In southern Moravia, there’s a town called Valtice. With some friends, I have some ribs. I think they may be the best ribs I’ve ever had — including in Texas, the Carolinas, Memphis, and New York.

The Czech lands, at least some of them, are known for pork. Not very long ago, I saw and wrote about a play by Vaclav Havel: The Pig, all about a pig roast. Funny to think of, isn’t it?

‐In Budapest, National Review begins a Danube cruise. We have cruised this river before. It pays re-cruising, and re-cruising …

‐Out for a walk in Budapest, I come to an intersection. I have to press a button, to put the lights in my favor. To make the traffic stop. The word on the device is “VARJON.”

Huh. Several times, I have reviewed a Hungarian pianist, Denes Varjon. Turns out the name means “Wait. Hold on. Cool your jets!”

‐I see a monument to Jozsef Eotvos, a writer and statesman of the 19th century. Today, there is a composer and conductor: Peter Eotvos. An important musician. I wonder if he’s a descendant. I can’t tell you anything about the commonness of that name, Eotvos.

I can tell you that it’s many-dotted. Properly written, it’s “Eötvös.”

‐One more musical note? From fairly far away, I spot a bust of Liszt. Handsome devil. Helluva swordsman in his younger days. He grew religious, or at least mystical. Don’t know about then …

‐Budapest has a lovely monument to Shakespeare, showing the playwright bowing. It is we who must bow to him, of course.

Funny to have referred to him as a playwright. He tried his hand at poetry, too.

‐This is pretty good: a shop called, simply, the “Biggest Souvenir Shop.” A sign also advises that you can use the toilet.

Must be good for business. Everyone searches out a toilet. Then you may well buy an item or two: out of convenience, or gratitude (for the use of the facilities) — or maybe even out of a sense of obligation.

I wish I had a business mind. If you do, I salute you.

‐Behold the Gresham Palace. It is a stunning building, an example of Art Nouveau. It is now a Four Seasons hotel. Imagine holing up there for a weekend, or a week, or a month. I’ll have to leave it at imagining …

‐Walking outside Parliament, I can’t help thinking of Janos Horvath. He is one of the grand men of Hungarian politics. I interviewed him a few years ago. He was a political prisoner of the Nazis, and then of the Communists. Dodged death more than once. After the war, he was the youngest member of Parliament. Then came a long, productive American exile. (Ran for Congress, as a Republican!) After the fall of Communism, he returned to Hungary, where he reentered Parliament as the oldest member.

How thrilling it must have been — how satisfying — to reenter that body, after all that time. It must have been a dream come true, really. Not so much his personal return to Parliament, but the death of Communism and the reintroduction of democracy.

‐As we are sailing along, I have to tell you: The Danube is more green than blue. The waltz is “On the Beautiful Blue Danube.” I’m sure it got that name for a reason. The reason, I don’t quite see, with my own eyes …

‐There is an eatery in Bratislava: the Ankara Kebab Shop. Bet it’s good. There are Ankara Kebab Shops all over the world. They tend to be good.

And I have a related item: In Vienna, I go into the Mozart Café, hard by the Sacher Hotel. (Within it? I’m not sure.) What do you get, if you’re in the mood for something sweet? A slice of Sacher cake, of course. It would be strange not to.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the worst piece of Sacher cake I have ever had in my life. (And I’ve had dozens.) (Okay, hundreds.) Drier than the Sahara. Without the schlag, it is barely edible, and it’s barely edible then.

I report this to a friend of mine (Bill Kristol). He says, “Decline of the West.” I say, “Yes: but I bet the falafels, all over, are wonderful.”

Incidentally, the best slice of Sacher cake I have ever had was in Anif, outside Salzburg — at the Friesacher Hotel. I’ve had many slices at the Sacher Hotel (in Salzburg). Hit or miss.

May be the same way at the Friesacher, not sure. My sample there is too small …

‐In Vienna, as in Salzburg and elsewhere in Austria, pedestrians wait at the red lights. Even if there are no cars within miles. They wait and wait until that sucker turns green. My American feet can hardly stand it. But if you bolt, while others are waiting, it feels awkward. This goes triple when there are children with their parents.

You know?

‐It is a shock, for someone like me, who lives in New York, to see female cabbies. Attractive, young female cabbies. I think, “This is a sign of a civilized place.” Would you want your daughter to be a cabbie in a big city? I have a feeling that Viennese fathers don’t mind.

(That Vienna has not always been a civilized place, I don’t need to state. Do I?)

‐St. Stephen’s Cathedral is very, very old. But there’s a touch of the modern here now. Three words are beamed up toward the ceiling, from a projector of some kind: Glaube, Hoffnung, and Liebe, which is to say, “faith,” “hope,” and “charity.” This mingling — of the medieval and the modern — is nicely brought off, I must say (conservative that I am).

‐I peek into another church — very, very ornate. Sort of the church version of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s club in Palm Beach. (I had a very nice evening there once. I liked the club, even if it was “over the top.” There’s room in life for over-the-top. Not everything can be under.)

