CLIMATE :

 As discussed above, generation of heat is a function  of  gravity, which in turn depends on mass. As long as the mass of the earth is constant, the quantity of geothermal energy produced is also constant. Initially, heat is transferred to the  seas and, thence, to the atmospheric H2O, and  ultimately to the outer  space, when the latent heat is   released on formation of water droplets which form clouds. Simultaneously, heat is being radiated continuosly from the surface of the earth ,both land and sea, as the outer space is considerably cooler  than the earth.

The heat generated by the earth is converted into kinetic energy in a big way, when ocean currents are working round the clock. The volume of water involved in this process  is thousands of times  more than that of  all the rivers of the world.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes  etc. also eat up considerable quantity of geothermal energy. Diffusion of water in the seas takes place continuously because of hot bottom and cool Polar regions. Part of the energy is also used up by cyclones, tornados etc. (the circumstances in which these are caused by hot steam emanating from the seas will be discussed in BUT-Volume III).

If the total quantity of geothermal energy is T, the energy converted into kinetic form is K and heat lost by radiation R,

T – K – R = the net increase or decrease in the warmth of the globe

From the table given below, it is clear that during the last 200 years there has not been any appreciable change in the warmth of the globe.

For a proper study of this subject, a distinction has to be made between the temperature of the earth and the temperature of the atmosphere. The latitude-mean temperature graph fairly represents the temperature of the earth, as the sea surface is not much affected by weather conditions. On the other hand, land stations will be subjected to violent fluctuations in the weather like extreme summers and winters, especially if the stations are much above the sea level.

The land mass contains lakes, surface soil water, water chambers, sub-terrainian water channels etc. which retain considerable quantity of water. Because of the peculiar structure of the H20 molecule, heat is retained in water for a longer period than other materials. This is the reason why summer extends much beyond the date 21^st June in the northern hemisphere. In the absence of water on the earth the peak temperature will end on that day and we may experience pleasant weather by August. Similarly, but for snow and the water layers lying just below the surface of the earth, the winter will start waning right from 21^st December.

In spite of these differences, data in respect of land stations, too, prove my contention that the globe is not warming!

When we look back

“It is an inquiry of some interest, whether the general temperature of the globe is stable, or is gradually undergoing change through diminution or addition. We have no means of deciding this point, because our thermometrical determinations are confined to a comparatively modern date. The instrument was not brought to perfection until the year 1724, by Fahrenheit, and therefore beyond that period we are dependent upon the recorded experience and sensations of observers, and upon the details of agricultural failure or success, for our knowledge of temperature in former times. We are not warranted to infer from these casual notices any changes of physical climate generally within the era of authentic history, though in particular localities, there is strong reason to suppose that an alteration has taken place; but this has been the very reverse of an impressions that once prevailed respecting it. The existence of a colony on the east coast of Greenland cut off from communication with the external world, and destroyed by the gradual accumulation of the ice upon its shores –the fact of immense forests anciently clothing the highest parts of Britain, and other northern countries, where a tree now can scarcely be made to grow –of the period of the vintage formerly commencing several weeks earlier in France than at present-of vineyards having been planted in the south of England during the time that the Romans held possession of the island, where hops can only be raised with difficulty- and of the sides of the Scottish hills bearing evident traces of the plough, which have long been surrendered to the heaths as incapable of cultivation;-these circumstances have been appealed to, as evidence of a milder and more genial climate having once characterized the northern regions of Europe. Sir John Leslie has remarked upon these details, “that a patch of wood will not thrive in cold situations, merely for want of the shelter which is afforded by extensive plantations. In Sweden and Norway, which are mostly covered with natural forests, it has become an object of police to prevent their indiscriminate destruction. The timber in those sylvan countries is cut at stated periods of its growth, and in detached portions; the vacant spaces being left as nurseries, embosomed amidst an expanse of tall trees.  Some places in Sweden, where the forests have been accidentally destroyed by fire, present the image of sterility, and of wide desolation. It is probable, the vines grown in ancient times were coarser and hardier plants than those which are now cultivated. A similar observation extends to all the productions of gardening. A succession of diligent culture softens the character of the vegetable tribes, and renders them more delicate, while it heightens the flavor of their fruits. The Roman soldiers stationed in Britain would naturally prefer wine, their accustomed beverage, however harsh and poor, to the cervisia, or unpalatable ale brewed by the rude arts of the natives. The marks of tillage left on our northern hills evince only the wretched state of agriculture at a remote period. For want of a proper system of rotation, and the due application of manure, the starving tenantry were then tempted to tear up with the plough every virgin spot they could find, and after extracting from it  a pitiful crop or two of oats, to abandon it to a lasting sterility”. With reference to the colony supposed to have been planted on the east coast of Greenland, now an uninhabitable region of glaciers, there is reason to believe that its name, Oestre Bydg, the eastern settlement, simply refers to its position in relation to another settlement, both of which were on the western coast, now occupied by the Danish factories. From the name of Snowland, afterwards supplanted by that of Iceland, given by the roving pirates of the Baltic to that island upon its discovery in the ninth century, it may certainly be concluded that the climate of the north was then analogous to what it is at present.

A different opinion, that the climate of the midland part of the temperate zone, especially in Europe, is less rigorous now than it was sixteen or seventeen centuries ago, appears to be supported by sufficient evidence. After making allowances for inaccuracy and exaggeration in the statements of the classical writers, they will still be found descriptive of a cold in various districts, as a feature of the ordinary temperature, which is not realized at present. The epistles written by Ovid from Pontus, whither he was banished by order of Augustus, describe the rigour of the climate there, in terms which suit the winder of Hudson’s Bay. He mentions, among other instances of the extreme cold, The Euxine Sea being frozen over, so as to bear men and cattle upon it. Tertullian, one of the Christian fathers in the second century, writing in the style of the fierce zealot and florid rhetorician, against the herectic Marcion, thus refers to the same region:- “That tract, which is called the Pontus Euxinus, the hospitable sea, has been refused all favours, and is mocked by its very name. The day is never open, the sun never shines willingly, there is but one atmosphere- fog; the whole year is wintry; every wind that blows comes from the north; liquors are only such before the fire; the rivers are blocked up with ice, the mountains are heaped higher with snow; all things are benumbed, all things are stiff with cold, nothing but cruelty has there the warmth of life; that kind of cruelty, I mean, which has supplied the stage with fables concerning the sacrifices of the Tauri, and the loves of Colchis, and the tortures of Caucasus. But there is nothing so barbarous and miserable in Pontus, as that it has given birth to Maricion; he is more savage than a Scythian, more unstable than the wild inhabitants of a wagon, more inhuman than the Massageta, more audacious than the Amazon, darker than the mist, colder than the winter, more brittle than the ice, more treacherous than the Danube, more precipitous than Caucasus”. Virgil refers to the winter on the banks of the Ister of the Greeks, the modern Danube, in the third Georgic, in a manner which at present is inapplicable to any part of its course:-

“ The sun from far peeps with a sickly face,Too weak, the clouds and mighty fogs to chase,

When up the skies he shoots his rosy head,

Or in the ruddy ocean seeks his bed.

Swift rivers are with sudden ice constrain’d

And studded wheels are on its back sustain’d;

A hostry now for wagons, which before

Tall ships of burden on its bosom bore,

The brazen cauldrons with the frost are flaw’d.

