Internet Quest #5: The Yugoslavian Photo

 Friday 16th November 1990: from the train from Istanbul to Venice: 

Slide labelled: Yugoslavia.

Quest: Where is this?

1. photo evidence - narrowing down.

Previous photo: Tuesday 13th November 1990: cats in a cage, Istanbul zoo.
Following photo: Saturday 18th November 1990: Venice, the Arsenale.

 2. the railway in Yugoslavia, 1990. 

I can then googlemap the route, like in Lion.

22/4/2022 I found this online - eventual successful search term: "rail line thessaloniki yugoslavia 1990" 

Too much railway, too long to find.  Let the quest rest. 

3. Four years later – what was the route from Thessaloniki to Venice in 1990? 

Why didn't I think of this next?  Why did I start looking on Thursday 12 February 2026 again? I was at work, I was alone, I was distracted, I was texting a friend about... reading old letters, accidentally I was just putting them in a box and I started reading them, I got so many when I was away in 1989 and 1990, Poste Restante London, Kurfurstendamm, American Express Rome...

12/2, noon.

• looked at the old links. 
• googled "Let's Go Europe 1990". some for sale online. 
• went to the online University catalogue. Let's go Europe 1990 not in the collection.
• googled Bradshaw's 1990. 
• googled Europe train guide 1990
• searched University library catalogue for Thomas Cook European Timetable... no luck.
• (looked at Insta - many such halts on this quest)
• googled Thomas Cook European Timetable 1990. Some were for sale, checked out how much.
• found this link: International guides – Timetable World 
• navigated to this: Timetable World and found this:  

 
A M A Z I N G !

Then THIS bit:

 

M A G I C A L 

The route from Thessaloniki found, more or less: 12/2/26 3.06pm

4. googlemapping

I'd already been googlemapping but now I had a focus.

Photo evidence: train heading north/northwest mostly, shadow on the west side, so in the morning, November so maybe 10am, 11am...

I didn't find anything on 12/2, I had to um work, then go to the movies Le amiche  an Antonioni.  I'd kept a friend up to date with the Quest, via text, poor thing she was kind.

---

Sunday 15/2

Home from Fairday, 7.45pm I started googlemapping: Skopje, Belgrade, Gevgelija, Monastery of Saint Maria Magdalena, back to Thessaloniki, along the Motorway "Friendship" - a lot of the the landscape was too flat, too wooded, the curve wasn't there, or on the wrong side of the river.

Monastery of Saint Ilija, Thessaloniki, Kozhle, Smesnica Mosque, Khojan's Bridge. Skopje to Pristina, North Macedonia. Te Livadhet. Untold nameless points. Back to Skopje. 

9.30pm I watched Episode 4 of The House of Guinness. Went to bed.

Monday 16/2

Up early. I should have been writing my diary. "Journalling".

7.22am Skopje. 7.25am Markova Cheshme. 7.26am Bela Voda Cave. 7.27am Municipality of Demir Kapija. Bela Voda Cave. Skopje. 7.39am Archaeological Park Stoba. 7.40am NOB Monument. the land was sere, the hills seemed right, the train line - I would lose it on Satellite, switch to Map to find it again, but mostly it followed the valley of a river, all the way up from Greece.

5. Monday 16/2/2026, 7.44am - found it. 

F O U N D  I T.

I started. I stared. Stillness. Achievement. An End.

The curve was right. River out of sight to the right. Brown land. A factory over a hill (3D view). the building – the building I had photographed, my only photo in Yugoslavia (a single photo in 5 days travelling!) – gone, just the foundations left. Still an empty forgotten sort of place.

I googled streetview, route R1102. I saw day-tripping cyclists, closer views of the factory. 

 

I found a nearby village, Zgropolci. I googled it - poisoned with radioactive waste from the fertiliser factory.  

It's in North Macedonia. It's here: 41°39'11.7"N 21°52'37.5"E

I got ready for work. I was riding my bike in today. Late start.

