Exploring Southeastern Europe

Some 150 years ago, the newly formed Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company rewarded loyal customers with gifts of colorful picture cards. Each card was a work of art; before long, thousands of them were circulating. Their beautiful images and associated commentary captivated people and new editions were eagerly awaited. As a group, they told fascinating stories about every conceivable aspect of life on earth and, like our internet, came to embody the sum of human knowledge. With the help of these cards, collectors could travel the globe, meet people from any country on earth and learn about their customs. They could visit lost civilizations, too, or marvel at natural and man-made wonders around the globe. They could study up on plants and animals or the evolution of commerce and transport, learn about geography and history and natural science. They could discover the secrets of agriculture, forestry and fishing or trace the origin of new inventions that were transforming industry and life in general. They could familiarize themselves with music and literature, great art and architecture, with famous men and women of all ages and, most importantly perhaps, with children’s favorite world of giants and dwarfs, elves and gnomes, riddles and fairy tales!

As a result, strange as it may sound, the company’s most important contribution, perhaps, was not to the kitchens of the world, but to the education of millions of people of all ages who could not go to school or afford books! The author’s grandmother was one of them and, many years later, when he was a child, she used her large collection of Liebig cards, as one might the modern-day internet, to satisfy his urge to find out everything about the big wide world. This twelfth volume of the SURFING A MAGICAL INTERNET series resurrects another portion yet of grandmother’s collection. In Book 12, Exploring Southeastern Europe, over 100 pictures illustrate her imaginary trip to the pre-World War I world of what is now known as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and European Turkey---pictures taken at a time when some of the areas visited here were still part of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman Empires or when people considered themselves to be citizens of what are now almost forgotten places like Boeotia, Dacia, Dalmatia, Istria, Rumelia, Transylvania, and even Wallachia.
As we accompany grandmother on her trip, we follow the course of Europe’s second longest river, the Danube, as it passes ten modern countries on its way to the Black Sea. We marvel at the remnants of Roman roads and palaces---Emperor Trajan’s Road at the Iron Gate, Emperor Diocletian’s Palace at Split, or the ruins of Golubac, infested with hordes of blood-sucking flies, called “mosquitoes,” that have allegedly shown themselves capable of killing off entire herds of cattle! Before long, we stand in awe before mighty fortresses lining the Turkish Straits and built to protect the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus. We relax on Greek islands---Corfu, Thera, Crete, Rhodes, and more --- and, using my grandmother’s time machine, we go further back in time as well, to explore life in ancient Greece at the golden age of Pericles, to visit the hermits at Mount Athos, to witness the founding of Byzantium, then Constantinople and now Istanbul, and to observe the construction of the Acropolis and two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World--the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. So many stories, captivating all, and so much fun!