A new website aimed at promoting tourism in Kosovo ("History in the Making") has been set up by the Kosovar Ministry for Trade and Tourism. The virtual offer is still fairly modest (compare with Bosnia-Herzegovina's multimedia spectacle at www.bhtourism.ba), but at least the interested reader can learn about the existence of such architectural styles as the "Byzantine-Kosovarian Style" (from the "Nemanja Period"), the "Romano-Gothic-Kosovarian style", or the "Islam-Kosovarian Style", and that the outside influences of "Helen, Roman, Byzantine, Western and Eastern – Ottoman cultures [...] did not weaken in any way the characteristics and features of the material and spiritual culture of the native (autochthonous) Illyrian – Arbëror – Albanian population. [...] When you experience Kosovo you will discover the multicultural heritage that began with the native Illyrian/Albanian". Sure this is still about tourism?

On the occasion of traveling to Athens for the conference Grecs d'Anatolie et d'Istanbul de 1821 à 1964, taking the train via Thessaloniki, a colleague and I chose to make a brief stopover in northern Greece’s cities of Kavala and Xanthi (Iskece). One motive for visiting the former was to take a glimpse at the restored imaret complex built by Kavala’s most famous native, Mehmet Ali of Egypt, for the purportedly superb revitalization of the building had received some media attention (1), as reported earlier on this weblog. (read the full text by clicking on "more" below)