Postscript

I have diary entries from this train trip. I mention Skopje, Niš, Ristovac, Povir, Trieste. I spend time with Julie (Melbourner, lost her in Trieste), Chris (NZ) , Sandra (an American, gave me a coffee) and Leanne (Wyoming). I sleep in a couchette, the whole compartment to myself. I go to Athens! – the train arrived 6 hour late. I read Jane Eyre, Joseph Andrews and Chatterton, all bought from a bookshop in Galata. I admire conscripts in Skopje, handsome Athenian boys, Athenian girls with amazing complexions.  Yugoslavia is a fairytale come to life - an old man sowing a field by hand, hayricks and stooks, horse-drawn ploughs, more wagons than cars, one being pulled by a black cow and a donkey. Gathering mists, twilight falling... 

 

 

Revenants

I told a friend I spend my days painting watercolours, strumming my ukulele and writing my blog.

I was watching "Les revenants" last night and thought about a place I was last year on my big bike trip around Europe. I came out of a range of high hills and this town was in the valley, with more hills - the Massif centrale I think - on its further side. It was late, already dark. I was there for a night, camped at the nearly empty Camping Municipale near the footy fields. Had a pizza for dinner from a little place that was just about to close - nothing else was open - wrote my diary and read a bit in the empty recreation room, breakfast at a blissfully quiet and warm McDonalds the next morning on the way out, heading north along an old railway bike track lined by fields full of dead brown sunflowers, to... another place I'd never heard of, a town of pink stone on a river, whose name I can't recall.

Plus ça change...

Monday 4th Oct 1982 [after a gap of a month]
I hate myself for this, but I've left off without writing in this for too long. I must get into the habit of writing in it more! But how can I be firm with myself? Not only am I morally (?) weak, but a disgustingly strong procrastinator.

... Now, my trip to Taronga Zoo. I was going to give a very detailed recount, with all the animals I'd seen, but it would take far too long. I went by myself (I go almost everywhere by myself; the places I go don't interest anyone else).

The Dead Outnumber the Living

I follow some friends' blogs that just aren't updated enough. Every day I look - every day - and for nearly all of them the "Last Updated" gets further and further into the past: 4 months, 11 months, 6 months, 1 year, 4 years...

Some of the blogs in my reading list I know have concluded, begun with a purpose and the purpose fulfilled, the last post a farewell and thanks. Another blog will never be updated again, the guy keeping it died. I won't let go of these for I don't want to forget.

And there are 2 or 3 hugely popular ones I follow that are updated all the time, ones even you might have heard of if you were gay or Australian or a birdwatcher - or all three. They don't disappoint me/fill me with ineffable nostalgia.

But friends* - dear friends - get your act together. Try harder. Think. Write, post pictures. I want to read your quirky musings, see your great paintings, be amused by those slower hidden sides of you I never get to see.

Or you could write me letters, I don't mind.

In the blog-o-sphere, life is cheap. A blog - a million blogs - appear with a burst of life, then stutter, and fail, the never-next post a fading hope. I did some research on blog half-lives and dead blogs. Millions are begun, 80% - or more - fail. A blog about dead blogs - last updated in 2006. Pressed Blogspot's "Next blog" button and see for yourself: "It's our anniversary tomorrow!" (8 April 2010). "God bless the two of you who still get alerts when I update this blog..." (4 May 2012).  "Relaunch soon. Watch this space." (2 February 2011). Blog after unhappy blog.

But then: "After a nearly 2 year hiatus...I AM BACK!!!! Can't wait to update and share..." (28 October 2014). And who am I to cast the first stone? My first post was my only one for nearly 2 years.

So "M", "J", "C" and "H", my cleverly disguised friends*, post again, for me. For this post is for you.




* and that hot single guy with the sailing boat who finished his last post mid-sentence 11 months ago.

Throwback Thursday #tbt

Thursday 2 February 1989
Hitchhiking with Stephen from Bern

We awoke about 9, much much later than we had intended, + after a false start at a not very busy entrance, didn’t begin hitching till 11.15 or thereabouts.

