Balkanically Active
- krolesh
- Apr 3
- 13 min read
February 2025
This is where I've travelled for this blog ...
Palermo
Despite my Grimaldi ferry leaving Tunis over six hours late, I still arrived in the Sicilian capital in time to check in at that amazing music hostel, A Casa Di Amici, and meet up with my friends there, as well as go out for food with Sagun.
Later that night I met Johann, an amazing singer and musician from Munich, he's a complete free spirit, and we jammed for ages. It was actually magical, he's super talented, and his voice and harmony style reminds me of Thom Yorke from Radiohead. Which is saying something.
Our musical styles blended so nicely.
The next day, after a slow leisurely breakfast and a super long and inspiring conversation with Timmy, a friend from Ethiopia who also happens to be one of the receptionists at the hostel, Sagun and I headed out, both not really sure what to do.
But as we strolled in the sun I remembered that Tracey, a German woman I met here last time, had told me that Monte Pellegrino was her favourite place outside the city, so Sagun and I headed up there on a local bus.
Monte Pellegrino isn't really a mountain at all, but a hill of about 600m, and is really not that far north of the old city of Palermo, only about 30 minutes by bus. So we headed up, and the views were stunning as we gained height. But the pics were better later, as we walked down.
The bus stopped at the Santuario Di Santa Rosalia, a church built into a cave in honour of a woman called Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo. Rosalia was the daughter of a noble family, who was devoutly religious, and lived as a hermit up on this hill, where she died alone in 1166.
Four hundred and fifty years later, in 1624, a plague beset Palermo, and someone had the idea to go and find Rosalia's bones in the cave, and parade them around the city, to rid it of the disease. After they did this three times the plague finally ended.
How amazing!
Yeah, God works in incredible ways.
As do pandemics.
They should've done that for Covid, or maybe they tried, I'm not sure. Or maybe they forgot to do it three times.
Above Left: Elaborate guttering system in the cave
Above Centre: The pretend fire was actually one of those fans blowing red paper, so it looked like flickering flames. Kitschissimo.
Then we walked further up the road, to a few incredible lookouts.
It was stunning up there. So many blues.
We finally decided to turn around and hike back down, rather than take the bus.
The views of Palermo were the bomb.
Above Right: An old Roman road. Other parts of it had two flat tracks along the rougher cobblestones, designed for animal carts.
Above Right: Roman viaducts
Below: Left, Centre: When we got back to the city Sagun and I did what everyone else was doing, which was eating delicious arancini snacks and drinking Aperol Spritz.
That was appetiser, as later there was a group pasta meal back at the hostel, followed by the best jam ever.
Below Right: Johann and I
That night I met some amazing people, including Naho, (Above, Left), from Vera Cruz in Mexico, she's a cello player studying at the Music Conservatorium in Florence, and is in Palermo for a master class from her cello idol, whose name escapes me.
We all had an amazing jam, with everything from flamenco, bossa, cumbia, jazz, indie rock, folk, and full percussion music reverberating around the hostel till the wee hours.
Of course, we went out afterwards, but not for long, as nothing much was open. So we just partied longer back in the hostel.
It was amazing to hang out with those people, I know you're sick of me saying it, but I was so happy.
I crawled into bed at 3am, fully inspired, and, believe it or not, fully clothed. I didn't wanna wake anyone up by undressing.
The Deep
And now I'm gonna say something strange, and you may not believe me.
Lately I've realised that travelling around for me these days is absolutely just as amazing and as much fun as it was when I first roamed the world as a much younger man.
Ok, that may not be such a bold statement, but read on.
The thing is, most of the people I'm hanging out with these days are generally the same age as the travellers I met way back then, which actually means that I'm thirty, or even forty years older than a lot of them.
But the weird thing is that it honestly seems to make no difference whatsoever.
That's the bold statement.
People really don't seem to care what age I am. They honestly don't. I know that because sometimes it comes up in conversations I have with much younger people, and they tell me that they really don't care.
And they're not just trying to be nice. Ok, maybe some are, but I'm talking about the people I'm connecting with at a deeper level.
And yeah, one factor is that I just connect with them as I would anyone of my own age, or any age, because their age makes no difference to me whatsoever, I don't even think about it.
We all just connect as people, people who can be inspired by each other, and equally learn from each other. It's amazing, it's beautiful, and, despite the fact that you may think I'm kidding myself, our age seems to be completely irrelevant.
I've made some really precious friends on my journeying, and they're of all different ages, but actually most of them are quite a bit younger than me.
And when I think deeper about it, I realise that travelling at this phase in my life isn't totally the same as it used to be. There's some differences, but one particularly big one.
When I was younger and travelling around I was also, unsurprisingly, sometimes having sexual relationships with travellers I'd meet of my own age, so the connections I made with women sometimes had that dynamic happening, which changed the way we related with each other, as it naturally does.
But these days most of the women I meet are much younger than me, and so the connection we have is free of that dynamic, it's clear we're not gonna go there, and we can get really close on a personal level, without the sexual dynamic hindering the connection in any way.
