Travelling Blog

Travelling Blog · 21.07.2026

Anyone visiting the municipality of Kittsee in the northernmost part of Burgenland steps onto historic ground. Situated directly on the border with Slovakia, right at the gates of Bratislava, the Iron Curtain once separated two worlds here. Today, in 2026, the community faces entirely new, modern challenges. In the middle of it all stands Johannes Hornek. The 60-year-old trained electrician and farmer has been leading the municipality as mayor for nine years. And he does so in a highly...

Travelling Blog · 20.07.2026

Tamás pulls up in a true piece of “Ostalgie”: an original GDR Trabant from the 1980s. Together, we rattle from Sopron heading north, straight to the exact spot where, on the afternoon of August 19, 1989, the border opened for a few hours and the wheels of world history were set in motion. Today, this site is home to the "Pan-European Picnic" Memorial Park. Tamás is a contemporary witness. Back then, he was a student, politically engaged, and simply curious. In the morning, he flocked with...

Travelling Blog · 19.07.2026

A town sign in the Austrian province of Burgenland shows: Kleinwarasdorf and Mali Borištof. Around 95 percent of the roughly 400 inhabitants of the village speak Burgenland Croatian - a distinct variant of Croatian that developed historically independent of modern standard Croatian. One of them is 68-year-old Otto Bintinger. His story and his perspective on the region show how a centuries-old tradition remains alive in the heart of Europe, but also the modern challenges the minority faces...

Travelling Blog · 17.07.2026

Those who venture up the steep path to the Vashegy on the Hungarian-Austrian border have no idea what awaits them. On this idyllic vineyard, where today the famous Vashegyi wines such as Kékfrankos, Merlot, and Cabernet are ripening once again, Sándor Goják has created the private "Iron Curtain" museum among the vines as a place of remembrance. A Life in the Shadow of the Border Fortifications Sándor Goják does not only know the border from history books. He guarded it. Between 1965 and...

Travelling Blog · 17.07.2026

The small Hungarian border village of Molnári has spruced itself up. Neat houses line the street leading down into the vast floodplain of the Mura River, an untouched, species-rich river landscape that is strictly protected today as part of a transboundary biosphere reserve and national park. Where information boards now explain the rich flora and fauna and the river invites peaceful fishing and canoeing, one of Europe’s most heavily guarded demarcation lines once ran. During the Cold War,...

Travelling Blog · 16.07.2026

From the former dividing line of the Iron Curtain to one of Europe’s most vibrant conservation hotspots: In northern Croatia, right on the border with Hungary, the visitor center “Dravska Priča” (translated as Drava Story) demonstrates how a zone of silence is being transformed into a place of international encounter and species protection. Today, there is no longer any trace of historical conflicts along the banks of the Drava. Where a heavily guarded border once separated Yugoslavia...

Travelling Blog · 15.07.2026

A small, remote village in southern Hungary. Around two hundred people live in Alsószentmárton, facing the daily struggles of a marginalized community. It is a Roma village. One of its residents is 45-year-old Andrea Boros. She has six children, seven grandchildren, and a life shaped by poverty, hard labor, and deep-seated discrimination. Andrea Boros was born in this village, just like her mother and generations before her. Although local politics are firmly in the hands of the community –...

Travelling Blog · 15.07.2026

The Baranja region, nestled in the triangle where Croatia, Hungary, and Serbia meet, is considered a gastronomic gem, famous for its hearty, spicy cuisine and historic wine cellars. Yet, behind the peaceful facade of the "Amazon of Europe," lie deep historical wounds. The region was fiercely contested during the Yugoslav War (1991–1995) and remained occupied for years. Matej Perkušić, now director of the Baranja Tourist Board, was a teenager at the time. To this day, he lives in nearby...

Travelling Blog · 12.07.2026

Anyone looking at the map might easily assume the Romanian village of Beba Veche to be the proverbial end of the world. It is Romania's westernmost village, situated in the historic tri-border area where Romania, Serbia, and Hungary meet. Yet for the people who live here, perspectives shift. For Ivana Pescar, Beba Veche is by no means the last village in Romania – to her, it is the first. "I don't know how to say it," the 35-year-old reflects. "Since joining the European Union, a lot has...

Travelling Blog · 11.07.2026

The Banat is a historical region in southeastern Europe that stretches from the foothills of the Carpathians into the vast Pannonian Plain. After the region was liberated in the early 18th century from over 160 years of Ottoman rule, Vienna launched an unprecedented modernization program. The land was largely depopulated and marshy. Through the so-called "Schwabenzüge" (Swabian migrations), tens of thousands of colonists from the Rhineland, Swabia, Bavaria, and Lorraine flocked to the Danube....