WALTZING DOWN THE DANUBE: HISTORY AND MORE

                       

HE SAYS:  

A few introductory remarks are in order before we push off on our latest globe-trotting adventure. By popular demand we will retain our HE SAYS/SHE SAYS format for its well- known insight and wit; it goes without saying that I am right and she is wrong.  (She says:  Smile and agree.  We know the truth, though, don't we?)

Travel lust, it seems, has triumphed over lust and common sense. Summer is upon us again and after about six months of planning we have decided to fulfil one more bucket list dream of doing a river cruise of Central Europe, starting in Amsterdam, going down the Rhine into the Danube from Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, to Hungary. The high points will be Vienna, Prague and Budapest, the land of my forebears. Others with less restraint might say that the high points will be the cafes and pastry shops.

Contrary to the advice of some friends who suggested a major cruise in a floating city, we have decided to approach things on a smaller scale and in a more civil fashion by opting for a floating restaurant and hotel with about 150 people to see the gorgeous countryside. Funny, in the mid-1970s, in another life, I took a barge trip through the Beaune region of central France. I’m told that prices since that time have gone up by a factor of seven. We look forward to a relaxing and enjoyable time with haut cuisine and the occasional glass of wine.

This trip has many dimensions and has many elements, as well as having a certain sense of trepidation and unease about it. Unlike most of my forays to unknown worlds where I have spent extensive, some might say excessive, time preparing for the trip by reading 30-40 books on the history, culture, literature, economy and local flora and fauna, this time I have shown real restraint and have limited myself only to 11 + books (the + is still being read as I wait for the taxi). Fortunately, I know the Central European classical music repertoire fairly well, and I have always enjoyed Liszt (Hungary) and Dvorshak and Smetana (Czech). Vienna is of course, synonymous with the classical music tradition – in particular, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, and Bruckner; for those who enjoy watching the ink dry on a musical score, there is always Mahler.

Some elitist music critic once said, “There is German music and then there is other music.” Alas, that is probably true; but then there are those unnamed people, with their unrefined (if not peasant) tastes who can’t bear to listen to violin music. Being a warm sensitive type of guy I won’t inflict Gypsy – Roma music on anyone, but we do have tickets for a Mozart and Strauss recital.

For myself, my one serious indulgence will be to spend half a day at the Vienna state art gallery. With its eight halls it is reputed to have one of the finest art collections in the world, although The New Prado and The V & G in London are probably my favourites. In order to accommodate travelling companions with short attention spans, I have reduced things at the state museum down to 3 halls and 6- 8 major paintings.

For this consideration, certain compromises were extracted from me (but a contract under duress is no contract). Two are most notable, namely, in the first instance we hit 4 – 6 cafes in Vienna. She who thinks she must be obeyed has declared this. And who am I to object to about 6!!!! different types of frothy, whipped cream topped Viennese coffees (count them), and so many mouth-watering pastries that heart disease and obesity are the national sports. On a more serious note, in terms of the social and cultural history, what is interesting is that since the late 1880s Vienna’s cafes were notable for their cultural and intellectual life and every major historical luminary had their favourite café, like a British pub but with coffee  rather than beer. Café life flourished. Some cafes are famous for their pastries, others for the coffee, and one for the hundreds of international newspapers. The Café Central is perhaps considered to be the most famous and at any moment I will expect to see the ghosts of the great men who went there such as Freud himself, Lenin (that’s VI, not Harpo), and Trotsky selling shares in an ice pick company.


But She Who Knows No Restraint drove a hard bargain. Not only are we forced to do the cafes in assembly line fashion, we are forced, like peasants, to sample the infinite number of delicious schnitzels with their various sauces, along with the waist expanding pastries. Ah, life is tough…Especially, when we are told that there is a 6 am !! exercise class on the river boat. FAT chance….

All that said, there are, on my behalf at least, some very real personal reservations and a constant unease, like walking through a graveyard. It is well established the Central and Eastern Europe since the 1890s has been a cauldron of politics - ethnic and ideological. One of the great turning points in Western European history was the dissolution of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian and Romanoff Czarist dynasties as a consequence of the First World War.

Europe witnessed the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The history of Red Vienna between 1918-'34 and the February 1934 uprising against the Austrian Nazis by the Schutzbund are a source of inspiration.  What is not usually appreciated is the fact that many countries had their own historically independent fascist and anti-Semitic movements, quite separate from Germany’s. Significantly, and what is not ordinarily known, is that the Austrians, Ukrainians, Estonians and Latvians and Lithuanians did the Germans' dirty work for them in the death camps. The Soviets had quite real and legitimate scores to settle. In the post–war period the Germans have done much more in terms of accepting culpability, re-education, and engaging in national introspection than have the Japanese and Austrians. The Austrians and Japanese, unlike the Germans, have never confronted their history.

Deep, down, I have never forgiven the Germans for World War Two, not even after the passage of 60 years. And this has nothing to do the Holocaust. About 45 million people died during WW II, 25 million Soviets, 15 million Chinese, and about 6 million Jews. No, the real issue is: Have we learned anything from the Second World War? Or, did we merely continuing eating our schnitzel and stuffing our faces with pastry? The grim fact is that social and intellectual historians for years have studied and questioned how and why people were turned into beasts. We are no closer to any real answers.

