The Tower Bridge is the last of London’s bridges before the Thames River flows into the sea some 50 miles away. The massive, Gothic towers rise over 200 feet in the air, and are connected by a glass-enclosed span that rewards visitors with a marvelous view of the city. The corridor is 148 feet above the river. Completed in 1895, the bridge allows vehicular traffic to cross on two heavy hydraulically-operated drawbridges, raised several times a day to allow large vessels to pass through

miles and more than 50 million people.

At its zenith in the late 19th and 20th centuries it ruled one of the largest empires ever known, spreading to all seven continents. Today, the British Commonwealth has replaced the former far-flung empire with a voluntary association of friendly countries- 49 and more than one billion people- with a common language, background and heritage. The strength of the Commonwealth resides in its diversity- all countries equal with fairness to all.

Occupied as long ago as 60, 000 B.C. by Western and Northern invaders, and much later (3, 000 B.C.) by Celts, England’s history is so involved and complex only an overview is possible. The Romans occupied it for almost five centuries, then Angles, Saxons, Jutes and later Danes for another 500 years until the Norman King William I made the last successful invasion of England. Before William there had already been 15 Anglo Saxon and Danish kings. He continued the reign of kings: four Norman, eight of the House of Anjou-Plantagenet, three of

One of two fortifications built by the Romans against the “barbarians” of the north was Hadrian’s Wall, stretching 73 1/3 miles east to west across England. Ordered by Emperor Hadrian in 120 A.D., it required 12 years to build. The continuous stone wall was ten feet thick, 20 feet high in places and protected by broad ditches on either side. Along its length was a series of forts (17-19 in number) accommodating from 500 to 1,000 men. Total garrison of wall: about 10, 000 men

the House of Lancaster, with all three Henrys, IV, V and VI, three of the House of York, including Richard III, five of the House of Tudor, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, two of the House of Stuart, Oliver Cromwell and Richard Cromwell of the Commonwealth, four of the restored House of Stuart, seven of House of Hanover, including Victoria, and four of the House of Windsor, including present Elizabeth II, since 1952.

It represents an amazing engineering fest, and for centuries observers have wondered “why” and “how” about the huge oval of lintels and megalithic pillars. The widely-held view of the 18th and 19th century romantic was that Stonehenge was the work of the Celtic Druid cult, but later study indicated the builders predated the arrival in Britain of that group. The latest thinking dates on the Stonehenge from 1850 and 1300 B.C. The monument stands out starkly on the plain of Salisbury, about nine miles north of the city.

A Harvard astronomer put Stonehenge through a computer and concluded: solar and

What are the chances of nature producing three brilliant sisters, two of them internationally know, in a tiny hamlet on the moors of Northern England? It would certainly be unbelievanle, if it hadn’t happened Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte moved with three other siblings and their father and mother to Haworth, where the Reverend Bronte answered the church’s call. In the cramped rooms of the parsonage, Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, Charlotte, Jane Eyre and Anne, the lesser-known Tenant of Wildfell Hall

lunar alignments marked a calendar which men used as a guide in planting and harvesting. The outer ring of 56 holes, some yards outside the outer ring of stone, enabled priests to predict eclipses. They could assemble the people at this awesome shrine for a terrifying spectacle, and they by ritual bring back the life-giving sun!

Today, because of vandalism, the tourist is restrained by a fence from walking inside the remaining circles of stones.

Most first-time travelers from the United States approach Europe through London and England. After a nine-hour plane ride, tourists want to hear English spoken, though they may have trouble with the accent, food they

Stonehenge- Britain’s most important prehistoric monument; in fact, there is no monument of the same period anywhere in Europe which can compare with it

understand and a culture they recognize. There is so much to see and do in London, many never get beyond that grand city before hiking off to European capitals. The absolutely best feature of travel is that you make all your own rules, for each of us searches for different rewards.

The Arc de Triomphe stands in the center of Place Charles de Gaulle, an enormous circular hub still know to Parisians by its former name, Place de l’Etiole. From here, twelve grand avenues radiate outwards to all points in Paris. Begun by Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate French victories, political changes and cost overruns delayed its completion until 1836. It is the largest triumphal arch in the world

when addressed with a few faltering words of French.

The territory of France was settled as early as 10, 000 B.C. , passing through the Paleolithic, Megalithic and early Bronze Age periods until the arrival of early Greek traders about 600 B.C. and Celts a century later. Then, came the Romans for about four centuries, the Visigoths in

The 1000 foot Eiffel Tower has been called the railroad bridge that was cut in half and placed on its end. Built for the 1889 Paris Exposition and to celebrate the centennial of the storming of the Bastille, it was originally vilified, called the “Awful Tower”, but over the years has grown into the symbol of the City of Light

southern Gaul, and finally the Germanic Frankish kingdom. Much of this parallel Spanish history, except the Frankish king Charles Martel defeated the Moors (Arabians/Berbers) at Poitiers in 732 A.D., driving them out of Gaul. Charlemagne enlarged the Frankish empire, and in 800 his authority was confirmed by his coronation an Emperor in Rome. For the next 800 years, France rose to the age of absolutism with the French kingdom, supported by the Church and towns, steadily consolidating its position and establishing itself as a hereditary monarchy.

