Last Monday Gia and I fly to Prague to join Sharon—a long-time friend from Hong Kong—and three of her friends on a roadtrip from Prague to Vienna. We spent a couple of nights in Prague, then onto Český Krumlov for two nights and then on to Vienna, with a boatride between Melk and Dürnstein, for two more nights. Our guide and driver was Ari, who will be 75 next week, but still retains an enormous enthusiasm and passion for his work: “Ari’s Travel Club—traveling with passion” is his strap line. Ari has an aparently encyclopaedic about the places he took us: talking (lecturing) on history, art, culture, architecture… Ari’s patience was rather strained by the five Chinese women in the back of the bus who were much more interested in chatting about who-knows-what than listening to Ari.

We saw some beautiful scenery and architecture, and ate some good, and some not so good, meals. I have a few hundred photos to sort and process in the next few days, then maybe I’ll write some more about the places we visited.