And it can happen again. Look at the current political situation in a number of European countries, including some that we are visiting, and you see the contours of the past and of things to come. Look at the rise of the Arrow Cross right in Hungary, the neo-Nazis in Austria, the Golden Dawn in the recent Greek elections, and the rise of the right in Britain and Norway. It would be a great mistake to ignore these groups and what is happening. Fascism provides people with stability.

Sinclair Lewis in his novel, "It Can’t Happen Here", postulates that a native fascist government can be elected in the US. Those will be some of the things that I will think about as we sail down the Rhine and I sip on my German wine, all in good style of course; and as I go into a fitful sleep I hope that the noise outside isn’t the muffled sound of jack black boots on the cobble stoned streets of these beautiful cities.



SHE SAYS:

Just 3 days to go before we leave for Amsterdam, and I’m exhausted already!  Watching Richard prepare for a trip would tire anyone out, believe me.  For three months at least, he’s been reading all he can get his hands on about the five countries we’ll be visiting.  He now knows almost all there is to know about each country’s art, music, history, economics, and politics.  I say “almost” because he has one book left to go: a long, plodding tome covering the history of Hungary from the instant that homo became erectus to the present day.   It’s a slow, dry read,  he’s starting to worry that he’ll run out of time before he runs out of pages, and he says he won‘t go if he isn‘t done.  I‘ve pointed out that if he doesn‘t finish it, the Tourism Police in Budapest won‘t refuse him entry as long as his Visa card is still in working order; this is not a university course with required reading and a final exam.  But he’s too busy reading to appreciate my logic.  I think his plan is that if our tour guide suddenly develops laryngitis mid-trip, he‘ll be able to take over at a moment‘s notice and lead us through the rest of  Central Europe.

In every other way, though, he’s ready for the trip.  Except for his razor and comb, he’s completely packed!  His credit card companies and the newspapers have been notified, bills have been paid in advance, the people looking after the house have been given detailed (trust me!) instructions about what to do and when to do it, Euros and other currency have been bought, and in his spare time, he’s written a 10,000 word article for a book that isn’t being published until next year.  He’s booked tickets for a concert in Vienna and a walking tour in Prague (thanks for the link, Sandy!)  In fact, if it wasn’t for that last damned book, he’d already be sitting on his suitcase by the front door calling me to hurry up.  This is not normal!  It’s Wednesday and we don’t leave until Saturday.

 If you asked him, he’d probably tell you that I’ve been slacking off and leaving things till the end, as usual, but I’ve been working hard, too!  I’ve made a list of things to do, and tomorrow I‘ll start checking things off.  I’ve caught up on lunches with different groups of friends that I won’t be seeing for a month.  I remembered that the wheels were dying on my suitcase after 5 years of hard travel, so I spent a day shopping for a new one, and I was practical enough to buy one with a peacock feather pattern that‘s so colourful  I‘ll be sure to spot it on the luggage carousel from the other end of the terminal.  Then I spent another day shopping for comfortable shoes so I can walk comfortably on cobblestones and sandals that will go with the dressier things I need to take for dinners on the boat and for  the concert in Vienna, then a couple of days hitting the sales to make sure I have enough clothes to go with the new shoes, and a few hours at the drugstore making sure I have a month‘s supply of toiletries.   Now that I'm shopped out, I guess I have to stuff it all into my suitcase.

The bed in the guest room is piled high with things that are waiting to be packed, and to the untrained eye (aka Richard) it may look as if I‘ve just dumped everything I own in a huge jumble, but a lot of deep thought has already gone into my packing.  There’s the “must go” pile that at the moment is still surprisingly small.  The larger pile is the “make up my mind” pile: if I take the black and the beige, do I need the navy as well, or should I forget the beige because it gets dirty too quickly?  And if I take navy capris, do I need the long navy pants, too?  Should I take that extra skirt?  The third pile is the “conditional” pile: if I decide to pack the navy, then I’ll need this top, but if I stick to black and beige, I won’t.  These things are important!   The last pile is for things I don’t really need but if there’s room after all the other considerations and deliberations, I’d rather have what I don’t need than need what I don’t have.

A certain nagging person has pointed out that we’ll be stopping in a different city every day so if I’d just get busy on my list of things to do and call Visa to let them know I’ll be travelling in Europe, I could travel light and buy what I need as I go, but that’s just silly.  Airlines keep statistics;  if we all travelled light, they’d  conclude that their  luggage  weight limit is overly generous and they’d reduce it, causing untold hardships for the tourists of the future.  I refuse to be responsible for that!   I’ve informed that nagging person that despite his scepticism, my 50 lb. suitcase and I will be ready to go when the taxi ( which he booked last Tuesday and is sure to call to confirm on Friday and will be timing with his stopwatch on Saturday)  pulls up at the door.

But I worry.  If he doesn’t finish reading that book, my brand new suitcase and I may be making this trip alone.