Long Ago Empires

The world was very different when I was a young man and indeed was even more different when I was a boy. I was just thirteen when the Great War ground to its bloody conclusion and the map of Europe was re written. The once mightyAustro Hungarian empire fragmented into pieces, each a new born nation state- Hungary, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and so forth. At the time the adults around me all seemed to think good riddance but on reflection manyof the sufferings of modern Europe have their origins in the demise of that great empire.

So what has this to do with travel you may ask. Everything dear boy, everything. It is well and good to read books and study historiesbut it is far better to go and have a damn close look yourself. Of course,during the war years this was not terribly practical, though as I may have intimated, I did spend some time in Eastern and Central Europe during that unpleasentness and indeed found much to be admrable in it. Of course, in 1945, Mr Churchill's so called Iron Curtain descended and it was extremelydifficult to go anywhere interesting in the East without being certain your every move was being watched. I didn't even try - too many people in the communist camp would have gained brownie points for terminating my lease on the planet.

But, eventually the hard faced men of Lenin and his ilk were blown away by the economic factors they had thought would destroy the West. The Berlin Wall came down, the new Prague spring arrived, various dictators were deposed or hanged and Central Europe seems to have got back to doing what it does best.

"What might that be"? You ask. First and foremost, being stunningly beautiful on every single level. The landscapes,the architechture, the women. Secondly, the food. Mind, you have to have a certain leaning towards dumplings but the Slavs do things with bread and potatoes that are hardly decent. And thirdly the drink. Good, strong coffee.Necessary for recovery from a bewildering array of lethal spirits. My favourite is Um. This is actually rum, but made with potatoes. And the beer. Well,the Czechs invented lager and while I normally hold English Bitter to bethe finest drink known to man I will make an exception for Czech beer, especiallytheir mix of dark and light which they call rejann.