My Starting Point (I’m starting in Budapest and working backwards to the Hook of Holland – to make sure that my budget allows me to see the many sights he describes, whilst listening to his books on audio.) “Széchényi chain-bridge was built by two Scotsmen, the Brothers Clark. Apart from a few old streets and…
Paddy’s chapters ‘The Edge of the Slav World’, ‘Prague under Snow’ and ‘Slovakia: A Step Forward at Last’ are full of examples of the confused emotions that the inhabitants of the Czechoslovakian Republic created after the breakup of the Austrian Hungarian Empire. I found Wikipedia’s pages very useful in untangling the history, at least to…
Paddy’s first memorable stop-off point in Austria Paddy ‘s visit would have taken place in early 1934. His description of the conversation at dinner with the old Count brings the ending of the Austrian Hungarian Empire into focus, a reminder of how the political, social and cultural world was undergoing truly undermining shifts, not unlike…
Paddy’s arrival at the Hook: “It was still a couple of hours till dawn when we dropped anchor in the Hook of Holland. Snow covered everything and the flakes blew in a slant across the cones of the lamps and confused the glowing discs that spaced out the untrodden quay. I hadn’t known that Rotterdam…
Paddy’s first experience of overt Nazi power Nazi Parade in Goch, Westphalia, 1933, “The town was hung with National Socialist flags and the window of an outfitter’s shop next door held a display of Party equipment: swastika arm-bands, daggers for the Hitler Youth, blouses for Hitler Maidens and brown shirts for grown-up S.A. men; swastika…
Rotterdam “I hadn’t gone far before the open door of the Groote Kirk – the cathedral attached to the enormous belfry – beckoned me inside. Filled with dim early morning light, the concavity of grey masonry and whitewash joined in pointed arches high overhead and the floor diminished along the nave in a chessboard of…
“I sped down the gangway clutching my rucksack and my stick while the others dashed back to the steps . I was signalling frantically back as the hawsers were cast loose and the gangplank shipped. Then they were gone. The anchor-chain clattered through the ports and the vessel turned into the current with a wail…