The end of an era

This Sunday I passed by the Border's bookstore in Oxford Street, London, and could witness what looked like the perfect illustration of the end of an era...well maybe I am exaggerating a bit... but that was what I felt when I saw the "Liquidation, Store Closure" and "All 50% off, selected items 1 pound" signs...the picture in the interior was a bit disheartening: a big mess...piles of books with no order, clients scavenging for bargains, hardly any interesting book left. I love bookstores, but it's been more than a year since I bought anything in them, I would found it hard to believe it a few years ago but Amazon has managed to take me away from brick-and-mortar bookstores and my guess is, given the fantastic job Amazon is doing, more an more people will be following the same path. Expect more bookstore closures...and be there early to get the best bargains!

Visualizing European unity: Gorizia/Nova Gorica

Everyone knows about the Berlin wall, but for decades there was another divided city in Europe, and by divided I mean, literally, traversed by a wall. After WWII ended, Italy had to surrender some territories of what now are Slovenia and Croatia to the newly created Yugoslavia. Italy managed to retain most of the city of Gorizia, but the train station and its surrounding area went to Yugoslavia, that started to develop a new city, Nova Gorica, that mirrored the Italian one across the border. Although Yugoslavia was officially a non-aligned country, the wall that separated both cities was a physical barrier between the communist East and the Western world. The wall run next to people's houses and through gardens and the magnificent entrance of the station, in Yugoslavia, was facing anything but the wall, giving the situation a surreal touch.

Fortunately, this is now over. Slovenia joined the EU in 2004, with Italian and Slovenian prime ministers meeting in the center of the station square to celebrate the event.

When I visited the station, there was no activity whatsoever and by looking at the wooden interiors, it seemed that the time had stopped in 1947. It is now possible to walk but not drive across the square, as a marking stone, some flowers and a low-lying fence still act as barriers and demarcate the line. A monument in the center of the square, just where the border lies, commemorates the end of the division .

In this blog(in Spanish)there are some interesting pictures.

The Pyrenees from Tuixent (Alt Urgell), Catalonia

My Blog picks: WWII panorama

Today I am presenting a site that I just found that is developing a very interesting project: to document with pictures a large number of scenarios related to WWII.

Here is the link.

A useful resource for those, like me, that like to read extensively about this epic conflict. No other war in history has been fought in such diversity of places. We can now also see in one click how these locations currently look like.

My blog picks: Fronterasblog.wordpress.com

Aquest és un blog que per als que, com a mi, els fascinen les curiositats geogràfiques, està ple d'informació interessantísima. No parla exclusivament de fronteres, però si que una part substancial dels posts (els millors, segons la meva opinió) tracten d'aquelles fronteres que tenen característiques que les fan especials, com per exemple els enclaus, alguns exemples, com Llívia, són prou coneguts per al públic català, però a Europa i al món hi ha molts altres casos, alguns, com el de l'arxipèlag o constel·lació (no se m'acut altra forma d'anomenar-lo) d'enclaus de Baarle (Bèlgica/Holanda) de proporcions surrealistes.

El català i el romanx, llengües germanes

Aquesta setmana passada he tingut la oportunitat de visitar la zona on es troben les fronteres d'Itàlia, Àustria i Suïssa, la Val Venosta en italià o Vinschgau, que és el seu nom alemany. La gran majoria dels seus habitants parla l'alemany, tot i que l'italià també és oficial, ja que aquest territori va a passar a formar part d'Itàlia al final de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el que em va cridar l'atenció, però, és que tot sintonitzant la ràdio del cotxe vaig poder sentir un tercer idioma, que no era ni alemany ni italià i que sonava com si fos català. Es tractava d'una emissora romanx, ja que la Val Venosta/Vinschgau es troba al costat mateix de l'extrem més oriental de Suïssa, el cantó dels Grisons, on una part de la població té el romanx com a llengua nativa. Tot i haver viscut durant un temps a Suïssa, era la primera vegada que escoltava parlar romanx, i això s'explica, perque, tot i ser una de les llengües oficials de la Confederació Helvètica, només la parlen un 0,5% dels seus habitants (de 35.000 a 50.000 persones aproximadament) i aquests es concentren en un dels racons més remots i muntanyosos dels país. De fet, com explica la wikipedia, els parlants de romanx, a més de ser pocs, no ocupen un territori compacte dins del propi cantó dels Grisons i estan distribuits en una espècie d'"illes" o enclaus lingüistics en contacte amb territoris italianòfons o germanòfons. Per al catalanoparlant que entra en contacte amb el romanx, la primera reacció podria ser de certa sorpresa, ja que paraules i frases senceres semblen pròpiament catalanes, encara que amb un accent especial, per a la oïda d'un catalanoparlant sona una mica com català parlat per alguna persona de llengua nativa germànica. Tot i que demogràficament no són dues situacions comparables, no deixa de sorprendre com català i romanx semblen haver evolucionat paral·lelament des del llatí, una al peu dels Pirineus, l'altra dels Alps.

Itàlia: escenes variades

Imatges: Venezia, Verona, Trento, Süd-Tyrol/Alto Adige, Dolomiti

Planespotting at Heathrow's T5

This last holidays I found myself for the very first time at Heathrow's new Terminal 5. The views were very good, as the new modern buildings provide a considerably better view than any than any the old terminals, however, the terminal is totally monopolized by BA, so there was no much variety in the type of planes to be spotted. I have to admit, that the venerable 747 remains a very impressive aircraft though!

My blog picks: Abulafia

I want to congratulate the excellent and highly recommended science blog "Abulafia" for having reached it's 10,000th visitor just before moving into the New Year! Well done and I wish you many more visits in 2009!...and by the way, Dodger, thanks for the mention!