WORLD OF WILL

After leaving Budapest we headed north following the Danube up to the town of Esztergom, right by the Slovakian border, where we visited Hungary's biggest church. You actually see the immense basilica a long time before you reach it. It's difficult to know how to describe the size of the place. Huge doesn't quite cover it – it's unnecessarily big. You could fit a whole normal-sized church just in the porch. You feel like you've been shrunk. But then, weirdly, once you step inside all sense of sc ale disappears and it feels like you 're just in any other cathedral. It's like a reverse Tardis. There are some odd relics on display inside too: the skull of a former bishop who died at the hands of the Communists in 1951; some more bits of poor old St Stephen (a skull and possibly a thigh bone). How would he have felt knowing he was going to be dissected and distributed about the country? Looking out from the enormo-church over the lovely town below, and seei...

Hungary's cap ital is literally a city of two halves. Buda on the west bank of the Danube is hilly and medieval, Pest on the east bank is flat and more modern. Buda seems to be the calmer, sensible side while the aptly named Pest is the more loud and brash one . It also turned out that the weather was to be just as schizophrenic. We were here to meet up with two friends of ours who had flown out from the UK to jo in us for a few days. We started by exploring the Buda side on the hottest and sweatiest day ever. We got the funicular up the steep cliff to Castle Hill, just to be a bit nearer the sun, and traipsed around the medieva l castle district like lost legionnaires in the desert. We visited the castle itself, the stunning Matthias Church with it's toy town roof and the Fishermen's Bast ion with its gr eat views down on to Chain Bridge, the improbably grand Parliament building and the rest of Pesty side. We also discovered a statue of an army general whose ...

Even before we'd got to the outskirts of Vienna we were both singing that bloody Ultravox song. Or rather, we were both singing the chorus and then desperately trying to remember how the rest of it went. I doubt even Midge can remember. Anyway, here we are in Austria's capital. Because of Claire's almost unnatural interest in all things equestrian, we of course made straight for the Spanish Riding School. Once there we were told that the famous white horses were on holiday (presumably not somewhere where they'd get a tan) but that we could see a show involving the Lipizzaner "B-team" pulli ng carriages. The arena in which they perform is grander than some stately homes I've been to – chandeliers, marble columns, balustrades – and the "prancing area" (that might not be the proper name) is carpeted in immaculately combed sawdust. The carriage drivin g was surprisingly impressive. In between demonstrations they brought in some mares with their ...

I didn't like Prague. We arrived on Saturday night in our swish hire car and checked into a hotel with our not-so-swish bin bag luggage. We looked like vagrants who had come into some money. We got a taxi into the centre and that's where my disliking for this city kicked in. The cab journey must have lasted no more than 10 minutes but it cost more than our two-course meal (with beers and gins remember) had done in Lipnik the night before. In fact it cost more than a cab in London would have cost going tw ice as far. A beer in Lipnik had cost us 15ck, in Prague it was 70ck. Even allowing for the fact that this is a capital city, that is a mighty price-hike. I thought this was a stag do destination because of the cheap prices, but those cheap prices are no more. As a result, instead of the gangs of lairy British stag parties that I'd been expect ing, we found this otherwise beautiful city is over-run (and that is the most apt description available) with a certain kind of loud...

After the Jewish festivities last weekend we spent a few more rain-lashed days in Krakow and a very draining day at Auschwitz. So we were in a somewhat sombre mood as we crossed into the Czech Republic. That mood was immediately lightened with the arrival of beautiful sunshine, beautiful countryside and a beautiful lakeside campsite. The next day, with a new spring in our step, we headed fo r Brno… Then the unthinkable happened. The cheap, tatty, American van we'd bought off E bay broke down. In quite a big way. We were on a motorway when the engine started chugging a bit, then the power went, then something went "bang" and we ground to a halt. I managed to guide the stricken vessel to the hard shoulder and distribute the obligatory hazard triangles down the road behind us while Claire sprang into organisational mode, rang the RAC and set up a picnic on the grassy bank. There, wearing our mandatory high visibility vests, we enjoyed a selection of cheeses and some ra ther...

We have been to Czestochowa, the religious epicentre of Poland and home of Jasna Gora, an enormous monastery and basilica which is, in turn, home to the Black Madonna. This place has been a religious magnet for God-botherers for centuries. Way back in the 14th Century, the monks who reside here were bequeathed an ancient painting of the Madonna (Christ's mum, not the queen of pop) which over the years, after a bad varnishing job and exposure to burning incense, became discoloured to a dark hue – and has subsequently become known as the Black Madonna. To the faithful it's got heali ng power s and is a protector of the monastery, if not Poland itself. To me it's a dirty old painting swathed in gaudy gold trinkets. And it is revered at extreme levels – there are queues of tourists who walk a circuit of the thing on their knees. I seem to remember something in the Bible about not worshipping false icons, being selfless and loving thy neighbour – all of which seems to get forgo...