Postcards from the Balkans

#148

My Dear Friend of Democracy,

Did you know that the term Balkan peninsula arose from a misconception? 

The misconception was that the Balkan mountain range, the backbone of present-day Bulgaria, did not taper out in eastern Serbia, as it is the case, but stretched unbroken from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. 

So a regional mountain range became the name giver for an area compassing nowadays ten countries (Do you know them all? > solution)

In any case, the Balkans remains "the most complex and least understood in Europe ", writes Balkan expert Misha Glenny in "The Balkans" (my holiday reading). 

So, there are three insightful weeks ahead of me since, starting today, I will travel by train through four of the ten Balkans countries: Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. And since travelling is usually more about reading and seeing and less about writing, this blog might shrink from letters to postcards during this time.

I hope to send you postcards with some exciting insights.

See you in Europe,

Johannes