nicely made bronze statue of king Jose I weathered to green, and the giant gate to another street on which giant mystic statues were looking down at us (my photo of the square).....read the rest in the next post on portugal

Cascais, The village of comfort

We stayed in the village of Cascais during our one week visit to Lisbon. This is a calm, cozy place to live but apparently rather expensive. Cascais has preserved the classic look of a European village, remains of historic buildings, castle and water fronts together with modern facilities and trendy shops and restaurants.
Our last night in Cascais, we went with friends to a sea food restaurant around the main beach front that had a fantastic view and delightful  food. It was an adorable company of people from China, USA, Sweden and Denmark. It was indeed the night to remember.

Links:
Cascais in wikipedia
My Portugal Photo album

Checking in Portugal

We are now in the suburbs of Lisbon in the beautiful coastal village of Cascais. Yesterday we spent most of the day exploring the old part of Lisbon, which is famous for its intriguing neighborhoods with narrow streets and steep hills. Will write about all we saw very soon…

One of the roads to Rome

It was once said that all the roads end to Rome. This can still be considered correct for Tripoli because either of western or eastern roads can take you to famous Roman archaeological sites in Libya. Last weekend, we went to the small one in the west,  the Roman city of Sebratah.

I had to be careful not to loose my way so before going, I gave the coordinates of the place and important turning points of the route to the GPS. Google Earth can read from Garmin GPS(s) but can not write back to them so I had to manually read the coordinates from Google Earth screen and enter them in the device.

Sebratah is almost 80 Kms west of Tripoli. The road is fine if you stay alert of those drivers who flip your side mirror a little bit when they take over you! we got there almost around lunch time. See our route to Sebratah and our walk within it in Google Earth. You will see places where I moved back and forth with my GPS hanging from my belt and the result is interesting. See our route in GoogleEarth

Sebratah is a city that has footprints of many kingdoms but for a normal visitor, the dominance of Roman architecture is obvious. Our first stop was the beautiful theater with circling rounds of seats in front of the well preserved stage, surrounded by marble pillars and high walls (see pictures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
Along the costs, we could see remains of what once was sea side bathing room. Nice and creative tile works very well preserved after this many years made by small, coloured pebbles (see pictures 7, 8)
Not so many statues in here,probably many of them taken to museums if not else (I pictured these two 9, 10) paved streets of Sebratah (11) took us finally to seashore where we got the chance to out our feet inside the cool water and let the blue sea to absorb some of the heat (12)

Read more about Sebratah

Tripoli; where men love Coffee and Tobacco

If you happen to see a Libyan man taking a break, statistical chance of seeing a cup of coffee in one of his hands and a cigarette in the other is close to certain. People here are in love of cappuccino and you can easily notice it by looking at the number of coffee houses in the city. Basically wherever you see men are hanging out, you should expect a coffee place in the corner. The atmosphere is very live as many of these places put chairs and tables outside if they have space in front. What I feel is that men here really like to hang around with their friends to chat, It happened to me sometimes that I see a couple of guys and I see them in the same place after coming back in couple of hours.

The scene is totally masculine! You do not see anyone coming with wife or fiancé in such coffee stores. Me and Mrs.Behi felt it would be very strange to sit in such a place because she would appear as the only lady around :) but if we ever see one of them with a non-smoking section, I am sure we will join. In some modern places up town however, we could notice boys and girls having coffee together in the family section of one restaurant.

There is one of these coffee stores that we discovered and bought coffee the other day called “Favanis”. This is an all-time busy store with many tables outside, very cosy indeed but you just need to buy the coffee and get out to survive the cloud of tobacco smoke that is hovering around the main door.

“Favanis” is connected to a juice shop and a very good bakery with the same name. The bakery is the best with all variety of bread, a chocolate cookie stand and a display for sweets. There is always one rack of fresh bread came right from the oven! Get one of the hot-creamy ones, go next door, get a nice cappuccino and you got your refreshment. The cashier is a very nice person, very cheerful indeed. Last time we went there, he gave a rose to Mrs.Behi…an incredible gesture. We love our neighbourhood.

Overnight flight

Overnight flights can be very unpleasant for not getting enough sleep. This time we had a full house in an Airbus A-300 but the passenger beside me did not show up so I was happy that I could stretch my long legs quite a bit...also I was lucky to have the last seat so I could lean my seat back without feeling guilty about the tray table of the passenger in the back would press his/her body.

I made a new friend in Tripoli airport. A young underwater diver from south Africa. We met at the sandwich stand when this guy gave each of us the order of one another by mistake and he started talking to me while I was wondering why my tuna sandwich was not looking like tuna at all :) we had some interesting conversations before and during the flight when he eventually joined me on the vacant seat beside me. He was very curious to know about Iran and I am a real talkative about this subject :) I asked so many questions about Africa especially the sub-Saharan countries. He has a very interesting job...he does different tasks like lifting and welding under water. He said they lift and move things as heavy as several tons by using especial air balloons that they inflate under water.

Anyway, just a couple of hours to see Mrs.Behi again after more than a month apart. I feel so lost and incomplete when she is not around. The Behies will unite again today...till later...