Thank you Mike for the suggestions. Indeed this is the proper way to initialize the ports. At the moment that was the least of the problems.

The important thing is to read carefully the datasheet and as tumbleweed noted, I was setting UART on wrong ports.

Now that I paid more attention and am really awake(!), it works as it should and all is fine.

The people in this forum are one of a kind. Thank you all.

Ioannis