A sign says that a choir from Baylor University will sing here in the church. They’ll sing Bach and Pärt (i.e., Arvo Pärt, the contemporary Estonian) — and the Alleluia of Randall Thompson, one of the great hits of the American choral repertoire.

Glad about that.

‐Cruising along the Danube is a ship called “Jane Austen.” Funny to think of the writer honored in a ship’s name! But why not?

The greatest compliment ever paid an author, I think, was paid to Jane Austen — by I forget which Oxbridge don. Someone said to him, “You don’t read novels, do you?” He said, “I certainly do: I read all six of them every year.”

(I’ve never gotten through one, but we can discuss that another time.)

‐You don’t want to get in the way of someone’s picture. You want to wait till he snaps. For years — eons — you could pass behind the picture-taker. But what do you do now? It can be impossible to know whether the guy’s taking a selfie or not. You don’t know which way the camera, or “camera,” is pointing.

Do you know what I mean?

‐Aboard our ship are conservative luminaries: Mona Charen, David Pryce-Jones, Charles Murray, John O’Sullivan, others.

Those others include General Ervin Rokke, of the Air Force. He is an hombre and a half. Tall, authoritative, gentlemanly. His name is pronounced “Rocky.” The general is from Minnesota and a full-blooded Norwegian. He went to the Air Force Academy. And then Harvard, for two degrees — master’s and Ph.D. His dissertation adviser was Kissinger.

In the military, Rokke played many, many roles. Later, he was a college president. Now he does other things.

We talk about multiculturalism, and the importance (as we see it) of E pluribus unum, one America. He mentions the time he began to study Norwegian. His aunt was alarmed. She said to his father, “Our family has been trying to get rid of a Norwegian accent for 50 years. And now this?”

I love the study of languages — but I also love the assimilationist spirit.

‐Speaking of language: General Rokke tells a story about a pilot, on a flight. The pilot in question “greased the landing.” Non-military people like me tend to like military lingo. May give us a vicarious thrill.

#share#

‐To Linz. Home of Bruckner. And the Wittgensteins. And you-know-who.

On the Old Cathedral is a plaque honoring Bruckner. He served as organist here. Don’t get me started on Bruckner — a composer about whom I love to talk (and on whom I once lectured in these very parts).

I figure I should get some Linzer torte, but it doesn’t happen. Could it be for the best, given my experience with the Sacher variety in Vienna?

I do see people eating ice cream — quite older people, who are licking their cones with relish. I like this sight.

And I’m reminded of something. Years ago, in an ice-cream parlor in Washington, D.C. — Thomas Sweet (Georgetown) — I looked over and there was Bob Hope. He was licking a cone, and enjoying it very much. He was very, very old. His skin was translucent.

I smiled at him and gave him a thumbs-up. He grinned at me the most beatific grin ever grinned.

It was such an odd and wonderful experience. I can’t tell you.

‐To Passau — Passau, Germany. It is the “City of Three Rivers.” “I thought that was Pittsburgh,” I remark to a local. He says, “We were here first!”

Lots of Germans in Pittsburgh, too, by the way.

As for Passau, I suppose I’ve seen a more beautiful city — I just can’t remember it. Passau is pretty much unsurpassed, in my experience.

‐I see a sign for Rohrbach — which lets me know where Dana Rohrbacher’s ancestors came from, at least some of them. (Rohrbacher was a Reagan speechwriter and is a California congressman.)

‐Above, I wrote “Passau, Germany.” Bear with me for a second. To senior citizens, a city, followed by a comma, followed by “Germany,” is normal. It is normal to young or youngish people, too.

When I was growing up, there was no “Germany.” I would occasionally read old literature and see “Magdeburg, Germany,” for example. Or “Aachen, Germany.” That looked antique — truly out of another era. Because Germany had been divided into West and East forever, or so I thought. It was all I knew.

Then, after 1990, towns were called, for example, “Magdeburg, Germany.” I can’t tell you how weird that looked to me. Which must seem very weird now.

But not to those in my age bracket, probably.

‐On my way home, I meet a young Dutchman. He lived in America for six months, training as a pilot. (Hope he greases landings.) He was in Phoenix. Loves America.

“What do you like about it?” I ask.

The food, for one thing.

“Do you like hamburgers?” I ask.

“I like Five Guys,” he says. “But I also love Bombay Express. And the Cheesecake Factory. There’s nothing like American cheesecake. It’s not nearly as good in the Netherlands, because of our health regulations. We can’t make food as rich. In America, there are no such regulations. So you can make cheesecake good and full and right.”

I’ll be damned. Never thought of that. But don’t give our regulators any ideas. The last thing they need is encouragement.

There’s something else this young Dutch pilot likes about America: Ross Dress for Less. I’ve never heard of it. But I’ve never heard of a lot of things. And the name is damn catchy.

Why am I ending on America in a Danube journal? Don’t know. But I thank you for joining me, and wish you the very best.