Reconnecting

Goodness knows how far I've travelled in the last six and a half weeks, or for how many hours (or days). I could work it out, but my poor jet-lagged brain wilts at the very notion. Let's just leave it at 7 flights, 11 rail journeys, one week-long cruise plus four other boat trips, and lots of driving. Being driven, rather, in cars, coaches, a roller-coaster and one ambulance.

There's been history and architecture, art and war, old friends and some new ones, a wedding and a camel, innumerable churches and cathedrals plus one astonishing mosque, lots of good food and a surprising amount of beer (favourite: Berliner Weisse - must be rot, not grun). It's been interesting, sad, funny, emotional, heart-warming, boring, horrifying, painful and tiring. The weather was summer-hot and winter-cold, with rain and an icy Mistral. I hated myself for packing so badly and having to haul around such a stupidly heavy suitcase, and will NEVER do that again.

Right now I feel that I never actually want to leave home again. Mainly because I'm tired, and sore, and have so much writing to do from the trips I've done this year already - but also because though I've seen such wonderful sights, such beauty of so many different sorts, I went down to the beach today and realised yet again that where natural beauty is concerned, a 20-minute drive is all it takes for an eyeful (and heartful) of the best.

Home rocks

I'm feeling rather smug, though it was purely luck: what looks like an insignificant pimple in this crappy iPhone picture is of course amazing Uluru. Even from 39,000 feet, with the naked eye it's still astonishing, so big and so abrupt, and far more impressive than it appears in the photo.

I'd been keeping an eye on the airshow in the hope that I might spot it (and in that respect, the Etihad version is much superior to Emirates' useless maps that couldn't even identify huge Mt Ararat for me last year) and looked out just at the right moment to see it below, on my side - pretty lucky considering we were ripping over it at getting on for 1000 kmh.

And then, some minutes later, I remembered about Mt Connor, the flat-topped mesa you pass on the way to Uluru from Alice Springs that novices always think must be the Rock, slid up the blind and there it was too. Given the scale of the distances on this trip, seeing these familiar rock stars makes me feel that I'm nearing home.

Heading home

... and I'm one of them. Not right at this instant, obviously - I'm sitting at the gate at Abu Dhabi airport waiting for my flight to Sydney and a, hopefully, long sleep under that enviably light and cosy Etihad business class duvet - but I will be soon, for another 13 hours or so.

I'm going home at last, hooray, after nearly 7 weeks away in 9 countries, several of them more than once. "So many stamps!" said the nice young man at Munich airport, flicking through page after page of my 10 year-old passport, looking for the most recent Paris one to put his stamp next to. At one point he shrugged and muttered "Whatever" but then remembered he was German and found the correct page.

It's been an interesting trip, this one, full of so many different experiences: sea-sickness in the desert, lots of cruising on rivers, a wedding, old friends and some new ones, a trip (literally) to hospital, connecting with a dark part of my father's past, being awash in history, and above all, learning about the Second World War in the most vivid way, seeing and touching and being right there.

Not a holiday, in the conventional sense - certainly not relaxing - but rich and rewarding. Though I really could have done without the hospital bit.

Heil hope, dashed

This trip has been so focused on the war, or wars, partly through choice, with visiting Stalag Luft III, but mostly because that's simply how it is in Europe, that today in Munich I just went with the flow and topped it all off with a Third Reich walking tour. Berlin is the other half of that story, of course, but Munich is where it all began and Eric (from the US) was a well-informed and interesting guide around the significant locations. Few are more significant than the upper hall of the Hofbrauhaus where every night tourists come to bend their elbows and sink a few steins in rowdy jollity, most of them probably in total ignorance of the fact that just above their heads is where Hitler announced the birth of the Nazi Party.

It was a very odd feeling to sit there and listen to the familiar story and know it had taken place on that very spot. Even more unexpected, though, was when we left to follow the path of the march of the Beerhall Putsch that took place three years later, from the Hofbrauhaus to the Odeonsplatz, and Eric described how the marchers had been fired on by soldiers. As he told the story, Hitler's bodyguard, "a big, fat Bavarian", flung himself on top of Hitler, taking four bullets for him "which didn't kill him, because of the fat" but in the process dislocating Hitler's shoulder.