The Frankish Empire of Charlemagne was divided, and Charles II received the western part, with boundaries that remained until the late medieval period.

Long before Napoleon called England “that nation of shopkeepers”, France was fighting England, as well as the Germans, Dutch and Spanish. As the lifestyle of the French court became more lavish and expensive, less and less attention was paid to the feelings of the people of France. But the 1789 Revolution was triggered by “Le deficit”, for government debt had tripled between 1774 and 1789, much of it from supporting the American Revolution. The Church and nobility who represented less than two percent of the population but owned a third of France, where taxed heavily. The third estate: the commoners forced their way into the alliance, and Louis XVI reluctantly accepted idea of

Napoleon’s Tomb- buried first on St. Helena, the Emperor’s body was disinterred and shipped to Paris in 1840. His remains are protected by six coffins, each within another, in a massive sarcophagus of polished red marble

constitutional monarchy. It was too late. With 30, 000 muskets and five cannon from des Invalides and powder from the Bastille, la Revolution had started.

Place de la Concorde, Paris’ largest and most infamous public square became the Place of Revolution. The guillotine replace Louis XV’S statue.

During another of France’s famous wars, the Revolution, from June 1793 to July 1794, the Reign of Terror, 2, 500 people were taken in open carts to the “Nation’s Razor”, s the guillotine was called. Before that, on 21 January 1793, King Louis XVI was guillotined as 20, 000 jeering spectators crowded into Place de la Concorde square. Nine months later, on 16 October 1793, his queen, Marie Antoinette, met the same fate. In all, the Terror claimed some 50, 000 victims, 85% of them commoners. Taking advantage of the anarchy, Napoleon seized control of the government in 1799, at the age of thirty. He engaged France in the Napoleonic Wars with the major European powers from 1803 to 1815. He led two million Frenchmen and one million troops from allied or satellite states into 60 battles that claimed

Omaha Beach is peaceful today, but on the morning of 6 June 1944, two-thirds of the entire American D-Day effort was concentrated here. A ten-know wind swamped many landing craft, sending artillery guns to the bottom and drowning many men who carried 68 pounds of equipment, ammunition, explosives and food. Despite confusion and withering German firepower, small groups of men found their way off the beach and overpowered the Germans, securing Omaha by nightfall. America suffered 4, 649 casualties among all of its landing forces to put 55,000 men ashore on D-Day

between 450,00 and 1, 750, 000 casualties. After Napoleon, France swapped republic and monarchies several times. The revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the industrial revolution were major upheavals to French political and economical life.

France fought Germany twice in a 25 year period in two World Wars (1914 and 1939) in the first half of the 20th century, the second time occupied for more than four years.

France is a big country with 543, 965 square miles, about twice the size of Texas. The estimated 1998 population was 58, 804, 944, with 94% French and 81% Roman Catholic. It’s a Presidential Republic, and has had two Republics since World War II, the Fourth and the Fifth. France has been plagued in the second half of the 20th century with many problems: demands by North Africa Algeria for independence (granted in 1962), unrest of students leading to riots, immigration with expulsion in the 90s of illegal immigrants, terrorism in the mid-90s, riots in French Polynesia (Tahiti) about underground nuclear testing, bombs

The American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer covers 1, 725 acres, and lying under its green carpet of grass are 9, 386 known dead, and an additional 307 unknown. Many of them died in the landing and establishment of the D-Day invasion beachheads

exploding in the middle 90s, criticism about continued military presence in Africa, giving impression of continued colonial government, when it was a time of liberation for most African nations, economic troubles and protests about politicians receiving support from far-right groups. I remember when I was in Paris in 1995, I never could find a garbage can I wasn’t sealed; finally I was told that it was to prevent terrorist groups from planting bombs or other explosive devices in them. But

The Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel has been called “the wonder of the Western World.” Perched on its granite hill 250 feet above the surrounding flat countryside, the Abbey may be seen for miles. For centuries, rushing tides and surrounding patches of quickened made it difficult and dangerous to reach. A causeway was constructed in the 19th century, but even today the tides after the new and full moons make the crossing perilous. Mont-Saint-Michel has been many things: monastery, church, prison, center of learning, even the seat of a chivalric order

through it all, Paris and France carry on, eating their baguettes and drinking their wine.

