Prague
Well, where to begin. Prague is indeed a beautiful city: lovely turrets, smashing churches, it's fair share of cobbled roads and so forth. But you know, one's appreciation of the aforementioned prettiness can be tarnished, somewhat, by a hangover. And I've been hungover for, well, five of the last six days. So vast swathes of Prague have gone unobserved by your faithful correspondent, while the ceiling above my dorm bed has received an extensive examination through barely-opened eyes.

Now, I can complain about the bad, bad feelings of being in such a condition, but, as we all know, it is a whole lot of fun getting yourself in that state the night before.. After warming up on Wednesday night, a crowd of us hit town on Thursday, first going to a few very brown pubs then hitting Prague's premier destination for show ponies and sixteen-year-olds. I think even the name, Roxy's, acts as a clear message to it's patrons: this place is shite. But let's be realistic, shall we? Wandering around with a group of eight strangers, you quickly move to the lowest common denominator. And boy did we that night.

But the decor at Roxy's wasn't the clincher -- it was our fellow patrons that sealed the deal in my place. It didn't have cage dancers (that was Saturday night), but we did have one weirdo trying to chat up one girl in our group, and having got nowhere in the flesh, he regrouped for a moment and pulled out of his bag, yes really, a marionette, and began making it dance, give eyes to the ladies, hump the floor and so forth. Quite a hit, as you can imagine. But the scariest part was that he was really, really good at marionetting! He'd obviously been learning for most of his short but rather tragic life. There were also quite a few garden-variety losers, but it's just every crap club you've ever been to, it's just the beer was two dollars a litre. So you can understand the attraction.

So to sum up, I'm calling it quits for Prague. I'm never going to see the day-time highlights at this point, and I'm beginning to feel sick. I'll come back to Prague when I'm 50 or something, when I'm too old to have a good time and then go to the castles and the museums and whatnot. In the meantime, I'm going to go to Cesky Krumlov tomorrow. Just go to a Jazz Club tonight (it is my last night after all).

Amsterdam
I got a smug, knowing email from Hugo the other day saying something to the effect of "You don't have to tell me any stories about Amsterdam, Andrew. uh-huh, I know exACTly what you mean...nudge nudge"

Well, okay. There is no point pretending that I didn't have a good time. I reckon that even an experienced, hard-nosed, achievement-oriented traveller can lose a day or 2 in Amsterdam. I wondered what the attraction was for a while -- all those sad people wasting their days. I mean it's not as though I've never enjoyed it myself, maybe once a year with some friends, but at home it's all so discreet and under-the-table. Everyone tries to act like its no big deal, but you can tell everyone is a little excited about it. But in Amsterdam it's completely legal, in the right place, and just out there, inviting you in, so attractively presented with the prices on display and everything. All the places look pretty dodgy, so you can be a little nervous before you go in, but once you're in there, it's all professional and just another transaction. And it ends up being a great time and you do it a few more times, but eventually you realise that you can't spend all of your money on prostitutes so you leave town.

That's what you were talking about, right Huges?

Deepest apologies for the recent lack of correspondence. I momentarily lost the ability to think.

Florence
You will recall that at the end of the last thrilling episode, our hero was about to escape Austria but had two spare days up his sleeve before his rendezvous in Provence. The story continues�EMy original criteria for choosing a stopover in Italy was simple: on the train line from Innsbruck to Nice, in order to reduce the time I spent gazing stupidly out the window at alp after alp after alp, and listening to my music that bit too loud to try to block out some annoying conversation between two emotionally-stunted poms. ("Don't take my picture, don't take my picture." "Okay, I won't take your picture." SNAP "You took my picture!!" Happily, though, this overly functional method of destination selection was beaten out of my be some fellow hostellers before I booked my ticket to Genoa, and I made tracks to the fair city of Florence (Firenze to those of us in the know).

The art history lecture begins
Well, my poor wee New World brain was once more overloaded with the history confronting me at every turn. If Vienna is littered with statues, then Florence can only be the nude-stone-old-guy capital of the world. I had no time to waste in Florence, and so at sparrow's fart I found myself lined outside the Galleria dell'Accademia, which houses Michelangelo's David and his four unfinished slaves. David was absolutely incredible. I walked around it at least six times, not making a sound. At about five metres tall, it is quite impressive any way you look at it, but it's on the closer examination that you begin to understand why this is the statue that everyone still talks about: the curls in his hair, to start, but also the veins visible in the lowered right hand, while the raised left hand showing only tendons, as though the statue'sblood, like the model's, has run down to the lower hand.

I also found what is apparently some big secret amongst we in the global art circles. Michelangelo would carve out the only some of the statue at the start, enough to give the direction to the work. After that he left a significant part of the hacking and chiseling to an apprentice. The eventual owner of the statue would come and view the work in progress, and so that the apprentice could recognize each statue's owner, Michelangelo would carve the owner's profile into the back of the marble block. Because this profile would be removed as one of the last steps in the process they don't remain in any statues, except for one of the unfinished slaves. So, there I was, feeling like a bit of a twit, clambering around each statue, craning to see the back of the block of marble. But I eventually found it, as clear as day. I can now tell you that the intended owner of the third slave on the left had a big nose and curly hair. Not a bad find, especially since I heard about it six months ago in another hostel in Japan!