Another huge intersection, heading out of Bern in all directions. We waited there for about 3½ hours before we got a lift, + even before then had only had one offer, but he went in the wrong direction. It was funny the things that people did – many shrugged, or smiled, others did incomprehensible things – bending a finger down (I’ve got a little willy), or pointing vehemently at their laps (Look here, I have an erection!) or showing with their hand that they were going either left or right – as I said, incomprehensible. The 1st lift was only a matter of a few KM’s, from a youngish beery guy with a sparse moustache, but he said we’d have more luck to Fribourg from there – Flamatt, that is. We were there over an hour – it seemed we’d had the best of hitching in one day, the worst in the next – before we got a lift to Fribourg, from a nationalized Italian man in a little fiat. The Eingang at Fribourg Sud was very smelly – cow – + muddy + dusty, but it was less than half an hour before a youngish, quick sort of woman picked us up in a little red Honda looking thing. And there was someone else right behind us who was willing too! She took us to Vevey, through country that only recently had covered itself in snow for us; mountains + hills as usual looking wonderful out the windows.

Wicked

"It's Madame's birthday" I explained to the man selling programs. I waved away the money Clare proffered in her fist, and paid, feeling like a big shot.

I knew nothing about this production but I was looking forward to seeing this Fiyero's jodhpur- and green regimental-encased thighs, a highlight of the last Fiyero I saw. This one looked like a young Carey Elwes and I think it was probably the angle from the Dress Circle but his lower limbs didn't set my pulse racing?

Lots more happened in the show than I remembered and lots less too, which happens when you don't pay attention and also read the novels these things are based on.

In the middle of the show we became aware of a stir nearby, I turned to see a young man hurrying along the seats, starting and stopping, climbing over the back to an aisle and running hither and thither - was he actor? Did this happen last time? Voices and mutterings and movement over in the Dress Circle's better seats, people half standing, agitated, looking all ways in the gloom but mainly at someone in their midst, the young man - not an actor - racing down the stairs just near Clare, trying to escape! He couldn't find a door and stopped dead at the Candy Bar, then raced back up into the gloom, followed by our goggling eyes. "Call triple-oh!" a woman shrieked. "What's happening?" cried Clare! So strange, all in the gloom, a stage show taking place below us. It soon settled down, the young man found an usher, a person who'd had a fit was helped out, attended by their companions, we with whispers and looks of surmise regained our quietude and paid attention once more to the stage where, despite the kerfuffle, our inattention and my expectations, the show had actually gone on.

I was having a cup of tea with Clare at her place after the show. Clare, phone in hand on broad bosom, was scrolling through all her Facebook birthday wishes.
"Aw, Maisy posted, dat's noice. And Lizzy. Ah, one from Bec. And B– J– too, he's a nice boy."
"B– J– doesn't like me."
"What? Why?"
"Oh I don't know. I don't really know him. I think he thinks I'm a sleazy old man."
Clare took her eyes away from the phone and looked at me quizzically.
"Oh I know," I said, "but you've got a much better disguise."

Happy Jar Endgame

I needed some cheering up last night and I spied the Happy Jar
 on my fridge, where it's been almost exactly a year. So I opened it.

Here are a couple: "Michael knows how to sail a boat! Wow! I wish I knew that." This is true, I do. I always wanted to sail and never did then one day, I got involved and now, I can sail. And I do, too, all the time. That is pretty great. You do tend to take things for granted. I can sail a boat! That makes me smile.

"Michael has just the right mix of cynicism, compassion, honesty, kindness and sentimentality." That's nice, isn't it? So many elements I couldn't demur on all of them in the same way, so I try picking them out one by one: I think I'm way too cynical and honest, am I honest? Oh, kind! huh... then I think, what is "just the right mix" anyway? and so all my takes on the attributes get muddled and the whole thing goes on too long and it all slumps back into this nice list which makes me feel good.

I never added any slips of my own so each of the six was a surprise - and a nice surprise. No blank slips or backhanders here. Whoever wrote them - thanks. Especially that bit about my excellent physique.