The garment, stiff with ice, at hearths is thaw’d.

With axes first they cleave the wine; and thence

By weight, the solid portions they dispense.

From locks uncomb’d, and from the frozen beard,

Long icicles depend, and crackling sounds are heard.

Meantime perpetual sleet, and driving snow,

Obscure the skies, and hang on heards below.

The starving cattle perish in their stalls;

Huge oxen stand enclos’d in wintry walls

Of snow congeal’d; Whole heards are buried there

Of mighty stags, and scarce their horns appear.

The dexterous huntsman wounds not these afar

With shafts or darts, or makes a distant war

With dogs, or pitches toils to stop their flight,

But close engages in unequal fight;

And, while they strive in vain to make their way

Through hills of snow, and pitifully bray,

Assaults with dint of sword, or pointed spears,

And homeward on his back the joyful burden bears.

The men to subterranean caves retire,

Secure from cold, and crowd the cheerful fire:

With trunks of elms and oaks the hearth they load,

Nor tempt th’ inclemency of heaven abroad.”

The allusions to the climate of Itay in the Georgics, referring to the Augustan age, are in several respects irreconcilable with its present character. The writer speaks of the freezing of the rivers in the southern part of the peninsula as an ordinary occurrence, and gives frequent directions for the protection of sheep and goats from snow and frost, as if addressing a shepherd of the plains of Holstein or the highlands of Scotland. It is a well-attested fact, that the savage inhabitants of Gaul and Germany usually selected the winter-season for their warlike incursions into the Roman provinces, on account of the facility afforded by the ice for the transport of their armies, horses and baggage, across the grate rivers, which have never been frozen in modern times as to admit of such an occurrence. In the time of Ceasar, also, the rein-deer, now confined to the colder regions north of the Baltic, was found, along with the elk and the wild bull, in the Hercynian forest, which then over-shadowed a grate part of Germany and Poland. A volume published at Vienna in 1788, contains some remarkable passages concerning the state of the weather for more than a thousand years back, gathered from the old chronicles, which detail the state of the harvest, the quality of the vintage, or the endurance of frost and snow in the winter. From this work, Sir John Leslie, in an article furnished to one of the public journals, quoted the following record of excessive winters and summers, to which some additions have been made.”

NOTES:

1. All quotations are from the phenomenon known as Rev. Thomas Milner, M.A’s Physical Geography, re-published in Delhi in 1975. I could not find any other details about his life.

      In the next instalment – TEMPERATURE  DATA

Danube Delta, Tulcea, Romania

We started with Vienna early this morning, a beautiful morning, u-bahning it across the Danube and then onto Krems, St Poelten, and finally Linz. G and I are powering forwards yet we do admit we are a little tired, especially mentally.  G is shooting for our new InterKuturelles Zentrum project on Friday in Vienna. He is a fast learner, because he is hungry for it. There are a thousand things running through our minds. I love the way pieces of an unknown puzzle starting sticking together. You never really know when, but when you do see, it’s a real boost that one is on the right path.

November 6-9

There was too little time with the rain and storm, but I still made it to see the major attractions. The trip stirred a lot of emotions – maybe because I visited the House of Terror and happened to hear some sad first-person stories when meeting JN’s brother and staying at the hostel owned by a Korean immigrant. However, I really saw what it’s like to cherish and live in the present despite the suffering in G.

Let’s let the pictures speak:

Pictures: The Great Central Market (1 & 2), Holocaust Memorial by the Danube, Chain Bridge, House of Terror, Castle Hill overlooking the Danube, and Night view of the castle and chain bridge (7 & 8).

I couldn’t possibly post fewer pictures. Isn’t Budapest beautiful? I loved the change from the Western Europe. After traveling to so many cities in Western Europe, they all sort of blend together, but Budapest gives a bit of the Eastern Europe taste. Walking around the Great Central Market was fun – seeing lots of paprika peppers, traditional Hungarian food, wine, and folk style dolls and toys. My DSLR camera got pretty wet the second night because I wanted to take pictures so badly in the rain. The view of the Chain Bridge and the castle around Danube was absolutely gorgeous at night.

Another culturally and historically rich city. The Eastern Europe influence in Budapest made this trip stand out so much in my travels.

I stayed at a cozy hostel that was converted from a regular flat – Peppermint Hostel (highly recommended). It was so clean and homey. At night, everyone just hung out in the living room, watching some movies, enjoying Hungarian wine, and talking. Definitely a nice place to go back to after walking around all day in the rain. I went out with friends from the hostel one night to enjoy some Budapest nightlife. The bars and clubs don’t close until 2 or 3 in the morning.

Another great thing about Budapest is that it’s so much cheaper than all the other places I’ve gone to! My first dinner was about 3 US dollars, and I was stuffed. Hungarian food will come in the next post because I like it that much.

Sheraton will soon add Slovakia to the list of their five-star hotel locations. Sheraton Bratislava will welcome its first guests on February 24, 2010. It will be located right on the bank of river Danube, inside a new development by Ballymore Properties. Sheraton in Bratislava will include 186 rooms and 23 suites, Business Centre with 7 meeting spaces and 800 meter squared spa center with a swimming pool.

Bratislava is the Capital of Slovakia. The Sheraton Bratislava hotel will form part of Euroveaˆ – new development by Irish company Ballymore Properties, which will include premium apartments, office spaces and Central Europe’s most sophisticated retail mall. The hotel will be situated right in front of the new building of Slovak National Theatre.

Book cheap hotels in Bratislava.

John Berwyn reads the inscription on a Cold War memorial in Devin, Slovakia, built to honor thousands who escaped, or died trying to escape from Soviet tyranny in eastern Europe.

With all the recent focus on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s important to remember that the Wall was just the most visible manifestation of the Iron Curtain, a much larger enclosure that kept millions imprisoned in eastern Europe.

I grew up in Germany during the Cold War. My parents met as a direct result of that era’s geopolitical landscape. My dad worked for the American government in Germany and my mom lived in Linz, a city that, at the time, was cut in half by the ideological divide, with the Danube River forming the border between the American and Soviet sectors.

So a few years ago, when my dad suggested that we visit a Cold War memorial site near his hometown in Slovakia, my son and I jumped at the chance to join him and explore the banks of the Danube, near Bratislava. And we weren’t just there to look at a statue. My dad wanted to find the exact spot where made his own escape more than 50 years ago by dodging border guards and swimming across the chilly river.

Dylan takes a break from capturing frogs in a murky pond while my dad looks at the monument near the river’s edge and translates the inscription. The concrete slab is pock-marked with replicated bullet holes. An iron grate is bent up at one corner, symbolizing escape from tyranny. The marker was dedicated here on the former Cold War frontier to memorialize thousands of people who were killed trying to flee Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1989. Countless others never had a chance to escape. They were sentenced to jail or deported to forced labor camps without fair trials for questioning tyrannical Communist doctrine.

My dad was one of the lucky ones. As the three of us wander along the river, he describes how he watched Czech soldiers from his home and timed border patrols along the riverside road. One evening, he snuck down to the water, jumped in and swam to freedom. He left behind family and friends, hopes and dreams. As a defector, he  can’t go back to visit for the next 40 years, not even as a tourist.

