Home

Ok, I've finally had time to write my last post. I'm home. The grey and wet of Europe is behind me. Goodbye dogshit-encrusted streets of Paris. See you later crushing, stuffy tube.
Thanks for the memories sprawling metropolises where stashing your bag is dearer than a hostel in Southeast Asia. Adieu nights so still and silent you wonder if you're the only animated thing in a world where time has stopped. Auf weidersein hustle-ful alleys, suspicious eyes and smelly fellow travellers!

Thanks for the comments and reading of this. Maybe a few more pics will come up in time.

Dijon and Beaune

Having a few days remaining on my railcard, and a pouch full of leftover monies from various places, I felt I had to at least stay a couple of nights in a Hotel of some quality. It was the end of the trip. I'd been scraping around in places like Budapest and Prague, dossing in Zurich and Florence and lying rigid but cheaply on the night trains. I felt I owed it to myself to have a wee splurge.
And anyway, I arrived into Dijon late at night, my Barcelone plans having been thwarted by the obscene price of the night-train (CHF111!), and I wasn't about to haggle a hostel.
I found a stone courtyard, laced with grapevines, the welcome glow of warmth eminating from a tiny reception up a flight of wooden steps. The kindly madmoiselle showed me to my quarters. The 2-star Hotel Sauvage. A notch above simple, and all elegant. Sleeping in a double bed, without the snorting and shuffling of other travellers, nor the rolling and clunking of the night train couchettes (with their infestation of nimble fingered prowlers), nor the racket of church bells, nor the socks and pencils of so many sofas was a great luxury. And I totally rinsed it. Going to bed early after a pot of Burgundy and morcel of cheese, I relaxed to the chatter of a bit of French "television", rising late to a Hotel breakfast and ready for a walk.
The town is of course a delight with its cobbly, narrow streets and fountained squares. There are wine caves every two steps, and degustation restaurants every three. Even a suitably shack-like reggae club said to me that this city had it all.

After two nights there I saw the wee city of Beaune. The capital of French wine. In fact, a network of cellars and caves and tunnels for aging wine with a city built on top. I had my enormous rucksack, and since ut was one of those places in which everyone has a decent siesta during the day, I was bound to wander about alone without being able to see the Wine Cave Museum or find a decent grub.

My trip is now ended, I just have a few more nights in Paris.

To the Sun

O ball of warmth and light, how I've missed your glory!
Blaze your furious gold upon me, and burn out those shadows that have made my mind their nest!
Fiercely broil away that damp and heavy grey that has soaked my very heart with its Dismal Gloom!
Let your roaring Light of Warmth and Brightness scorch and ember the socks so weary of the Drizzle!

Ok, I'm not John Donne, I know. (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173385). But you can imagine the relief... The first bit of sunlight I've seen for what seems an age. Don't take that golden NZ light for granted all.

Night Train to Zurich

Well I have to pass through Switzerland again to get back to England, don't I?! The track goes that way! Well this track does.
So I'm now back in Zurich for a short time with Christa, Cosimo and Nicholas again. The train ride was noneventful, despite the towering, muscled Eastern Euro shielas sharing my cabin, along with the brother-sister pair of Koreans. Man talk about limited English. Thought I had guts cruising round Europe with only one and a few scraps of language. We pulled into Zurich (the terminal station) and the sister asked wild-eyed of me: "Chiri? Chiri?"
"Yes, Zurich," I replied, I hoped warmly. At least they were two, but I know there must be plenty of lone travellers without a word tramping the cobbles and gaining a totally different view of Europe than I've seen.

Budapest further

The old stereotype of the grim, cheerless work-focussed, stranger-intolerant Eastern European. As if! Many of the people I met (mainly in hostels, it's true) were sheerful and friendly. This despite the iron curtain of thickest cloud casting its miserable non-light over the grime of a huge, busy, sprawly, no-centre clash of modern glassy scrapers and ancient crumbling edifices of a city. It really did get dark at 4pm. The cold worsened toward the Danube.
That said, it is an amazing place. None of this "keep it fancy for the tourists" lark - let the damn city grow, if that's what it wants! Up with the scrapers! Slap in the strip bars! Turn on the booze (wee joke - that's been on for centuries already, and at a torrent)! Stick a few more roads in if we feel like it! I got the feeling that the Magyar were a rightfully proud people who demanded to be able to have a city in exactly the way they want it, and anyone interested can come and see it if they want.
I checked out the towering Citadel, Castle Hill and the museum there, booze halls, dining establishments, pubs and alleys. I happened on a particularly beautiful season. The Autumn leaves cast a greatly welcome splash of vibrancy over the hills and tramlined river's edge. The moon even appeared for a night, but the Curtain had arrived again before daybreak. The beer, of course, was tasty and satisfying. I had my first stein (1 litre) in 10 years at a wee Magyar-run pizzeria. It did look rather vulgar to be chugging from more of a trough than a glass I imagine, but no one around seemed to mind.
"Let him suck away on his stein," they murmered to one another. "Of course he can eat pizza in Hungary - we're not that far from Italy after all. Sure we were on and off part of tyrannical empires and great dynasties, and have as much claim to Mozart as our Western neighbour," they continued, in low, moustache-bristled voice. "Drink up lad! Eat of those quadruple size portions! Face the cold and tread heavy on the greasy streets... for you see, the Light of freedom and opportunity shines bright on the Magyar. We lie low now, but you'll find us soon enough in your own streets, your Opera Houses, your Reggae Booths, all."
So I did.