After that culture-a-ramic experience, I trotted happily off to the Ufizzi Gallery, which houses the motherlode of Italian Renaissance art. I'll spare you my copious notes from this gallery, but I will tell you that (1) there was much excitement on my behalf, (2) I was in there for nearly four hours, and (3) I think I got my 6.50 euro worth.

End of art history lecture, still on Florence
Florence was a nice contrast to Vienna, which was the last major city that I had been in. In Austria, you can actually hear the other pedestrians tut their tongues at you if you step onto even an empty road while the red man is flashing. But here, even while the little green man is inviting you onto the crossing, cars don't so much stop for you as swerve around you. The Ring in Vienna is a graceful, tree-lined boulevard that forms an orderly center in the spiderweb of streets that spread out from it. You can get your bearings pretty quickly: if you hit Neubeugasse, you've gone too far east; if you can see the golden cabbage, you're near Karlsplatz, and so on. But if a spider spun the streets of Florence, it was a drunk one that died of hunger. It did, however, leave a wonderful set of pedestrian-only piazzas that are now populated with originals and replicas of famous statues that got me almost as excited as I was in the Ufizzi. The pedestrian-only nature of the piazzas is fairly provisional from what I can see. Cars, motorbikes (the cute European kind), taxis and even the occasional bus, all seem to merge with pedestrians at their leisure.

So then one day traveling with cool Americans #3 and 4 (Ned and Megan to their parents) to the old rural town of Siena. Much beauty, much old stuff, and the best damn pasta I've ever eaten. Actually, all of the food in Italy was fantastic. But then again, I was in Tuscany after all. If the food isn't good there, what hope do we have?

After two action-packed days in Italy, I board my overnight train to France a weary but happy backpacker. The train ride was really boring for most of the time, but I did depart the train having collected a -- um -- certain kind of bruise on my neck. I tell you, I caught trains for three years in Melbourne, and not once did anything really memorable happen. I get on one single train in Italy, and I get a pash. She didn't even speak English. I like Europe.

France in five words or less
Where are the damn berets? or perhaps
Bring on the baguettes!

The rest
Caught up with old housemate Ingrid and her Dutch lover Patrick in Avignon and traveled through Provence and Burgundy with them. Am now staying in their place in Amsterdam. Very good to be out of hostels for a while. Am going to Berlin tomorrow, on way back to intended Eastern-European circuit beginning with Prague. Will keep you posted. Over.

Austria
Wrapping up Austria before this internet cafe closes... Vienna, without doubt is an incredibly beautiful city. Where else can you find major statues littered around the city like they were public phones? The relatively small size of downtown makes the city very approachable on foot, which led to a lot of wandering around lost, until the jet lag wore off and once more I could understand maps.

After five days of treading the Vienna tourist trail, I was very glad to get out of town and go to a tiny little village on the Danube called Melk. All 6000 people are nestled snugly beneath a gigantic Franciscun monastery perched on a hill. The effect at dusk, when the sunlight begins to fade and the powerful yellow of the monastery walls remains illuminated, was breathtaking. I was sitting outside a cafe, drinking my tea, writing in my journal. It was one of those moments that keep you travelling.

The next day I took a cruise up the Danube to another town called Krems, through vineyards on either side of the river, almost every major bend guarded by a castle or castle ruin. If you live beneath a castle ruin, or a 1400-room monastery, do you ever really lose the sense of wonder? Do you ever walk out your door one day and see the castle only as part of the background? I guess you must, but I really can't see how.

Then, back on the tourist trail to Salzberg, home of the Sound of Music and the friend-of-a-friend Zeller family. I took some walks around Salzburg, again with fortresses and castles popping in and out of view, but now with the Alps providing natural beauty. The side of a hill, covered in straight ash trees, sloping fast and unevenly to meet the ground. Trees that had fallen striking and felling other trees with them. Aaah, nature.

The Zellers were incredibly hospitable to this strange Australian that kept ringing them. Eventually giving in and inviting me over for Sunday lunch. Their perspective on European politics was very amusing. After first patiently denying that Europeans bear stereotypes against each other, they proceeded to enlighten me all afternoon on centuries-old gossip. I mentioned that I was going to Prague, "those fucking Czechs" was the reply, because after World War II (during the course of which, you will recall, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia) the Czechs kicked out some resident Germanic people and won't let them have their land back. And those Italians are bastards, you see because they stole a region named Tirol from us.

So then to Innsbruck, where I decided to get a cable-car to the top of a promising-looking Alp and hike across a few peaks and then down into the valley. A small hitch in the plan appeared when I saw that the top of the mountain was, of course, still covered in snow. But, drawing inspiration by being the location of two Winter Olympics, I ignored the difficulties and attempted the Cross Country Snow Hike with all the grace and aplomb that only the six-foot-plus can muster. Add in a modest handicap for my (a) lack of psychological preparation, (b) inappropriate attire for snow hiking and (c) complete inexperience in walking through loose snow, and I think you will find that I acquitted myself very well. And once we get past the snow and the mud, the hike because more endurable, if still not quite enjoyable. Considering that we had been walking for an hour, and still had two more hours to go, endurable is a fine characteristic indeed. And once we started talking to an altruistic Austria who showed us how to walk downhill properly (yes there IS a way), the walk, well, the best thing I can say about it was that it was nearly over. The whole thing is better in hindsight, racked up as an experience and a story to tell, rather than as a sensation to be repeated in anyway. And of course, no hiking expedition would be complete with seeing the usual procession of fitness fanatic mountain-goat-cross-octogenarian overtaking us regularly. Those bastards.