Today, however, we are free to roam, so we hike up to the partly restored ruins of Devin Castle, overlooking the scene. Fortified settlements at the site date to the 9th century, and human habitation has been documented back to the Stone Age. Sitting at the confluence of the Danube and Morava rivers, the 600-foot-high point strategically controlled important trade routes. The Cold War isn’t first time this territory was disputed. The great clash between the Ottoman the Austro-Hungarian empires had its western boundary here, and centuries later, Napoleon’s army demolished the stronghold on a sweep through the area after besieging Bratislava.

They clipped my wings’

Flash back to the late 1940s. The Iron Curtain casts a deep shadow across Central Europe. The continent is starkly divided after WWII, the western half flowering with promise, the east mired deeply in a dead-end totalitarian rut. Mass displacement is common. Almost 3 million ethnic Germans are expelled from Czechoslovakia. Moscow-leaning socialist parties make gains at the polls across Eastern Europe.

Czechoslovakia is toying with democratic reforms, but in 1947, Soviet leader Josef Stalin calls the Czech prime minister to Moscow. A short time later, the 12 noncommunist ministers in the government hand in their resignations, while the Communist-controlled interior ministry deploys troops, police, and organizes a worker militia. The prime minister accepts the resignations and installs a new cabinet, hand-picked by the Communist party — freedom lost.

Meanwhile, my dad pursues his dream of flying. He gains admission to the Czech Air Force Academy. But he’s never been willing to follow dogma, so he freely talks politics with his friends. Suddenly, one of them disappears, shipped off to work in an underground uranium mine. My dad realizes that he’s already been branded as politically unreliable, suspecting that he might defect by plane. He tells us that’s exactly what he had in mind.

“They clipped my wings. They were never going to let me fly,” my dad says as we walk down a narrow path to the river. Swatting away mosquitoes, we look for the exact spot where he took the plunge so many years ago. The river has shifted, just like the political tides, so it’s hard to tell for sure. As we scour the shoreline for landmarks, he tells us about a boyhood lived as fierce battles raged in the region.

He downplays the story of his escape and jokes about his arrival at a refugee camp near Vienna with nothing but his brains and the clothes on his back. Later, as we zoom comfortably along the highway, a guard casually waves us through that very same border.

My dad visited Berlin in 1990 and chiseled off a few pieces of the Wall to memorialize his own personal Cold War history.

”You can bomb the world to pieces’

I’m optimistic that, in some small way, my dad’s stories have an impact on Dylan, a child of privilege in 21st Century America. We all need to learn from the past, and our stay in Linz, my mom’s hometown, is part of the process. She also shares stories of growing up in a divided world.

Linz straddles the Danube, halfway between Vienna and Salzburg. Here too, the river marked the great ideological divide of the late 20th Century. On one side was the Russian zone, on the other, the American sector. A bridge in the heart of the city was an Austrian version of Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie, where commuting to work and school involved a daily encounter with armed soldiers.

In many ways, mom’s childhood mirrors my dad’s. Her stories come to life as we wander cobblestone alleys where she played as a child, and hike up to the summit of a local hill were her family ran outdoor restaurant.

She tells Dylan how her older brother, Karl, was forcibly drafted as a teen when Nazi soldiers went door to door, looking for cannon fodder — any male old enough to carry a gun on the Russian Front. She never saw him again. Bombers sought to destroy a strategic bridge and industrial facilities within miles of her home. Once, when the air-raid sirens howled while she was sick, her family and neighbors carried her, mattress and all, to the musty and dark basement shelter.

Dylan listens to the stories closely and asks me serious questions. I try to keep it simple,making it clear that we must protect and cherish treasures like peace and prosperity, that we can’t take them for granted. That war, with all its horrible suffering, should always be a last resort.

Michael Franti provides the soundtrack for our trip, and both of us sing along:  “You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb it into peace.”

Today, on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I asked my dad to reflect on the events. Here’s what he had to say:

“At that time, 20 years ago, it was the healing of a wound caused by a deep cut into the body of Europe. That cut was one of the consequences of various peoples’ permanent struggle to dominate each other, cynically called ‘inevitable’. I think there are many other less visible wounds that might be healing, while we are already creating new ones on other fronts.

Realistically, the Wall was a tangible proof that the philosophy that produced it is not viable. We know it and we are smarter, now, we think. We, the humanity, are now creating invisible walls, based ostentatiously on economic needs but having the same objectives: to be stronger militarily, culturally and politically in order to achieve hegemony  of one group over the other. The Chinese are now extremely active on this front, particularly in Africa.

As you might recall, I went to Berlin in June 1990 and chiseled off a few chunks of the Wall to be sure that I have the real thing for a souvenir. By that time our beloved Capitalism had shown its first achievement and peddlers were selling fake chunks of concrete as tourist souvenirs to naive buyers. I still have some of it. I gave each of you boys a chunk, back then.

For me personally, the Fall of the Wall meant that I could again travel to my old country and see my mother. It was a half of century after my personal opening of the Iron Curtain, bringing me to the West.”

Intricate churches, delectable cakes, cute boutiques, magnificent gardens and luscious hillsides are just a taste of what I encountered on my fall break. Leaving Strasbourg behind, my friends and I made our way to Budapest, ready to experience what a true Eastern European city had to offer.

Immediately, I felt like I was thrown into a completely different environment, where the subway looked like something out of a movie and the complexity of the language was way over my head.  The city is divided in two, Buda and Pest, by the Danube River. Several bridges cross the city making it the norm to simply walk across.  At night, the view from the river edge, is amazing, buildings, churches and the Parliament building (the largest building in Hungary) are lit with the Hungarian colors of red, white and green.

On the Buda side of the river, my friends and I hiked up to the top of Castle Point, where we saw a spectular view of the entire city.  We also enjoyed a nice funicular ride up to the Buda Castle where we ventured through the Hungarian National Gallery and stared in awe at the elaborate gate to the castle.   A nice boat ride down the Danube gave us a great view from the river of all types of Hungarian architecture, as well as a look at the landscape of each side.  We stopped at Margaret Island, in the center, a 2.5 kilomoter island, where we enjoyed a nice little tour by a local.  The food in Budapest was also something to dive into.  A collection of goulash, Hungarian dumplings and stuffed dumplings will satisfy any traveler who is willing to take a bite.  Cheap food and necessitites are definitely an attractive quality of Eastern Europe, I must say.

Next stop, Vienna, where we began touring all of the palaces the city has to offer–The Hapsburg, the Belvedere and the Schonbrunn.  Clearly the architects of these buildings, back in the 1400s, were anything but modest with their designs.  Every palace is huge, with hundred of rooms and intricately decorated everything, from wallpaper to tablecloths to forks.  Even more, two of these palaces were only “summer homes” of the emperor and empress.  Of course, these two summer palaces are adorned with expansive, perfectly kept gardens that are spread out over acres of land.  Just taking a walk through the gardens, especially with the fall colors around us, was an enjoyable afternoon activity.

We stopped by one of Vienna’s well known outdoor markets, where I felt right back at home in New York, with vendors haggling you to try there food and give you the best offer.  Rows and rows of dried fruit, candy, falafel stands and local Viennese specialties lined the market.  Everything looked worth buying, however, my friends and I took the option of accepting constant free offers from the friendly Austrian locals.  Just walking through the Vienna streets is something to do.

