"The pinnacle of the World" a Europe Travel Page by Assenczo

Writing about Europe seems to be mission impossible. First of all it is difficult to define Europe. Geographically speaking it is unclear where it ends. It does not have the water boundaries of Africa, Australia or the Americas. The officially accepted line along the Urals and the Caucasian divide in Russia is not very helpful. On the contrary, it makes you wonder why it is there. Maybe there is some racial or cultural aspect to it. This is also quiet blurry proposition and recipe for creation of an enigma.

Then there come the regional divisions. A traveler would be perplexed where exactly is Western Europe and where Eastern Europe. There used to be a line between the two Germanys and down to Trieste but now this is no more – as if somebody’s compass fell in a magnetic anomaly for a while. A new term appeared, Central Europe. It is supposed to include Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Germany and Austria but at the same time the center of Europe is in Lithuania – another mystery, the center is out of the central part. Next in line is Turkey. For some reason is this country has been advertised as part of Europe despite the fact that only tiny fraction of its territory lies west of the Bosphorus.

Figuring out how many countries are present in Europe at this particular moment is next to impossible. There are the English Channel islands being counted as separate countries and at the same time Cyprus has a formidable border between its Turkish and Greek parts but officially it is only one country. Gibraltar is a magic of its own which is also somehow separate from its immediate surroundings and Andorra is an independent country except its heads(?!) of state are located in Paris and Spain without being sent in exile. San Marino is a “tough” state. It is minuscule but it has been around for a long time against all odds; there is no dependency on royal family fertility as in other similarly big entities.