Monday, 30 November 2009

DANUBE to DUBROVNIK


DANUBE An abiding image of Europe’s greatest river is the mass emigrations devised under the Empress Maria Teresa in the 18th century to populate the eastern end of the Habsburg empire. Families were put aboard rafts at Ulm in Germany and, without any means of propulsion, they simply headed down river, unable to turn back.

DARLANGA We have some red wooden horses from here, a gift from a Swedish lodger.

DARTMOUTH Sleeping in hammocks in the destroyer HMS Tenby, playing brag, promising not to get tattooed and fishing for mackerel that were caught be=y the shoal full

DAUGAVPILS An elegant spa town for rich Soviets, surrounded by poor countryside. home of Mikalojus Ciurlionis, a19th-century painter, composer and nationalist who gave Lithuanians renewed hope. There are concerts still in his house. Mark Rothko was born here and soon left, to become better known.

DEDHAM It looks exactly as John Constable painted it.

DEN HELDER Dutch women still wear traditional costume, the wide lace wings of their bonnets flapping as they swoop over the cobbles on their black bicycles.

DOURO, River Nowhere is more mellow in October, the rusting vines on the steep slopes of the wandering river: good food is what you are given, good wine is what you expect. Port could be a life’s contemplation.

DRESDEN The colour of verdigris lies over the remaining Baroque corners of this Saxon town. Perhaps it was a little overblown it its heyday, but that’s not excuse to make it a monument to the RAF.

DRINA, River The whole history of the Balkans is brilliantly told in The Bridge over the River Drina, a real bridge through which centuries of history could be told. Ivo Andric, its author died in 1936. In the early 1990s the bridge had further stories to tell when so many Muslims were hurled to their death from it, that their bodies blocked up the hydro-electric dam downstream.

DUBLIN Kilmainham Jail, Erskin Childers yacht that smuggled arms to the IRSA, the execution yard. All grist to murder and mayhem.

DUBROVNIK Unexpectedly lovely, arriving at the Vila Dubrovnik (before they pulled it down and built it in a more modern style). Late and tired, we are greeted with fruit and wine on our balcony that looks across the black water to the golden night of the walled city. A morning dip, where kingfishers flit then breakfast and a motor launch to take us into town.