I still cannot believe the beauty of that city. Although much of the central old city is covered with small, expensive  shops, the overall feel of the city does not come across that way.  Every large city has its touch of designer this and that, but there was clearly so much more here to offer.  Historic statues are scattered throughout and one cannot forget the huge café culture that has such a large presence in Vienna.  We stopped in for a delicious cake and hot chocolate at Café Demel, built in 1786, where Empress Sissi used to come and enjoy her violet sorbet.  People in Vienna sit for hours enjoying their coffee and cake time.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

Budapest as a capital exceeded all my expectations.  I was lucky to celebrate my birthday here today:

• Excellent  Hungarian food on the Danube

• With an Excellent View of Budapest Castle

• And Excellent company and Entertainment

October. Crisp breezes are already beginning to sting your cheeks here, and the burden of keeping a warm nose has begun to cross your mind. Wool clothingstuff, of course your hats, gloves, scarves, etc., have all been pulled out, restocked, and rearranged on your shelves.

Without a doubt (as life works like this), but fortunately, our so-called “Indian summer” made a comeback this weekend.

No, we didn’t go swimming. We did manage to take long walk though, practically basking in the sun over the course of several hours next to the Danube River. Here are a few shots from the adventure.

The water’s reflection.

The colors of mid-autumn are beginning to take hold. Dying leaves shriveling in the mud makes for the pungent, fertilizing odor that is so familiar this time of the year.

Here, the sun bursting through the leaves of the old birch trees.

Bill Furman is the Branch Manager of our Shore Mall location in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. He is an avid, experienced traveler and recently took a trip to Budapest and Vienna.

I highly recommend Budapest to anyone interested in going to an Eastern European destination. This city is amazing, divided by the Danube River. Buda, the western part of Budapest, has some of the most wonderful castles, palaces, cathedrals and statues. The Pest side is now mostly residential and commercial buildings. You are in for a real adventure in either of these destinations.

Most riverboat cruises makes stops in the area. You will dock on either side and have magnificent views of the Royal Palace, Parliament, St Matthias Church, the Fisherman’s Bastion or the Citadel. Cruising under the famous Chain Bridge, which was built 160 yrs ago to connect the two sides, you will see really interesting sites.

The Gellért Hotel is famous for its thermal baths built in 1918. Margaret Island houses wonderful parks and beaches and further up river there’s the quaint town of Szentendre. This small town is filled with artists and local tradesman and houses seven churches, all of different faiths. The oldest church dates back to 11th Century. This fairy tale town along the Danube is a must-see for all visitors and can be reached by several different methods of public transportation in only 30 minutes.

Lake Balaton, to the west of Budapest, is the largest lake in central Europe. Nicknamed the “Hungarian Sea”, it is home to some of the world’s finest thermal baths and mud spas. The healing powers of these places are known around the world. One famous for this is the Heviz Spa, where you can purchase a 1-day pass and enjoy the spa and healing waters. On the western shores is the town of Keszthely. This town dates back to 1247 and Roman times. Here, you will find the Festetics Palace built in 1745. Handcrafters show off their many wares and, most notably, hand-stitched tablecloths, napkins and other items.

Traditional Hungarian dishes are cooked from scratch, using a wide variety of fresh, unpreserved, high-quality ingredients, including meats, seasoned vegetables, fruits, fresh bread, cheeses and honey. Recipes are based on centuries-old traditions around spicing and preparation methods.  Paprika is commonly used everywhere and can either be hot and spicy or sweet and mild.  Hungarian winemakers are mostly famous for a dessert wine called Tokaj. This sweet, white wine is offered with desserts – if you make it that far. Palinka, another local drink, is a fruit brandy that is strong and interesting. This brandy is usually made from plums, pears or apricots, but it can also be made from apples. Produced in both Hungary and Transylvania, it’s a hit with locals and tourists.

My recommendations for things to see and do in Budapest are to visit the Parliament, Buda Castle, Royal Palace, the Fisherman’s Bastion, Gellért Hill and Hotel, St. Matthias Church, Heroes’ Square, St. Stephen’s Basilica, Váci Street, Central Market Hall, the Opera House and the Szechenyi Bath in the City Park.

Strolling along the Danube at night along the Promenade is safe and there are plenty of cafés and restaurants where you will also find your ship docked if you are taking a river cruise.

Vienna, a two and a half hour drive from Budapest, also delivers fantastic sites. With its famous Opera House, Parliament and the Gothic St Stephens cathedral it is an exciting and vibrant city.  It’s a city rich with history and culture as well. A trip to Vienna would not be complete without a stop at the famous Hotel Sacher. Sit at a Viennese Cafe and try their famous Sachertorte, a dry chocolate cake with apricot jam or Apfelstrudel, served hot with fresh whip cream. The other famous dish is, of course, the Wiener Schnitzel. The best place for this dish is FiglMüllers, now into its fourth generation of owners and by far the best in the world. Hint: if the main restaurant is booked you can ask for the newer second location that way added recently, which is just around the corner. A short trip outside the main city of Vienna is the Schönbrunn Palace. Built in the Middle Ages, it now is listed as a world heritage site. Magnificent views, structures and gardens are everywhere here. There are tours that can be taken, but expect to spend a few hours to tour the entire palace.

Overall, Eastern Europe offers so much to the traveler: history, sightseeing, cuisine, theater and so much more.  If you have an opportunity to go, I highly recommend it.

Bill Furman
Branch Manager, Boscov’s Travel
Shore Mall
6725 Black Horse Pike
Egg Harbor Township, NJ
Phone: (609) 383-1880
bostravshoremall@boscovs.com

Today I wish I was in Vienna. Vienna? Really? I didn’t even like Vienna!!

There is something about that city though, that made an imprint in my memory. I can’t get rid of the feeling. I didn’t even like Vienna.

Whenever I listen to Mahler Symphony number 5 I feel like I’m there again. Maybe because I had listened to that piece while I was there? I can’t recall, but i can recall that this piece, to me, defines the feeling of Vienna.

I was there only one day. I woke up very early in the morning to get as much out of Vienna as I could on a one day visit. The sun made its appearance over the Danube, but quickly retreated behind rain clouds for the remainder of the day. Vienna was still asleep when I woke up, I was alone with the dissipating fog moving along the cobbled streets. I, of course, immediately found a cozy  cafe and situated myself in a wicker chair under the awning. Narrow streets always grabbed my attention in Europe, probably because I knew I could escape tourists with great success. This cafe happened to be at the end of a narrow street that I followed.The street ended with a half circle stone wall creating a very small cul-de-sac. In front of the stone wall were trees providing the tiny platz a very warm feeling along with music provided by the inhabitants of the trees. I was so excited when I saw ‘kaffee’ on the window… yes I know, I was easily amused. You would be too if you were traveling alone for three months.

By noon the city center was bustling. Quartets playing on one end of Stephens Platz and a marionette dancing to Stevie Wonder  on the other. Stephens Platz is one major reason for my contempt  for Vienna. Just as Mahler’s 5th Symphony has its ups and downs through the piece, so does Vienna. Stephens Platz was a major low. Stephansdom is a huge beautiful Gothic cathedral in the center of the platz. It didn’t feel like a Gothic Cathedral at all. It felt like a disgusting tourist trap. There were blue lights drawing attention to the “important” parts of the interior. Ugly and cheesy. I left immediately.

