only a few miles away. In other words, whileNEWS

the bronze-age community were crafting away with real sophistication their neigh-bours could offer nothing better than stone axes and knives.

The professor told us the civilisation flourished from 800BC to 400BC, after which no further traces could be found. He guessed an earthquake or cataclysmic landslide had wiped out the community occupying the area. He then made an observation on the indispensable tie-up between economics and the arts and culture generally: "Without wealth there can be no civilisation; no culture no art works". In Halstatt's case, its wealth came from its colossal salt deposit.

VIENNA

Returning to Geneva to make tracks for home, we decided to spend the last night with relatives in Vienna flying out at 23h30 the next night and give ourselves a full day to look over one of the most

cultured cities in Europe. Around 09h00 a relative took us on a car tour of the environs of Vienna and the historic streets of this city itself, spending hours pointing out places of cultural and historical interest. We motored around and through the legendary Viennese Woods which are rather hilly and cut by numerous roads for access purposes, looking to me nothing like the sentimen-tal Viennese Woods in the first Strauss film. He drove up a steep hill giving a very good overview of the woods and then showed us a church most important in the history of European religion.

It commemorated the great Polish King John Sobieskl; who came to the rescue of Vienna when it was just about to fall to the Turks in 1683, crushing the Turks and breaking for ever their stranglehold on central Europe. This battle decided whether Europe would all go Muslim or stay nominally Christian.

BURG THEATRE

We visited the famous Burg Theatre, stamping ground of Austria's great

playwrights Grillparzer and Nestroy: the two faces of classical Austrian drama - tragedy and comedy. Lunch at a street cafe with four single meat sandwiches, one ham roll with a pot of tea for two cost about R100, giving some idea of costs in Austria. That afternoon we made our way around the City on foot unac-companied to see things for ourselves; asking our way in halting German and finding Viennese folk the friendliest, most helpful we met in Europe. The Staats Oper is a significant presence in the musical life of the world (let alone Austria). There we bumped into a typical packaged tour which got through it all in less than a quarter of the time we'd needed to ask questions and look around.

We saw we were about to have a heavy storm and, not wanting to get wet before boarding our plane, took shelter in the massive St Stephans Cathedral; spending an hour and a half in one of Europe's greatest churches, a hive of religious activities, all sincere and fervent. Even if we did not come to scoff, we remained to pray. We also remained completely dry, as the storm was over by the time we came out.

SCHONBRUNN

The next big event was a two hour visit to the fabled Sch”nbrunn Palace of the Emperors of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the bright afternoon sun its ochre yellow walls gleam like gold and its gardens seem to run on in all direc-tions for miles and were tended as though an Emperor were still in residence. We spent two hours looking it over, going through many if not all the reported 2 000 rooms and chambers in this truly imperial palace.

Its atmosphere throughout was comple-tely at variance with our modern, uncon-

sciously democratic mindset.

It was a true finale to our tour but our relentless guide took us next to the Prater



which runs for 11 kilometres (some say 14 kms) and is a couple of kilometres wide with roads no motorised traffic can use since it is a vast leisure centre. Not like Disneyland, of course, since it has a most historic origin; being used once as the hunting chase of the Emperors. Then one of the most enlightened said: `no more hunting'; and turned it into an amusement and recreation complex with a huge year-round funfair; space for all the sports, even a mall running its whole length for rollerblades, skate boards and skating. We finally had supper in one of the most Viennese of all restaurants, not only in the Prater but in the City itself; then took a rather sad parting of people who had been our constant companions for so many weeks.

Our plane left late at about 23h45 and at 01h30 we were expected to eat a substan-tial Austrian supper. I find Austrian cooking very good and I could not turn down a marvellous meat dish (not schnitzel) though I did wish next morning that I had!

Then it was only a question of two more flights to Durban and home, with a deep sense of two-way alienation or perhaps a state of betwixt and between two geographies and cultures.