Spain - Click to Enlarge

architecture on the outside, and magnificence on the inside. Their reasoning: why should the rich show the poor how well they live?

Spain lies on the Iberian Peninsula, south of France, north of African Morocco and east of Portugal. Including the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and several North African enclaves, it’s 194, 897 square miles. Its population is around 36 million, with Roman Catholicism the overwhelming religious preference. Its economy is based on olives, grapes,

Toledo as it looks today, much as El Greeco painted it in the late 16th century. El Greeco was named Domenicoos Theotocopoulos at his birth in 1541 on the Greek island of Crete. Many of El Greco’s paintings reflect the Catholic struggle against Protestantism, a conscious, passionate sermon for the Counter Reformation. To distinguish between the real and the supernatural, he distorted the proportions and made his figures appear to radiate with an inner light

wheat, citrus fruits, wine making, shipbuilding, cork, minerals, fishing and tourism. An industrialization drive started about 1960 and peaked in 1974. The unemployment is around eight percent.

The Phoenicians were the first people to voyage to Spain, in the 11th century B.C., followed by traders from the island of Rhodes and Greece. The African state of Carthage (in present Tunisia) began exploring the peninsula in the second half of the 3rd century B.C. Rome objected to this, and in 206 B.C. the Second Punic War started between the two powers. Rome won, and Carthage left Spain. Rome ruled until the late 5th century A.D., when the Visigoths triumphed: they maintained rule until 711 when the Berber Muslim army conquered Spain, on their way to France. They reached Poitiers, near Tours, in France, where they were defeated, afterward returning to Africa. The Muslims ruled Spain until 1492.

In 1469, the marriage of Isabella I of Castile to Ferdinand V of Navarro initiated developments that made Spain a great power.

North of Madrid, at the Valley of the Fallen, dictator Francisco Franco built a memorial to himself. Among the 20, 000 laborers who built it into the solid rock of the mountain were many political prisoners who had fought on the losing Republican side in Spain’s Civil War, 1936-39. Franco wanted the 450-foot high cross to top Paris’ Eiffel Tower

In 1478 the ruthless Inquisition attempted to halt the Protestant tide and to enforce purity of the Roman Catholic faith. Christopher Columbus was sponsored by the royal court, which financed his sea voyage to try to find a westward route to the Indies. In the 16th century, Spain sent two expeditions to find reported gold and silver in Mexico and on the South American continent. In 1519, Hernan Cortes began the conquest of the Aztec empire in Mexico, and in 1552-53, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire in Peru. Spain now controlled most South America, Central America, Florida, Cuba and in Asia, the Philippine Islands. The plundering of rich silver and gold mines brought enormous wealth to Spain. Spain was now a world power. In 1519, Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor as Charles V. His son, Philip Ii succeeded him in 1556. But Spain’s golden age was passing, as its avarice for wealth and power produced events that started the country on a decline.

Moorish arches in the Mezquita, Muslim mosque, considered to be the finest example of Muslim art in the world. These horseshoe columns are part of the 850 columns in the mosque, which support heavy piers, joined by two tiers of banded arches. The mosque was built on a site already occupied by a Visigoth church. In the 8th century, much of the church was torn down, and the mosque built on the foundation of the church. A Christian Cathedral was built inside the mosque, requiring 243 years to complete. The construction of the Cathedral inside the mosque actually helped save the Islamic structure, for after the Reconquest, over 350 mosques in Spain were lost or destroyed

In the 16th century, interior revolts in Spain and the sinking of the Spanish Armada by England in 1588 started the decline of the once mighty power. In addition, two wars with France had taken an economic toll. In the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Spain relinquished its European possessions. The French in Napoleon’s time restored the Spanish monarchy, and after the Spanish- American War of 1898, Spain lost Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. Spain’s neutrality in World War I gave a huge boost to the economy, and the Second Spanish Republic was born. But on 18 July 1936, a revolt began with the Nationalists led by General Francisco Franco fighting the Royalists. Franco was aided by support from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, who used the war to hone the skills their military in preparation for World War II. The Royalists were aided by the Russians. On 1 April 1939, Franco’s Nationalists triumphed, and for the next 36 years Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist, until his death November 1975. In 1947, Spain was declared a monarchy, but Franco actually ruled. Spain moved from being a pariah to acceptance in the world community when it joined with UN forces against the communists in Korea in 1950. King Juan Carlos succeeded to the throne on Franco’s death. Today, Spain is a major player in European affairs.

Tourists flock to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, often in pose of trying to push it over or hold it upright

Supper, the history of the Roman Empire in the architectural remains of The Forum and Pompeii, the ornately beautiful Leaning Tower of Pisa and the incomparable Colosseum, the magnificence of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Milan Cathedral- all present a feast for the tourist’s eyes. My two subsequent visits to Italy have reconfirmed my original opinion.