Vienna was the beginning of my disdain for tourists. I wrote a blog on my extreme hatred toward them while I was in Florence. It’s the same story. A beautiful, culturally rich and historically important city is ruined by tourists.

When the rain started I figured I’d better give in to the inevitability of becoming a tourist in a foreign city… The rain suited the excursion perfectly. I went to all of the very tourist locations, the Hofburg Palace, Karlskirche, the Opera House…

By the end of the day I went about my wondering and lost the tourists. The day ended like Mahler’s Symphony 5… The street lamps were slowly lit emanating a tranquil glimmer on the buildings. The wet streets had deep shadows behind each cobble stone making a very dramatic setting. I bought myself a chocolate gelato and wandered back to my hostel. As the evening ended, I sat in my room and read my book with the sound of a woman singing with a piano streaming in through the window.

I’ve forgotten about the more intimate moments with Vienna. I guess I did like Vienna after all.

So like a lot of people who live in a big city, I don’t care for the tourists.

But unlike a certain new tour company:

I don’t want them dead!

Yes, that’s a bus.  And yes, it’s in the Danube.  The tour company is advertising this feature of the tour as the first of it’s kind in Europe.  I can think of a few reasons why no one else has done it yet.

New image in the rivers photography contest

Budapest …
Danube river photography picture

Martin Eyerer

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Wighnomy Brothers

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Martin Klein

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Two Dollars

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Witchoo

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Adrian Flux

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Andy Catana

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Betti Boo

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caTekk

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D-Tex & Thomas Nordwest

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I’ve been here 7 years now, and I love it.

But I’ve never sat down to think clearly about why. We had friends (Wendy and Roy) here from Bristol, in England, for the weekend and I decided I’d take the opportunity of talking about the city (and country) to listen to myself, and them, and to make some notes about what I heard. I did that, and this musing is the result of my reflections on my reflections.

Belgrade isn’t Prague – you don’t come here for history and architecture (although you do). Beautiful baroque and gothic buildings, and the history they evoke, is not the focus of a visit to Belgrade.

Belgrade isn’t Dubrovnik. It isn’t this stupendously beautiful walled city jutting out into the Adriatic, wanting to be looked at – and deserving the look.

Belgrade isn’t Florence. There is no David here, and no Medici Palace of great stature hiding on a modern thoroughfare.

Belgrade is Belgrade, and what attracts is what it is now. Today. History ripples through Serbia and the Balkans – long history, hard history – and indeed one strong component of interest here is Belgrade’s (and the Balkan’s) place as the bridge between ‘East’ and ‘West’. But I would argue that this is not the real reason to visit. Or maybe better to say not the main reason.

I have written elsewhere about this ‘bridge’ – about the historical role of the Balkans as a link between East and West. Given the role in Belgrade life played by Ušće (the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers), in the very heart of the city, maybe confluence is an appropriate image for Belgrade. Certainly here East and West come together. Here you find Orthodox religion in a Europe-focused population. Here you find equal quantities of influence from ‘turbo-folk’ music and a society that loves the rock and pop stars of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, flocking in huge numbers to indoor and outdoor venues. Here you find a homogenous society (as I’ve said, ‘Serbs look like, well, Serbs’) that greets the very few black faces found on its streets with a strikingly cosmopolitan indifference.

Here you find an older generation born, raised and matured in Tito socialism; an angry and disappointed generation who lost their best years to sanctions and war as the Milošević era reached its ugly end (a generation that lost many of its best and brightest to the diaspora, people now providing great service to Canada, the US, Sweden and many, many other nations); and a young generation born and being raised with no memory of war and the promise of a European future.

Each of these groups looks in different directions for hope, direction and inspiration – and all mix here, at the confluence of East and West. Here, ideas, styles, music, religion and thought mix, mingle, swirl and churn, and in the end all flow together. Like the Danube itself, this big, fast, dangerous, European flow is making its way along its destined route, adding to the richness of the region. And make no mistake, the Balkans is a culturally rich and enriching place.

I talked to Roy and Wendy about why I like it here, and said something about the energy of the place. Later Roy said: ‘I thought Jim was just rubbishing because he lives here, but there really is an energy.’ That energy is difficult to define though. That was my problem when describing it to Roy – I pretty much fell in love with Belgrade straight away (and long before I even met my wife), but are there concrete reasons for this? I’m struggling to come up with any. Roy again: ‘I have a feeling this is one of those cities that will just blossom into a place people will come to, and will want to come to, in the next few years. You visit some places and you just don’t feel like they are going anywhere. That isn’t what I feel here.’ I know what he means exactly. Cannot put my finger on it, yet know exactly what he means.

Maybe it is Beogradjani (the people of Belgrade) themselves. They are curious and outgoing, funny (hilarious actually) yet angry and hard, European in outlook with a well-read, well-studied and well-argued appreciation of themselves and the world around them. They can also be dismissive, and are never afraid of a difficult conversation. I’m not sure if this is a by-product of the past 18 years of sanctions, war and ostracism, or comes from the previous 1500 years of invasion and re-establishment – but without rancour Beogradjani will always question your thinking and your ideas.

They are a beautiful people – at least the women. I remember reading in the JAT (Serbia’s international airline) magazine that ‘the real religion in Belgrade is “looking good”’ and knowing just how true the statement is. There are few greater pleasures in life than strolling the walking street on a warm spring day, as the population comes out to enjoy the warmth of the sun on bare skin after months of winter hiding. I have an English colleague (now in Afghanistan) who got sore eye sockets and a stiff neck each spring as he tried to keep up with the passing crowd. My second son told me on his first visit here, ‘Dad, I thought at the nightclub last night I had seen the most beautiful woman in the world, until I saw that woman at the table next to us.’

Belgrade is a city of two million, in a relatively small area geographically, as the vast majority of the population lives in a flat, in a building of 6 to 8 stories. There are many places to go in Belgrade to watch Beogradjani doing what they do. One enjoyable place, where you can watch people who want to be watched, is Strahinjića Bana, known affectionately as Silicon Valley, not for integrated circuits but for augmented breasts. Spring and summer evenings provide a rollicking good time as you stroll the street looking at the double-parked Mercedes, Audis, Hummers etc all strategically placed to ensure you cannot miss them, while their owners enjoy a coffee or beer while showing off their new outfit or new lips. My aforementioned English colleague had some very difficult evenings there!

Ada Ciganlija is another fabulous place in Belgrade to enjoy life and to enjoy Beogradjani enjoying themselves. Ada Ciganlija is an island, in the middle of the Sava River, which has been joined to the eastern river bank by large causeways creating Ada lake. The walking track around the lake is 8 kilometres long, with a recently completed bicycle track that runs outside the walking track. The whole of the lake shore has been developed into a place for sunbathing and swimming, while between the walking and bicycle paths, in the shade of the hundreds of trees, you will find cafes and restaurants of all descriptions. Ada is Belgrade’s playground, and on hot summer days tens of thousands of Beogradjani can be found there, socialising, keeping fit, keeping cool, keeping out of the house or showing off their new bikinis. You can golf, you can play beach volleyball, you can play tennis, you can water ski at the clever water ski area where no boat is required – you are towed around a long course. Any Sunday afternoon in July and August there will be lines of cars waiting to get into the parking lots, and if you are a ‘serious’ cyclist simply don’t go there – the bike path is for social cycling, and, because this is Belgrade after all, pedestrians can be expected there even though they are not allowed.

