From Trencin, another train journey, this time across the Czech Republic to Prague. Prague was undeniably beautiful, especially the buildings:

but a tourist zoo:

I guess I arrived 15 years too late, i.e. just in time for the opening of the first Czech branch of Hooters:

No thanks.

The best thing that happened was in the Old Town Square, which has to be one of the cutest urban spaces in Europe:

If also the site of a memorial to Jan Hus, burnt at the stake in 1415 for objecting to corruption in the Church:

I happened to walk through the square one evening, and stumbled on a jazz concert; the music, especially the pianist, sounded familiar, but also outstandingly brilliant. I lingered, and it finally twigged that, here in one of the most beautiful squares in Europe, under a perfect blue sky on a warm summer evening, and absolutely for free, I was listening to my second giant of black music of the summer: none other than Coltrane’s pianist in his great quartet of 50 years ago, McCoy Tyner:

I left Prague on the night train, and stopped in the morning at Cologne:

And so back to Paris, and the end of this summer’s adventure…