The one in which Harlequin dies

I loved Prague. But who wouldn't with such a wonderful melange of architectural styles- Medieval through Art Noveau to communist and beyond.

Our first night featured a dinner in a restaurant decorated with the owners cartoons- most of which were extremely off-colour, what fun.

Then we went down into one of the fabulous cellars to hear a blues band playing before heading off to a dance club- sorry no pictures, refer to my last post. I did not give in too the temptation to try Absinthe but I will probably regret that for the rest of my life- still, gives me a reason to go back.

Of course we also saw the castle and the Charles bridge and such but for me the pleasures can be much simpler- The Mucha and Dali exhibitions, A nouveau style Cinema (Too early for the Jan Saudek Documentary, perhaps in the Festival, hint, hint, Allan) and a Blacklight Theatre performance of "Aspects of Alice. "

As we watched and walked about at night it began to snow and we could see how beautiful this place could be in winter-really tempurature doesn't matter and Central Otago can be colder. Certainly Prague turned out to be full on- unlike Vienna the highlight of which was the Sigmund Freud Museum.

After Prague we moved on to Berlin. We had two full days here as we had for Rome and they were very interesting. The first morning a whole bunch of us in drips and draps made our way to Saxonhausen Concentration Camp- a memorial that is within the metro area of Berlin, just.

It was, of course, a sobering experience after the fun and headiness of Prague. I spent three gruelling hours under its shadow walking with the ghosts, realising that this wasn't even a death camp.

It was here that some faces were put to the millions that did not survive the Nazis misrule and significantly for me was a photo of a young gay man dressed as Arlecchino/Harlequin that featured among those who died in Saxonhausen. The irony did not escape me.

Nor could I fail to be affected by the pit called Station Z which was The last station those brought here would ever stop at.

Nor can I ever forget reading about the "health" experiments carried out, the only seven reasons for death that were allowed -none of which mentioned brutality or the now disappeared building close to the "hospital" and "morgue" where women were brought to service the SS and certain priveleged prisoners- our capacity to harm one another never ceases to amaze me and my forays into both the darkness and the light or human experience has really affected the way I think and the way in which I shall now expect others to treat with us all.

After that, of course, there were tears as there quite properly should be and the rest of my day needed to be lighter. Consequently I bowled back into Potzdamer Platz and took in the Film and Television Museum wich was rich with entertaining exhibits and then I went to see Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma, a very satisfying shoot-em up. Complex beasts us humans.

The next day we went to Checkpoint Charlie, the museum and then I went off to the Jewish Museum. After the camp I was ready for quite a depressing tour but it wasn't that at all, in fact this Museum is one of the finestly balanced and focussed museums I have ever been to. The exhibits that pertained to the Holocaust were extremely poignant and then the rest of the museum was a celebration of jewish history in Europe- I wished Richard and Eva could have seen it.

I spent some time doing my usual walkabout and checked out some other beautiful buildings and saw the erotic museum- isn't it funny how we, as humans, can find as much pleasure as pain in some of the stuff I have seen both here and in the torture museums- there's a question for another time- Amsterdam!!