Posted by Sigismund on March 2, 2008, at 13:38:37
In reply to Re: His reply » Sigismund, posted by Jamal Spelling on March 2, 2008, at 5:30:13
Austria has always made me a bit nervous (too much awful history) but Czechoslovakia doesn't. Now that Prague has been overwhelmed by us all, I wondered if Bratislava might be OK. Or Slovenia. Or maybe Croatia.
But from Australia you have limited options. You can head east and end up in South America, north east and end up in North America, north and end up in Japan or South East Asia. From Japan you can zip over the north pole and land in Europe.
What I did enjoy was seeing Prague when it was a communist satellite (listen to this language. Well, I didn't make it up). It was preserved, you could still smell the coal in the streets that was brought to the coal chutes in the houses. It was (of course) spectacularly unhappy. I read that until the 70s (I think) the streetlamps were still lit by hand. This seemed almost as good as going back before WWI. One of these is Kafka's house. Truly, I went weak at the knees.....
http://www.johnbowman.btinternet.co.uk/eastern_europe_photos/prague_8.JPGWe went to church in this cathedral
http://www.prague.net/gallery/winter/images/st_vitus_cathedral__hradcany_and_prague_bridges.jpg
just to see the secret police, and to see how religion was prospering in the people's state.The Prague clocktower does I don't know precisely what apart from tell the time. I suspect it is an astrological clock and tells you in what constellation the sun is at any one time. The man who made it, so the story goes, had his eyes put out after he'd finished, and needed to wait years until repairs were needed to get his revenge on the mechanism.
http://www.prague.net/gallery/winter/images/st_vitus_cathedral__hradcany_and_prague_bridges.jpgWhen the hour strikes a skeletons pass by windows and stuff, life is vanity etc etc.
poster:Sigismund
thread:815395
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080215/msgs/815730.html