All along the banks of the Sava, and parts of the Danube, are walking paths (generally shared with bikes). Gentle walks along the river, chatting about sve i svašta (anything and everything) is a very relaxing Beogradjani way to spend a couple of hours. We like to finish our walk at one of the hundreds of splavs (river boats) tied up along the bank. We have a coffee or a beer, and sometimes a meal, either of fresh river fish or a traditional Serbian roštilj (grill). Serbs love meat – beef, pork or lamb – and prepare it in a wide range of traditional restaurant dishes. The salads that go with it can be unbelievable, particularly when they comprise fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and some lovely domestic cheese.

The splavs are a focus of Belgrade night life as well.

A fourth lovely place to enjoy Belgrade and Beogradjani, particularly on a sunny summer weekend afternoon is Košutnijak – the forest on the hill above the hippodrome. There is a 4 kilometre long loop road through the forest, along which there are plenty of places for a picnic or a barbecue. There are a couple of nice restaurants, including Aleksandar Klub, where we sit (day or night) and enjoy a wonderful view of the city from the hillside vantage point. My wife and I had our first date there, and it is always nice to go back.

The walking street (Knez Mihajlova) rocks, but not with anything special – just life. I guess that is what I like best about it – it is nothing special, but has such a good feeling. Day and night, summer and winter, Beogradjani young and old can be found strolling up and down the walking street. It is a special part of Belgrade. It extends from the entrance to Kalemegdan fortress to Terazije, although this ‘walking precinct’ really encompasses the fortress park and surrounds (looking down on the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers) all the way to the Hram (Belgrade’s Serbian Orthodox Temple) which is found some two kilometres from Kalemegdan along the walking street and Kralja Milana, on a hill at the east end of Belgrade’s centre. Mostly notable for the people strolling along it, the walking street is full also of upmarket retail shops (one shoe store where the cheapest pair of shoes is about $500 Australian), cafes, news stands, ice cream kiosks, buskers, artists and illegal vendors of ties, umbrellas and pirate DVDs. Ice cream is a well-loved treat, and generally of excellent quality. Coffee is a Belgrade speciality – if you struggle to get a decent cup in London or New York, come here and ask for a dupli espresso sa mlekom i djus. This traditional Belgrade taste treat will renew your faith in coffee, while creating an interest in the Belgrade tradition of coffee with orange juice, sparkling water or a cola – I use to think it was crazy, but I always have my espresso with a coke now.

Irena says Belgrade is male. Hard. Tough. But she also says it can be gentle, and uses a Serbian expression to describe how this male Belgrade will, if you are open to it and accept it, care for you much more strongly in return: Čuva te kao malo vode na dlanu, meaning ‘it will hold you in the palm of its hand like a drop of water’. I worked with an Australian woman here once who looked down on the country and its people. And they replied in kind – I remember she was nicknamed gazda, as in landlord, but in a demeaning way. She never got it, and it replied in kind.

And it is very foreigner friendly, notwithstanding the recent, tragic events. I would describe the city as one of the safest I have ever visited or lived in. I have never, in any section of the town, felt in danger or threatened, and I have walked throughout popular and quiet neighbourhoods and gathering places. It is English language friendly as well, ranking with Sweden and the Netherlands in my own experience as places with high levels of English-as-a-second-language capacity. I still remember the day I was ordering a hamburger from an elderly woman in a small kiosk in Banovo Brdo. I was struggling with the finer details when she simply asked in English ‘would you like mustard and/ or mayonnaise?’ A typical experience.

There are a number of sites with interesting, useful information on the city and country. Try:

http://www.ambassador-serbia.com/

http://www.beograd.rs/cms/view.php?id=220

http://www.belgradeeye.com/

ttp://www.belgradenet.com/

I love this place. It is dynamic, fun, crazy sometimes, open, future-oriented with a clear grounding in the past and, to my way of thinking, going places. Not everyone agrees with me, including most Serbs. It is my city now. Home.

On Hungarian territory and Romanian territory (in the area of Oradea) there are, after Island, the greatest reserves of thermal springs in the world, the healing waters of the hundred of springs are unique in Europe and they contribute every year to regain the health for many thousands of people. The water of some thermal springs is potable and it helps to heal various renal diseases, digestive system and metabolic diseases. Anywhere there is drilling is gushing out springs of thermal water with temperatures between 30ºC and 70ºC or springs with curative waters rich in salts and mineral substances.

From the 1300 fountains with thermal water recorded for now in Hungary 270 of them are used as baths and the number of springs with curative effects is 139. Over that water fields there have been building thermal baths, hydros, swimming pools and hotels that are offering various services. There is almost no town that does not have thermal bath.

In Hungary the culture of baths have important traditions. Good conditions, the professionalism and the accumulated experiences, as well the traditional hospitality of the Hungarians assure a various range of offers.

When the border of Roman Empire was laying along the Danube, on the current territory of Hungary was lying the Panonia province, and its capital, Aquincum (aqua means water in Latin language) was located in the place where today is Buda (one of the two cities that, when they developed well enough the formed one: Budapest). Until now the archeologist discovered in Hungarian capital 21 baths dating the Roman times. The pipe system, as well the baths with mosaic ornaments found in the villas of wealthy Romans evoke the local traditions of balneary culture over 2 millennium old.

In the XVIth century Hungary was occupied by the Turks. It is possible that the thermal springs to have the decisive role in this 150 years occupation. From the architectural monuments of that time there are distinguished the baths that are functioning now, for example the baths „Rác” and „Rudas” from Budapest, or the ones from Eger, city located in the north of Hungary. These baths were built at the beginning of the XVIth century. Usually the bath „Rudas” can be visited from men and women but in different days.

Eger, so called the city of thermal baths, of students and of wine, is considered to be one of the most beautiful baroque cities of Hungary. It is an millennial episcopal residence and it can preen on an rich historical past and valuable historical monuments, one of them is the northernmost minaret in Europe. Eger is as well the country of passional wines: in the centuries old cellar from the “Beautiful Lady”valley can be tasted the well-known wine called Egri bikaver (Bull blood). The swimming pool with curative water, open all year, recommended for the diseases of locomotor organs have seven pools where the water is recommended for healing the rheumatic diseases. A special view is offered by the spring with thermal water from the border of nearby town, in Egerszalok.

Hajduszoboszló is the most known resort for treatment and amusement in the est of Hungary, it is considered as the “Mecca of rheumatics”. The town is at the margins of the well known Hungarian steppe Hortobágy, 220 km away from Budapest and 20 km away of Debrecen and it is known because of the thermal water discovered by dr. Pávai Vajna Ferenc as his researches. 75 years ago started the treatments with the mineral thermal water that is gushing out from 1100 meters depth. A 2-3 weeks cure have a rate of healing of 90% for the chronic motor, gynecological and skin diseases. The salty iodate steams that are rises from a surface of 10.000 m² creates the specific micro-climate of these baths. Because of the therapeutic effects of the thermal water the resort is well know in the world. Last years it have been done great modernizing the balneary resort with the purpose of rising to the European level and creating a tradition for generations in the field of balneary tourism. The 25 hectares swimming pool, the lake for boating, also the recently fit up Aqua-Park creates a special destination for the sick people that are searching the healing as well for the people that are searching to have fun.

