Bookpacking’s Blog

Czech Republic; Prague-Dresden train EC170

Some things just have to be done. We’re sat on a Euro City train waiting to leave Prague for the former East German city of Dresden. Cued-up via YouTube is the classic Kraftwerk ode to pan-Europeanism, “Trans Europe Express”.

OK, so this isn’t one of those shiny new ICE trains (Germany’s TGV), but a red box of a locomotive with eight Hungarian carriages attached. But it’s clean and modern, and we can’t but help get excited about a train journey. Sentimental Journey, Brief Encounter, Casablanca; travel is romantic, full stop. But there’s something even more so about a train. The bus was going to be 500Kc, the train was only 600 and ran more frequently. So here we are riding along the Vltava with the pioneering electric rhythms of Germany’s most famous band.

And for extra novelty value (for a Brit at least) we’ve got ourselves a compartment. Remember those? Windows all steamed up from the days when diesel engines used hot steam to heat the carriages. One day last month, on a journey beset by problems, we sat on the platform at Doncaster while a useless tannoy mumble unintelligibly and harassed travellers asked hapless station staff the same question over and over.

Out of the gloom like a vision from the past appeared one of the rail charter trains that take enthusiasts up unusual branch lines or behind rare engines. Table lamps illuminated white-clothed tables through those steamy windows; it looked like the cosiest place in the world to be. And not for the first time we wondered about ‘progress’.

So as we travel through what was presumably the Sudetenland (annexed by Hitler), Dresden looms. The old “Florence of the Elbe” was completely devastated in WW2 by Allied incendiary bombs. My grandfather was in Bomber Command – the men who had the highest attrition rate, but were sidelined post-war as Churchill distanced himself from responsibility for “total war”: the deliberate targeting of civilians. And there’s a double irony in that my Grandmother was a fire warden in the blitzed-out Black Country city of Coventry.

Readers of Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” can hear about the destruction of Dresden; or rather un-destruction – the action all takes place backwards. 25-35,000 dead in one night; bodies melting in pools of fat. Words are inadequate. Perhaps some things are so unreal that postmodern semi-sci-fi is the only way to make sense of them.

PS with regards to the old ‘Is the Euro making things more expensive’ chestnut: the Czechs aren’t in the Euro zone yet, but the odd tourist-related business appears to take it. The same sandwich was £1.20 in Czech Crowns at the train station, or £1.75 with Euros. This is a pattern you see all over. Where’s it all going, we wonder?

 Czech Republic; Prague; Kafka Museum

Kafka is often credited with having anticipated the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century. Visiting the Kafka Museum in Prague, it’s easy to see why. The powerless individual helpless against an unfair and uncaring system whose decisions make no sense perfectly sums up the life under communism that one often reads about; everybody agreeing that the sky is green while staring directly into the clear blue.

Yet it was obvious that Kafka was a prisoner not of some external system, but of his own mind. As one display panel points out, he was never able to commit to a relationship because he was never able to “shake himself free of the rules he himself had imposed”. Just like one of his major writing influences, Flaubert, he also sought refuge in long-distance relationships and the abstract world of a love conducted by letters; where he could control things.

Kafka is yet another tortured artist who seems to prove the maxim that the best art comes out of pain. The allegorical Prague he dreamt up was composed of walls and boundaries which he had built for himself. Self-loathing and a hatred of his own body meant he was always held back. He found solace in the “Prague Four” band of intellectual friends, and gave himself eventually to his first love – literature.

He was the perfect example of the frustrated artist, driven to the edge of insanity by the mundane of a 9-5 that he hated. One of the sections of the museum is called “The Endless Office”. Anyone who has been in job that feels like a slow cerebral death can sympathise with that feeling of being trapped; a purgatorial paralysis of the mind and a overwhelming sense of stagnation. One of the displays refers to those “infinite” eight hours of the working day.

But if there is a hero in this realm of anti’s, it is Kafka’s comrade Max Brod. Nietzsche was dishonoured in death by a sister who manipulated his pre-life coaching message of liberation from the self (the “will to power”) to suit Nazi ends; but Kafka owes Brod a big posthumous debt. In life, Brod had recognised and nurtured Kafka’s superior talent. In death, Brod went against the wishes of his loved and respected friend, and bravely but guiltily disregarded Kafka’s request to burn his manuscripts. A tree fell in the literary forest; and thanks to Brod, we heard it.

Hungary; somewhere between Vienna and Budapest

As overhead screens drop down to start playing the passenger information video that precedes a feature film, the pretty Hungarian stewardess leans over. In perfect English asks if we’d like complimentary coffee, tea or chocolate? After a safety briefing she’d passed down the aisle with free headphones and while we’re plugging these in she returns with a thick and creamy hot chocolate.

Giving our arrival time in Budapest, she had told us the name of the man tasked with getting us there in one piece, but hadn’t mentioned our altitude. At a rough guess, we reckon we’re cruising at somewhere in the region of 8 feet. Hungarian carrier Orangeways is another new central European bus company giving planes and trains a run for their money. Last week Czech competitor Student Agency* took us from Brno to Bratislava in style, and tonight Orangeways quietly and efficiently whiz us from one former bastion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to another. Doubtless Austria’s OBB would have provided a smooth and comfortable ride too, but their trains would have cost 3-4 times more and taken just as long.

Their German counterpart DB is supposed to be buying the British government’s stake in Eurostar. Does National Express have anything to fear from foreign competition? Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad thing if, in the free trade Euro-village, the likes of Student Agency and Orangeways became players in the UK market? Student Agency even give out free magazines and newspapers, and on both lines if you don’t like the film (broadcast in the local language and English) you can always listen to the in-cabin radio. They’ve even got Wifi on some routes.

One of the few things that gets Bookpacking really riled (enough to rip a bookmark in two; a card one obviously, not leather) is overpriced UK transport. Mega Bus have brought prices down on some routes with their no frills approach, and National Express (who also said goodbye to coach stewards a long time ago) offer Fun Fares which can work out at £1 per hour of long distance travel. French operator Veolia, which one driver told Bookpacking is owned by the French government, is already quietly expanding into the UK. But maybe a bit of this Hungaro-Czech style of coach travel wouldn’t go amiss. Orangeways and Student Agency have already named their crossborder operations using English words. Have pan-European brand name, will travel?

* open to all, though students are as welcome as anyone else