Napoli

Everything they say is true - Naples is dirty, chaotic, frenetic, and full of dodgy looking men.






If you ask me, they have their priorities just about right...

Gaeta

Think cobbled streets and winding steps.


Think little old italian pensioners arguing over the directions to my b+b.


Think fluffy white towels, coffee and pastries, and this view from my bedroom.


It was very much 'off the beaten track,' in a catriona-rowntree-getaway-special kind of way.

Rome

In Rome, I was a Very Bad Tourist.


I didn't see the Sistine Chapel (in fact, I didn't visit any churches at all).


I didn't admire any artwork (except the political posters).


I spent only a couple of minutes at the Fontana di Trevi.


What can I say, I headed straight for the bar.


But it's ok, I assuaged my guilt with a visit to the pope (that guy on the big screen). It was just like being at a rock concert, but with more nuns.

Budapest

What a stunner.


Can I live here please?


I could get political in a country with a fascinating and frightening communist history...






I could stop ten times a day to marvel at the neverending colour and life...


I could go on another hungarian wine tour (at least, I think that's what this is)...


And I could spend my retirement playing chess in a bathing cap (those thermal baths ROCK).


Yep, I'm beginning to like the sound of it.

Vienna

I saw buildings.


I ate cake.


I saw more buildings.


I ate more cake.


I went to the zoo.


I Had A Wild Time.

Prague

"Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the roads."
André Breton "Lâchez tout!" Les Pas Perdus (1924)


André forgot to mention that you should also see some Czech opera...


... and fight for good photo ops with a million other chino-clad tourists.


This is, didn't you know, one of the most visited cities in the world.

Dresden (or, My Vonnegut Pilgrimage)

Slaughterhouse 5 might be the greatest book I've ever read, inspired by the Allied forces' attack on Dresden at the end of the Second World War.


I wanted to see what the Dresden-ites thought about all this firestorm business.


Says the Dresden City Museum:

At least 25,000 people died in the feursturm of 13-14 February 1945... An outstanding example of European architecture was destroyed. Other cities... were similarly destroyed before the end of the war. The destruction of entire cities had been part of German war strategy since (air raids in) 1937. All the same, the propagandistic Nazi claim that Dresden had been singular, that Dresden had been an innocent city that had been destroyed for no military gain, influenced the historical evaluation of events even decades later.

Says Kurt:

A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed.

I went back there (to Dresden) with an old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare, and we made friends with a cab driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up at night as prisoners of war. His name was Gerhard Müller. He told us that he was a prisoner of the Americans for a while. We asked him how it was to live under Communism, and he said that it was terrible at first, because everybody had to work so hard, and because there wasn't much shelter or food or clothing. But things were much better now. He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes. Slaughterhouse 5 (1969)

(Yes, it's true - I got a little bit carried away).

Berlin

This place is.. like.. so hot right now.


It is hip. Oh yes.


The shopping centres are swish-de-schmick.


The holocaust memorials impress.


And everything you ever needed to know you can read on the berlin wall.