Miskolc-Tapolca is a balneary and climatic resort located in the suburbs of the city Miskolc, only 6 km away of it, in the north west of Hungary. The slightly radioactive thermal waters are well known from medieval times because the curative miraculous influences in the treatment of heart and nervous system problems, high blood pressure and digestive disorder. Miskolc Tapolca is a place for nature lovers. The treasure of this region is the cave with thermal water Tavas, transformed later in Barlangfurdo. The water have eroded there galleries in the rock during millenium, it is a place unique in Europe where you can swim in the thermal water that is gushing out directly from the rock, you can take advantages from the water massages under the waterfall, you can admire the deposits of calcite with elements of thermal water vividly.

Over 100 springs discovered until now in Hungary are in Budapest, these feed almost 50 baths. The one thousand years anniversary from the foundation was celebrated with the building of some monumental structures, in that period were constructed the most beautiful bath of Budapest – „Széchenyi” and „Gellért” (the end of XIXth century and the beginning of the XXth century).

Budapest is the only metropolis and capital in the world where there are active more the 100 thermal springs and fountains with a daily flow of about 70 million liters of water. The number of the thermal baths from the city fed with thermal water from natural springs or fountains are close to fifty, one of them is a Turkish bath preserved in the original state, but also swimming pools or elegant bubble baths. The hospitals and the luxury balneary hotels also benefit from the thermal springs.

The ruins of Roman cities, the military camps, the baths and the water pipes from the time of the Empire can be seen even today in Budapest. In the Aquincum Museum, among the ruins and the vestiges of the old city can be also admired a portable hydraulic organ built in 1228.

The unique location of Budapest, the panorama of the Danube and the Andrássy Avenue are on the list of the UNESCO World Patrimony. In this town it happens something all the time – the festivals, the cultural programs and the events are following very fast.

Article posted here: http://www.imobiliareungaria.ro/blog/2009/10/08/thermal-springs-in-hungary/

Ensemble Travel Group and Ambassador Travel bring  you “Majestic Treasures”

June 17 – 27, 2010 – Majestic Treasures along the Enchanting Danube

For those who long to explore Old World Europe and its diverse cultures, architecture, fine food and wine, and music – Majestic Treasures along the enchanting Danube – is an Ensemble Inspired Journey custom designed for you.

on location with ANDREA GOCZO MAGYAR – - lifelong Budapest resident and expert on Hungarian history. Andrea will host a series of exclusive pre-cruise events that will reveal the breadth of Budo and Pest- and how they became a single sparkling metropolis across the Danube.

Inspired Highlights before you sail: -Two nights pre-cruise at the five-star Kempinski Hotel Corvinus Corvinus “>-Complimentary spa service at Kempinski Hotel Corvinus -Private tours of Hapsburg treasures, medieval castles & Communist era – sites–Dinner at the famous Gundel Restaurant   – private Cooking lesson with a taste of authentic Hungarian goulash-Brilliant display of  horsemanship at the Lazar Equestrian Park

Inspired Highlights during your cruise -Seven nights aboard the brand new River Beatrice in a river view stateroom-All meals & entertainment – complimentary wine, beer, and soft drinks served during dinner – private cocktail party & dinner al fresco – six excursions ashore with expert guides – Ensemble Experience concert in Vienna

Call us for details on this unique custom event (302) 629 9604

Photographed by benkamorvan

dans le bar du village

– License

It was a pleasant morning with a bluish sort of sky with those high white clouds that give a mottled marbling effect to the heavens and after ham and eggs we left the hotel and walked once again to the castle at the top of the hill overlooking the Danube.   The castle is one of the most prominent structures in the city and stands on a plateau eighty-five metres above the river.  There has been a castle on this site for hundreds of years, the Romans had a fort here and after them there was a large Slavic fortified settlement. A stone castle was constructed in the 10th century, when the area was part of the Kingdom of Hungary and subsequently it was converted into a Gothic fortress under Sigismund of Luxemburg in 1430, became a Renaissance castle in 1562, and was rebuilt in 1649 in the baroque style.  Under Queen Maria Theresa, the castle became a prestigious royal seat.  After her the castle was neglected and became a barracks and in 1811 was inadvertently destroyed by fire and lay in ruins until the 1950s, when it was rebuilt mostly in its former Theresan style but with a communist interpretation.

I have to say that the rebuilding was not the best job I have ever seen and in truth the place was slightly austere and disappointing, but undeterred by this we went in to look around nevertheless. We paid the very reasonable entrance fee and followed the signs taking us to the exhibits.  There weren’t many visitors and in the first room a museum attendant seemed pleased to see us and despite his limited grasp of the English language he made an excellent job of proudly explaining the exhibits to us in a staccato form of English that kept lapsing into impenetrable Slovak.  This was hard work for all of us and when he finished we thanked him with some relief for the attention that he gave to us and we moved on.  If the castle was disappointing then it has to be said that the museum wasn’t very thrilling either.  There just weren’t a lot of exhibits and I suppose that anything that might have been interesting had probably been carted off elsewhere to cities like Vienna, Budapest and Prague over the last two hundred years or so.  And they were very big rooms and impossible to fill with the meagre number of artefacts that were available to put on show.

It was uncomfortably hot inside the museum and during the restoration they had clearly fitted an efficient heating system with big iron radiators that were belching out far more heat than the building required and I am certain was doing irreparable harm to the tapestries and the furniture that was on show.  In one room the attendant could sense our discomfort and opened the windows for us to get some fresh air, this was welcome relief and it also gave us some good views over the city below.  As we walked through the rooms we kept climbing towards the top of the castle until eventually we were in one of the towers and there was steep staircase ahead that would take us to the very top.  About half way up Micky had a premonition that this might not be very exciting either, so he stayed and waited for the rest of us to complete the climb and report back to him later.  How accurately prophetic he was and we were forced to agree that he had made the right decision as we descended back down from the disappointing tower lookout platform and walked through the castle grounds and back into the city.

After a quick refreshment break at a pavement café we walked around ponderously so that we didn’t run out of things to do and looked in the shops and restaurant windows.  We had enjoyed the cakes in Vienna yesterday and decided that we might reprise the experience in Bratislava today so we looked next for somewhere suitable to stop.  We passed a number of cake shops that were inexplicably dismissed one by one by the girls and then came across an excellent coffee shop with an exceptional choice of cakes.  We surveyed the display counters and pondered our individual choice and just at the point of ordering the girls had gone and Micky and I were left wondering just what could possibly be wrong with this place?  Well nothing as it turned out and after we had explained our surprise at the rejection of the establishment we returned to enjoy a cake and a drink. 

Along with navigation and shoe shopping, restaurant selection is one of the mysteries of the female mind and for Micky this brought to mind the story of the man who found an old lamp at the back of his shed and when he polished it he released a very grateful Genie.

“Thank you” said the Genie “I have been in that lamp for a thousand years, I will grant you one wish for anything that you might want”

The man thought for a moment and said that he would like to visit his brother in Australia but he was frightened of flying and sailing made him ill so could he have a bridge to Sydney so that he could drive across.