It's a really nice place to be, because we can freely talk with each other without either of us thinking there's any hidden agenda.
And that makes it easier to trust, to be free of distractions, and to be open to listening to each other's stories, which are sometimes incredibly deep, personal, and intimate. And that connections I'm having are with both men and women, of course.
Sometimes, including recently, people have told me things that they've never told anyone before, that they've bottled up for their whole lives.
Our connection with each other, meeting on the road, with no history or agenda, and with nothing to hinder the opportunity to trust each other fully, has allowed them to say what they've needed to say, at exactly the time they needed to say it.
It's been incredibly healing, and not just for them.
It's hard for me to describe how precious some of those experiences have been for all of us, but I'm tearing up now, so that gives you some idea.
Ahhhhh ....... Bye Bye Sicilia (Again)
The next day it was finally time to leave the large and beautiful southern Italian island of Sicily.
I actually didn't want to go, I've fallen in love with some people here, in the most beautiful way, and the landscape and culture is so amazing. I totally love this place, and will definitely come back one day.
I had breakfast with Nadine, a super interesting social worker from Berlin, who's just finished a placement in a domestic violence shelter in Malta. It was a pretty sobering conversation. Women are seriously treated as second class citizens there, with even abortion illegal, even though Malta is an EU member state, and, on so many external levels, appears quite modern and progressive.
It was pretty challenging for Nadine to be there, and she's working hard to better the situation for those women. She wants to do more, and her approach really inspired me.
A Misogyny Epidemic
We talked about misogyny and sexual violence, and how pervasive it is around the world. Nadine said that it's no surprise that these days some women have decided not to have a relationship with any men, as it's just not safe, because you don't know who they really are, and what might happen to you.
It's no surprise to me either.
After quite a long conversation I told her that I, like many of my male friends, am acutely aware of what's happening to women around the world at the hands of misogynistic men, and want to do everything I can to support women-led action to change it.
It's inconceivable to me that we live in a world where an estimated 30% of women globally - almost one in three - have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, at least once in their life.
That's 736 million women around the planet.
Why is all this happening? What causes misogyny? Why on earth do men hate women so much? When loving them can be so fulfilling and beautiful?
I guess you've heard of Andrew Tate, the UK/American ex-wrestler and social media icon famous for his radical misogynistic views on women. He proudly calls himself "absolutely a misogynist," and calls women "intrinsically lazy," and has said "there's no such thing as an independent woman."
Horrifically, the guy has over 10 million followers on X, and has had a huge influence on teenage boys in the UK, US, and most other western countries. He was once banned from Twitter due to his hugely harmful statements about women, but when Elon Musk bought the company he reinstated Tate's account. Surprise surprise.
More horrifically, Tate's actually been charged with a huge litany of crimes against women, including rape, people trafficking, and coercion. He's admitted to deliberately getting women to fall in love with him, and then coercing them into making porn, which he has then then sold and made millions of dollars from. Some of these women were underage too, for that matter.
He's been under house arrest in Romania for some time.
However, Tate is an avid Trump supporter, and, when Trump was re-elected president he directed US officials to pressure Romanian officials to release Tate and his brother, and they recently flew to Florida, Trump's home state.
Tate is also wanted for rape in the UK, by the way.
It's super important to remove people like Tate (and obviously Trump) from positions of influence.
We need to educate boys and young men. We need to teach them how to communicate, and how to listen to and respect women. We need to teach them what consent means.
We need to teach them that their feelings of sexual attraction to someone are just that - sexual attraction - and that those desires are completely manageable, and do not give them any right whatsoever to act, if consent is not clear.
Boys need to learn that having sex with someone that you aren't absolutely sure really wants to have sex with you is actually rape.
Yeah I know this is all obvious, I don't know why I'm saying it to you.
And I guess women know what girls need to be taught to change the current situation, but teaching girls that they don't have to please people, or put their own needs after the needs of others, or that they don't need to do anything they don't feel comfortable with, is a good starting point.
The most lasting change in this area will only happen when young kids are properly educated about respect and consent. Unfortunately it's gonna take time, even though the situation is so urgent.
A Long Journey
So .... eventually, after a pile of sad goodbyes, it was time to head to the bus station. Palermo has been amazing, not just the place, but the people. I've made some great friends here, and now have contacts, including really good music contacts, in a pile of new places. Lucky me.
Soon enough I was heading to Catania, and then to the ferry port at the northeastern Sicilian city of Messina.
Bye bye Sicilia.
We stopped at Costenza for a transfer, and I met Aibek, an IT student who lives in Messina, Sicily, but is actually from Almaty in Kazakhstan.
We sat and had food. He was really happy to chat with someone who knows Kazakhstan, because he misses the place - his family, the people, the culture, the food. He's flying to Almaty from Rome tomorrow, for a work placement. He's happy.
I slept on the leg to Rome, but only for five hours or so, and woke up with a cold. The aircon had been blasting on me for hours, and I was a bit rundown.
I had a couple of things to do in Rome while waiting for my next bus. I tried to change Tunisian dinari, but ended up needing to hike all the way over to the main train station area, Termini, to do that.
