Enjoy the prospect

Even if we take in settlement by Maori, New Zealand’s human history is a mere blink on the calendar. Being brought up in New Zealand gives us huge advantages, but it also deprives us of a historical perspective, that essential experience which enables us to know ourselves and our place in time.

The only significant counterbalance is that offered by Europe. Oh, the Americas and Africa offer interesting travel, but being able to gain some understanding of the way our cultural ancestors existed is unique.

One of the most complete of those experiences was being able to travel with Calder and Lawson Tours in June 2010 on a Europe tour with an itinerary which included Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The tour was designed to provide its members with first hand experiences which connected with the past through architecture, cuisine, art – especially music, and a continuing commentary on the historical background which underlay the places and people we were experiencing.

In a wonderful paradox, a single event summed up the tour. We were driven from Vienna to the small village of Wolkesdorf which was largely built on a hill on top of which was an ancient Baroque church, around which were tracts of vineyards, and under which was a maze of tunnels which served as communal cellars for the local wine makers.

After an illuminating tour of the village which included houses which had been occupied since the 1530s and a very modern church built as a shrine to and commemoration of the way recent wars had affected the local population and provided a perfect connection between a turbulent past and a currently idyllic present, we were taken to dinner by the owner of one of the vineyards.

The evening was memorable, and I quote from our notes “We had and authentic South Austrian meal – sauerkraut, dumplings, baked smoked pork, pickled pork, and potatoes, with five local white wines to taste, two reds, and a stickie. Each wine came out during the meal.

A Moravian folklorico band played and sang all evening. They were loud, and passionate, and used 2 fiddles, a double bass, and an ancient dulcimer. “This was as far from New Zealand as we could get, and yet the connections with what we are, and where we have come from, was as enjoyably obvious as our hosts were to have us there.

This was genuine tourism, touring with intent and receiving inestimable value, and as far from the rat trap rush-and-plother events which masquerade as tours and are merely a collection of stopsoffs to be ticked off as having been there.

Now, dammit, having written this, I’m so excited about the next trip it cannot come soon enough. I have French ancestry. Perhaps a trip up the Seine and down the Rhone to the Mediterranean….

Enjoy the prospect.