The Genie said, “Your request is almost impossible. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking. The supports required to reach the bottom of the oceans, the concrete and steel it would take, the dangers to shipping that it would represent.  Please think of something else!”

The man thought about it for a long time and finally he said, “OK, I wish that I could understand women. I want to know how they feel inside, what they are thinking, why they cry, what they mean when they go quiet, and how I can make a woman truly happy”

The Genie thought for a moment and said, “Have you given any thought to what sort of lights you would like on the bridge?”

Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon, ca. 1972

William Safire, 1929-2009

   Of course, that was before Agnew muttered — far less belligerently — another (Latin) phrase, nolo contendre while on trial for bribe-taking, after which he preceded his boss in slinking ignominiously out of office — the only time in American history that a president and his veep have both had to resign in disgrace.

   And speaking of language and history … I’d like to know when (and why!) people began (mis)spelling the word “honey” as if they were referring to a follower of Attila the Hun (A.D. 406-453).

   It has been explained to me that such now-common spellings as “u” (versus “you”), “ur” (versus “you’re”), and “2” (versus “too”) are a result of the pervasiveness of texting as a means of communication. Such abbreviated forms, I’ll grant, are something akin to a latter-day Morse Code. Moreover, as with telegrams, there is often a limit on the number of characters which can be sent in any given text message.

Attila the Hun, 406-453

   It seems especially ironic to be using this as a term of endearment, inasmuch as the infamous Attila and his barbaric hordes were notorious for their brutal savagery while enslaving much of Europe during the fifth century.

   The answer, I would submit, can be found in the inglorious American educational system, rapidly deteriorating to sub-Third World levels and churning out young people who are as illiterate historically as they are grammatically. So, in the interest of following the dictum that counsels us to “light a candle rather than curse the darkness,” I will present a little remedial history lesson (courtesy of Wikipedia).

   As it demonstrates, this is by no means just ancient history, either, since for a generation of Americans who lived through two world wars, “Hun” was by far the worst thing you could call anyone.

Attila the Hun was Khan of the Huns from 434 until his death. He was leader of the Hunnic Empire which stretched from Germany to the Ural River and from the River Danube to the Baltic Sea. During his rule he was one of the most fearsome of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires’ enemies: he invaded the Balkans twice, he marched through Gaul (modern France) as far as Orleans before being defeated at the Battle of Chalons.

Attila is known in Western history and tradition as the grim FLAGELLUM DEI (Latin:”Scourge of God”), and his name has become a byword for cruelty, rapacity, and barbarism.

During the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany gave the order to “make the name ‘German’ remembered in China for a thousand years, so that no Chinaman will ever again dare to even squint at a German.” This speech, wherein Kaiser Wilhelm invoked the memory of the 5th-century Huns, coupled with the “Pickelhaube” or spiked helmet then worn by German forces reminiscent of ancient Hun helmets, gave rise to later English use of the term for the German enemy during World War I. This usage was reinforced by Allied propaganda throughout the war, and many British and American pilots referred to their foe as “The Hun.” The usage resurfaced during World War II.

After out sticky portion of Sachertorte we walked around the outside of the Imperial Hofburg Palace and the Heldenplatz and through the gardens and past a replica Greek temple and over the road past the Parliament building an on to the large and impressive Town Hall building next door that was being prepared for Christmas.  There was an alarming lack of attention being paid to health and safety with sightseers and the general public having unrestricted access to what was a busy construction site.  In this part of the city there were wide boulevards and tall buildings and we took a direct route from the Imperial gardens looking for the river and part way down we were seduced into a pavement café for some coffee and beer and we sat and soaked up the sunshine on the terrace of a café of magnificent Imperial splendour.  Resuming our walk we reached the Donau Kanal but sadly we didn’t get as far as the Danube so I don’t know how it compared with Bratislava.

The city was in very good condition compared with others we have visited and this is due to the fact that it wasn’t destroyed during the Second-World-War and fell quite quickly in the Russian Vienna offensive of 1945 and secondly because after the war the Russians were prevented from adding Austria to the Soviet Bloc and therefore it never suffered the indignity of years of communist neglect.

Kim was determined that we should all now walk to see something that had caught her eye in the guidebook, the Hundertwasserhaus, which is a communal building designed by a painter and sculpture on modern ecological principles sometime in the 1980’s.  It was quite a long way and on route we stopped at a bakery for pastries to sustain us in our quest and when we finally got there we declared the place a bit of a disappointment, took a photograph of a British telephone box that stood outside and set off back for the city centre.

It was obvious now that this lengthy detour meant that we had no chance of catching our intended five o’clock train back to Bratislava so we stopped on the way back at a convenient and authentic bier kellar and we enjoyed a drink in the courtyard and we were having such a good time that we forgot the time and then had to get a wiggle on to make the six o’clock.  The quickest way to the station was through the baroque Belvedere Palace gardens and it would have been nice to have had more time to enjoy them but because Christine had insisted on that second glass of red wine we were up against the clock.

Consequently, this was a bit of an undignified dash through the Palace grounds because it was becoming obvious that we had badly misjudged our timings and there was a very real danger of missing our second choice return train as well.  We emerged from the gardens at an unfortunate exit because it was directly opposite the Greek restaurant where we had enjoyed the extra large glasses of red wine earlier this morning and the owner had interpreted our ‘we’ll think about coming back’ as a firm booking and he was waiting expectantly at the door to greet us.  Even though it was starting to go dark and we slipped surreptitiously through the gate he spotted us and shouted and gesticulated wildly to us to return for our evening meal.  He clapped his hands and waved his arms madly, drawing attention to himself and to us, so we quickened our pace to Sue and Christine hill climbing speed and ignoring him as best as we could made our way back to the station to catch our train with only a few seconds to spare.

 All the way back a nervous Kim kept a watchful eye out for the border police but I was less concerned now because I couldn’t imagine that they have too much trouble trying to prevent people slipping over the border into Slovakia from Austria.  Anyway there were no police and once we were over the frontier we felt safe to sit back and relax and enjoy the rest of the return journey.  Now that we were securely on our way it seemed almost James Bond like to be dashing across Eastern European borders and sneaking like fugitives through custom checkpoints without identification, but next time I shall try and avoid this sort of tension and definitely remember to take my passport with me.

Back in Bratislava we walked again to the old town and selected a pavement bar in the Town Hall Square where we had a champagne party that we had promised ourselves to celebrate the departure of an unpopular and particularly obnoxious former member of staff back home at work.  If you ever get to read this Tim, we mean that most sincerely!

It was time for evening meal so we wandered around the quiet streets for a while looking for somewhere suitable and eventually we selected a Slovakian restaurant in one of the main streets.  We were the only customers and I think that the man responsible for ordering must have been expecting many more and had a lot of food to shift because when Micky ordered a simple starter of local meat and cheese he received a mountainous plateful of food of John Norman buffet table proportions.  He had to fight his way through and we all had to respond to his invitation to assist him before we could all set about tackling equally large plates of main course, which were impossible to finish and which left the waiter enquiring if we had enjoyed our meals.  Of course we had there was just far too much.

It was the end of another good day and we set off back to the hotel and once again walked at a perfectly normal pace until we reached the street with the hill back to the hotel at which point Sue and Christine moved up into Olympic sprint mode once again and strode off into the distance leaving the rest of us to follow at a more gentle pace behind them.