Paris to Prague

If the traveller of a hundred years ago could tear himself away from Paris, he should travel by the train de luxe, which would land him, without the trouble of changing, in Prague at a reasonably early hour of the evening.

This route is interesting in itself, as it leads through many notable places, Château Thierry, with its grim reminders of the Great War, Nancy, and Strasbourg restored to France. Then on to Stuttgart, the capital of a small but healthy German Republic, formerly the Kingdom of Würtemberg; there has been no exaggerated display of republican fervour here in this clean and proper capital, and a crown still tops the coat of arms of a line of rulers, on the former royal palace.

You cross the fertile country of Franconia, a wide curve gives you a fine view of Nuremberg, and then you ascend towards the pass that divides the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) from the Bohemian Forest. There are quaint old towns growing out of crumbling battlements perched on rocks, towns of soft-sounding South German names breathing history of long ago.

There is, for instance, Waiblingen, a very ordinary-looking wayside station, yet what memories does that name recall! Memories of Hohenstaufen Emperors, Fredericks and Conrads, down to the last and luckless Conradin, memories of faction fights between the city republics of Italy, within the walls of those cities, between Guelph and Ghibelline, Welf and Waiblingen.

This country Bavaria was also at one time the home of the Welfs; they were a strong, determined race, and spent much time and energy in vigorous opposition to Holy Roman Emperors, possibly as men of common sense they considered the whole prevailing idea of empire rather nonsensical; they were eventually banished to the country about Hanover and Brunswick, where they flourished by virtue of their forceful character.

We move along to Eger or Cheb, where we find a last reminder of the Hohenstaufen in the ruins of a castle and a round two-storied chapel built by Frederick Barbarossa.