Below, Left: Someone was wearing this T-shirt at the Palermo bus station. He looked at me weirdly when I asked him if I could photograph it, but agreed.
Below, Centre: Downtown Costenza
Below, Right: Roma Fiburtina train station
I had coffee and a cornetto first though.
The cheeky monkey can sometimes get angry.
It was raining, something I haven't seen since those couple of days in Malta, and a small sprinkle one day in Tunisia. Pretty soon I was on the late morning bus to Bari, from where I needed to take another bus to the port, for my trip on the ferry to Durres, the port city near the Albanian capital of Tirana.
The boat was relatively painless, but, despite the fact that I had a row of three seats to myself again, I didn't sleep much. They left the hugely bright fluoro
lights on in the cabin all night. Don't ask me why, but they have a policy of not turning them off, Buddha knows why.
I was pretty trashed when I finally got to Durrës, a port city across the Adriatic Sea, about an hour's bus ride from Tirana, the Albanian capital.
I'd met Hamez at the port in Bari, a Kosovan truck driver who'd flown all the way to Bari to buy a truck, only to find that the motor of the truck he was interested in buying had blown a head gasket. He was a lovely and quietly spoken man, who was understandably pissed at the truck driver who tried to take him for a ride.
I bought him a coffee and a snack to try and cheer him up, which seemed to work somewhat.
We hung out on the ferry for awhile and then shared a bus ride to Tirana bus station, which he then left to head home to Kosovo.
Albania!
From the western bus station I decided to walk to the centre of the country's capital, which took me about an hour.
Below: First impressions
It was so good to arrive at the Red Goat Hostel, a hostel recommended to me by Luis, one of the Tunisian posse. The hostel was set up by a well known Albanian feminist, and 70% of its profits go to women's projects around the country.
I chatted for ages with Laura, who's the daughter of the woman who set the place up, and who now runs it. She had loads to tell me about the situation for women around here (not good), and about a whole pile of inspiring projects for women that her group support all over Albania.
The place feels like home, the hang out room is just a huge lounge room, with the best music playing.
Laura loves an amazing French online radio station called Fip, I listened to hours of music from the site while I was there, it's amazing.
The hostel's so comfy, which is perfect, and just what I need, because I'm really trashed after quite a few days of being quite busy, moving around, exploring, socialising and staying up late, and travelling on countless overnight buses and ferries.
I've decided to rest here a few days, and explore a little of Tirana, but in a very low key way.
Below, Centre: My street
Göksagun, my Turkish friend, also from the Tunisian posse, had flown to Tirana, and we hung for a couple of hours around lunchtime, before I needed to sleep, in the early afternoon.
I was dead.
There's some Interesting architecture here in Tirana.
Below, Left: Byrek me gjizë, basically a borek with a soft white cheese. Absolutely delicious. And the cost? About €0.50. Food in this place is so cheap.
Below, Centre: I had a spinaq one too.
Below, Right: A memorial to dead Israeli kids, not sure who they are. This was outside the Israeli embassy.
Incredible bicycle sculpture.
Nah, not really.
I just rotated the pic below.
The main square in town is called Skanderbeg Square, named after the great Albanian hero who achieved semi-independence for Albania against the Ottomans, with the help of the Kingdom of Napoli.
There's a beautiful old mosque there, and this massive mural.
The hostel walls are embellished with art, and the portraits of great feminist leaders. Guess who they all are ...
Or just read their names
Below Left: The hostel from outside
Strolling around Tirana
Below: The brutalist. Old communist era pyramid, that you can climb. There were nice views from the top.
Above, Right: Rather than having a little green man on the pedestrian lights when you can go, they've got an eagle with spread wings, it looks pretty kitschy.
Above: Hostel brekky. I had a great time chatting with Elle, a Japanese woman who insisted I use her English name. She's in Albania because she's studying North Asian politics, and is super interested in North Korea, and what happens when countries that have basically been closed for decades (like Albania), open up again.
She's an interesting woman, and has travelled quite a lot, despite her young age.
One day I walked to Lake Tirana, a beautiful area only about a half hour walk from the main city square.
I ended up walking around the whole lake, it was too beautiful not to.
And the rain had stopped too.
Below, Right: Nah. A better life's in the direction you're heading.
From now on.
Short And Sweet
Well, suddenly it's time to leave Tirana. I've really enjoyed hanging here for a few days, but as you probably know by now, I'm on a mission to get back to my bike.
Albania is a really interesting country, but having only spent time in the capital city I feel like I don't know the country at all yet.
I need to spend some time in the small towns and villages.
All in good time. Albania has been a little introduction to the Balkans, and they're gonna get a lot more treatment from me down the track.
Insha'Allah.
But for now, it's time for me to head southeast.
Yes, I'm off to yet another country. They're all over the place around here.
I hardly know where I am anymore.
But I know where I'm going.
Yep, get yer olives and feta out, because today I'm heading to Greece❤️
PS. The link above gives you the chance to buy me a coffee on my travels. It's one way you can let me know you're appreciating this blog.
Thanks in advance, I already know I'm gonna enjoy it🙏
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