Well! I never expected to feel any sympathy for Adolf Hitler, but just for a moment, I actually did. And immediately, I wanted to know which shoulder it had been. "No-one's ever asked me that before," said Eric, "but it was probably the left, because of the salutes." That was exactly why I was asking, of course - remembering all those crisply raised right arms, I wanted hope that my rapidly withering arm has a normal future ahead of it. But no. Scheisse. So afterwards I went to a Biergarten for some elbow-bending of my own. The left one.

Cesky varmints

Still in the Czech Republic, we left Prague's seething masses and came south to Cesky Krumlow (which sounds much less silly when given the proper pronunciation, as of course we do, given that Karin our guide is Slovakian - though also disappointed that our memories are so short when it comes to remembering simple greetings and thank yous in the various languages we've encountered). I almost cut this tour short of coming here, and I'm so glad I didn't: it's probably the prettiest place we've been to, and that's against stiff competition.

It's ancient, on a river, undamaged by war or communists and full of winding cobbled streets - well, the same can be said for Prague; but where CK (not Louis) scores is in more or less banning cars from the centre. There are some, but used for access only, and it makes a huge difference to the feel of the place - and the sound of it: I could hear blackbirds singing today, and the river tumbling over the weir. And once it gets to about 5pm and all the day trippers (including - spit - river cruisers from Linz) have gone, it's just lovely, so peaceful and relaxed.

The castle where the photo was taken from grows organically, it seems, out of the rock above the town, and has some most unusual sights inside, including a ballroom painted with costumed grotesques that was like nothing I've ever seen before. It was in the hands of just three families for most of its history, and one of them with connections to the Italian Ursinis has bears on its crest and naturally instituted bears in the moat below. The poor things, a blonde, a brunette and a black one, skulked invisibly under the bridge for most of the day, but ventured out when it went quiet to pick at what the birds had left of their fruit. Not very nice to see them in such an uneco enclosure - but at least it has chiaruscuro decoration. I suppose.

Burdensome

Dislocated shoulder still very sore, thanks for asking, and making taking photos a pain in both senses: so many crooked ones, thanks to doing it one-handed. See? Annoying.

Prague is a great place for getting lost in - because it's so easy, the narrow little lanes winding off confusingly between the tall buildings that hide even the landmark spires (100, they claim); and also because it's fun just to wander and see where you fetch up. It's warm now, the place is swarming with other tourists, there are icecream stalls and pavement cafes, buskers and beggars, touts and tour guides with umbrellas everywhere. The shops are selling Bohemian crystal, garnet jewellery and beautifully-made marionettes, all genuine Prague souvenirs - plus Russian-doll football teams (Tottenham Hotspurs, ManU...), bottles of lurid absinthe and Duff beer, and Italian gelato - all somewhat less authentic.

Our guide, Karin, took us across the old, age-blackened Charles Bridge to show us some hidden bits that were relatively peaceful, the prettiness of the painted and decorated buildings easier to appreciate when not swirling in a tide of rowdy tourists with all their tat and clutter. On the bridge one of the 30 statues has two brass plaques at the base with bright polished spots where they've been rubbed by thousands of people making wishes. My own may not have been entirely shoulder-unrelated.

Checking out of Berlin and into Prague

First things first: never stay at the Marriott in Berlin (or in any other city, probably). They charge six euros  for one hour of internet! Outrageous! Plus they only have a two-slice toaster on the breakfast buffet. And the concierge is useless. Stay at the Melia instead: just as central, free wifi, and excellent staff.

Now, Dresden: full of surprises on a relaxed and sunny Sunday, with students busking everywhere (clarinet under the arches! recorder! flute! My personal woodwind trio!), lovely hairy-fetlocked draught horses pulling carriages round the cobbled streets, a paddle-steamer on the Elbe and a curry Wurst on the street. For a city that was 75% destroyed on 13 February 1945 (bad, bad Brits this time) it's looking good, the buildings restored and the city's triumph, the Frauenkirche, finally finished in 2005 after languishing in a dismal heap of rubble for 50-plus years. The world's biggest jigsaw puzzle, the bits were labelled and painstakingly fitted together again, plus replacement stones of course, and the church has risen again, topped with a gold cross given by Britain, the master craftsman in charge of its recreation amazingly the son of one of the bomber pilots who flattened the city that night.

And tonight we're in Prague, in the Czech Republic, and are going to bed after a lovely trip along the river admiring the reflections in the water of the spotlit buildings that are, for once, all authentically old and totally undamaged during the war. The locals are staying up, drowning their sorrows after losing to Russia in the ice-hockey. Shame.