Exploring Europe's spy country
- From: National Features
- September 03, 2011
IT WAS mid-winter in Central Europe and I was following in the footsteps of the Cold War spies.
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."
Churchill's words never failed to send a thrill up my spine and, as a writer of thrillers, I longed to cross some of those famous frontiers for myself and experience the dark heart of Europe.
I would begin in Berlin, and make my way east by train to Bucharest.
Through the centre of Berlin, vast graffiti-covered slabs of the Wall have been left as a monument to a city once divided. As I ran my hands over the historic concrete, it began to sleet.
Then to Checkpoint Charlie, a museum to human ingenuity commemorating dare-devil attempts made to cross to freedom, including a car with a hollow passenger seat, and grainy footage of a bid to swim the river.
By the Brandenburg Gate, I wandered through Peter Eisenman's unsettling monument to those murdered in the Holocaust: 2711 slabs of grey stone undulating in unmarked waves, a claustrophobic sea of sadness.
Later that day, I boarded the train that would take me east. By now, the Berlin sleet had turned to snow.
There was something irresistibly old-world about sipping tokaji wine by lamplight in the dining car while, outside, forests and concrete bridges flashed by, collecting the soft, flakes.
The next stop was Prague.
I had only vague memories of news reports of the Velvet Revolution that had overwhelmed the Communist government of Czechoslovakia in 1989.
Nevertheless, I felt a keen appreciation of the freedom I had to move east or west, to explore and inquire desires that would have seen me imprisoned or perhaps shot had I been a citizen of another time.
Prague is a beautifully preserved part of Mitteleuropa, with medieval architecture nestling up to elaborately decorated art nouveau buildings.
She had lived through the war and the occupation and told of nightly disappearances and the pervasive atmosphere of fear.
She showed me the oldest synagogue in Europe, built in 1270, then the extraordinary art nouveau apartments decorated with silhouetted busts and golden stars of David that had once belonged to the intellectual set of Prague many of them Jewish and that had been forcibly seized.
On the train once more, I headed into Hungary.
Tiny hamlets appeared, nestled in dark pine forests, gingerbread houses from the tales of the Brothers Grimm, where you could still imagine wolves at the door.
In Budapest, however, I found a perfect time capsule of old Europe Paris before mass tourism, before the concrete suburbs, the euro and the fake Fendi bags.
The city is ancient; it was part of the Roman Empire and has been fought over ever since.
The influence of Byzantium, Huns, Tartars, Turks and Hapsburgs created a glorious mix of architecture, with Moorish synagogues, gilded orbs, gothic spires and carved stone giants bumping up against each other.
The cafes are grander than ballrooms gilt mirrors and chandeliers, marble and white onyx but the feeling is authentic bohemia rather than Palazzo Versace.
Even the therapeutic thermal bath houses legacy of 15th-century Turkish invaders look more like palaces.
Every street corner, every cafe, every restaurant has a musician playing jazz or classical or gypsy music. The locals have a dry sense of humour and none of the surliness you battle with in many ex-communist countries.
Everywhere there were reminders, however, under the old-world glamour, of the city's violent history residential buildings pockmarked with bullet holes, and the fearsome House of Terror, the old headquarters of the dreaded Hungarian secret service, now a museum with its secrets open to all.
A visit to Gundel, more a Budapest institution than mere restaurant, is essential.
The dripping 19th-century decor has been preserved and it is the rare and marvellous sort of place where you could never feel overdressed.
You eat delicacies like roasted Saint Peter fish, Transylvanian cabbage rolls, caviar and smoked foie gras while being serenaded by the lead violinist of the gypsy band, who will play over you like a standover man until you part with money.
My last stop, Bucharest, was very different.
Elegant, once-grand houses lined the way into the city, their dignified architecture covered in grime and eaten away by neglect.
Further in, mini casinos advertised with bright neon, loose electrical wires hung from lamp posts, and dangerous-looking packs of stray dogs wandered about the crumbling streets.
Bucharest's architecture is a wild mixture of Byzantine, neo-fascist and Soviet Bloc.
The country is famous for its churches, painted inside with the most extraordinary frescos and the distinctive Voronet blue.
Although some are now on the UNESCO heritage list, they are very much active, filled with supplicants, candles and incense.
The fervid pulse of the city runs close to the surface: dangers include insane drivers, packs of muggers, falling masonry and the food.
Nicolae Ceaucescu's gargantuan Palace of the Parliament, a monstrous paean to Romanian nationalism and self-deification, involved the destruction of Bucharest's historic district, including 19 Orthodox churches.
Apparently it is visible from the moon.
When night fell, I looked out over the city, but there were very few lights at all, save the Palace, lit up like a stadium.
Perhaps in Bucharest I had found the dark heart of Europe ...
Berlin: destination guide
Prague: destination guide
Budapest: destination guide
Romania: destination guide