46
SVN Solovelanet Global
I take the lines I have prepared astern and toss them
on the dock.
Two hands grab them and tie them to the bollards
on the pier, thus establishing a first physical contact
between me and this land. I fasten the lazy line forward,
then turn off the engine and greet with a smile the trio
that functions as my personal welcoming committee.
One of them, a policeman, politely requests to come
on board and inspect the boat, and then asks me to
follow him to the office to fulfil the entry procedures.
A large sign, in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets,
reminds us that we are within the European Union,
and I must admit that seeing the familiar blue flag with
the circle of yellow stars makes me feel reassured.
The policeman is polite and very experienced; I hand
him my passport and Piazza Grande's documents and
I sign some papers which, after the sharp snap of a
couple of stamps, are returned to me enriched with
some seals. Everything is done within about twenty
minutes. At the harbour management office, this
process could go even faster, but the manager is fond
of Italian pop music and wants to sing me a couple
of old songs from an edition of the Sanremo Festi-
val from about thirty years ago. Despite the fatigue,
I agree to listen to his atrocious singing – and even
compliment him when he's finished!
I go out and take a walk around the harbour, where I
meet the usual fishermen, a few boaters, some idle
guy hanging around, and a couple out looking for a
sheltered corner in which to share a furtive kiss. The
first face that the Black Sea shows me seems to tell
me that often our fears are only caused by lack of
knowledge or, in the worst cases, by foolish prejudice.
I am now in the right place to go further, to kill some of
the bogeyman which old bedtime stories have instil-
led in our minds.
Here below, the Cathedral of Varna in Bulgaria.
In the centre and at the bottom of the page, two
pictures of Tsarevo, the small harbour where
Luciano performs the first landing on the Black
Sea and clears customs
