Posted by Jenny Haworth on Jul 22, 2018

Jenny's Tripping in Europe

I arrived back after six and half weeks just in time for the changeover meal.
 
Much of my time which was spent on research for my next book, which is a travel memoir on my experiences of over 40 years visiting Vienna, Budapest and Prague.
 
It tells of why I am so fascinated by those cities and speaks of the changes I have witnessed. 
 
I had  10 days with my daughter Katie in London looking at the new apartment they are inching towards buying.  It has taken them around five months to get this far negotiating the purchase. It is maddeningly slow.
 
I then went to Munich with Katie for five days which was just great. It is a gracious city full of the most wonderful art treasures. We had a day visiting Neuschwanstein, a castle built high in the Alps by Mad Ludwig II.  It was an insight into both German Romanticism of the  19th century and how Wagner’s opera inspired the castle. It is a medieval fantasy.
 
Then it was on to Vienna to start work.  I was there to put the finishing touches on the research and also caught up with what was new. One of the highlights was the 3rd Man Museum which is the only one which really looks at Vienna after World War II and the horrors that evoked. Also I went to the Hundertwasser Museum. He was famous for his life in New Zealand. He lived each summer in the Bay of Islands and here was not really recognised for being the major artist and environmentalist that he is. You have probably heard of the Kawakawa loos which he designed. Next will be the Whangarei Arts Centre.
 
Next I had a week in Prague.  It was just full of tourists – many of them were German school pupils who were on an end of year educational tour. 
 
I did all the main sites and had to remember that I was not to speak German. English was o.k. It is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe which was not destroyed by the war.  The concerts were fabulous and were held in nearly every church.
 
Onto Budapest for the last week. It is a city I know well so again I was filling in gaps of what I hadn’t seen.  There was an excellent new exhibition on the cost of World War I to Hungary and another -
The House of Horror -which is in the old AVO headquarters in Andrassy Ut. It was chilling and helped me understand how hard it is for Eastern Europe to get over those awful years. Their art gallery is always one of my favourites as is Matthias church in the castle area.
 
I felt I was very privileged to have the chance to research in all these cities.  Everyone I spoke to was fascinated by New Zealand – they called it paradise and for so many of them with their multi-faceted problems that’s what it is.  The next few years are going to be very interesting with the rise of the right wing in Europe and the pressure immigration is creating.