The II Duomo di Milano- Milan Cathedral is breath-taker, with its vertical triangular façade of turrets, columns, carvings and statues. One source book says the Duomo counts 2, 245 statues, another say more than 3, 000, with about 1,800 of those on the roof. Begun in 1386, work on it spread over the next four and a half centuries, completed only at Napoleon’s command in 1809

Although the earliest human settlement of Italy started at the beginning of the Paleolithic era (about one million B.C), it wasn’t until 2, 000 B.C. that Italic tribes inhabited the scattered areas of the peninsula. Around 900 B.C., the first major unification occurred with the arrival of the Etruscans in central Italy. The Greeks came soon after, trading and exploring around the boot, but their influence waned with the arrival of the invading Gauls from the north and expanding Roman power from the south. By the third century B.C. , Rome controlled the entire peninsula except for the scattered Greek city-states. The Roman Empire ruled from the third century B.C. though the 5th century A.D. It unified the entire Mediterranean rim, some 50 million people, 3,000 miles wide.

Rome’s military victories and the spoils of war created a climate for corruption in the upper classes. Add to this, the conflict of the classes in the Roman republic (3rd century B.C. -87 B.C.) and a two-year slave revolt, put down by Pompey the Great. But his reign was short-lived when has defeated by Julius Caesar. A small faction, fearing Caesar’s growing power, assassinated him on the Ides of March 44 B.C. His nephew triumphed in the ensuing power struggle, and took the title of Augustus Caesar, inaugurating the age of emperors, in 27 B.C. Forty-four would follow him until 337 A.D. A sybaritic blood and persecution of the followers of the new religion, Christianity. After the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410 A.D, a scramble for power began and ended in 476 A.D. when an Ostrogoth chieftain was crowned King of Italy. That date, 476 A.D., is regarded as the terminus of the Roman Empire. Increased church and papacy power replaced imperial authority. Attacks from the outside continued on

One of the Venice’s gondoliers, equipped for the ‘90s with his cell phone. Gondolas last about 20 years, cost about $ 22, 000.00

the weakened state, but from  11th to the 13th century, Rome grew as the administrative center of the Roman Catholic Church. The 14th through the 15th century led to the Reformation and the Renaissance, the first splitting the Catholic Church, the second giving the world artistic geniuses. During the 15th and part of the 16th century a family with immense power in Italy was the Borgias. It produced popes and ruthless rulers.

Napoleon united Italy in 1798 for the first time in 1300 years by joining the southern provinces with the Kingdom of Naples and the remainder of the Roman Republic. With his fall in 1815, the Congress of Vienna carved up Italy, shuffling kingdoms and giving considerable control to Vienna. By 1870, a national movement for unification surged, climaxing in a new Kingdom of Italy under Victorio Emanuele on 20 September 1870. The chaos of World War I created the climate for the birth of fascism and Benito Mussolini. In 1940, Italy entered World War II on the side of the Axis powers, Germany and Japan, but when the Allies landed on Sicily, Mussolini was dethroned and hung by his heels. Italy then declared war on Germany and Germany retaliated by invading and occupying Italy. On 2 June 1946, the monarchy was abolished, a democratic republic declared. It’s been a

One of the grandest sights in the world, the Colosseum in Rome seated 45, 000 Romans, screaming for bread and circuses. The emperors used the games to divert the people from the debauchery of the slowly crumbling Roman Empire, with spectacles of the clashing of steel swords by gladiators who fought to the death, Christians being mauled by lions and other animals, and the crowds shrieking for more. Emperor Trajan (98 B.C. – 117 A.D.) offered 123 straight days of murder: 5, 000 Christians, 11, 000 animals. The once invincible empire soon broke apart, leaving behind law, language and culture and a monument still standing

rocky road since then, with more than 50 different governments since 1946, though order has been maintained through a well-established bureaucracy.

Italy’s boot shape is instantly recognizable. From north to south, it’s about 850 miles, east to west 180 miles, with a square-mile land area of 301, 323. The population estimate of 1998 was slightly less than sixty million. Tourism is a big part of its economy, as indeed it should be, with such treasures.

Germany - Click to Enlarge

from 1949-61. To stem the tide, in 1961 the Soviets built a 16 foot-high wall, snaking its way a hundred miles around the Soviet sector, a moat to keep East Berliners inside, the West Berliners out. The stately old Brandenberg Gate sits in the eastern sector.  The Wall stood for 28 years until 1989, when West Berliners, eager to reunite with their families, started chipping at it, and finally brought it down. Before the Wall, the Soviets had tried another tactic, closing all vehicular traffic to the Western powers in June1948. This resulted in a 250-day massive airlift of supplies and food to the 2.5 million Germans in the western sector. Finally, on 17 April 1949 the Soviets lifted the blockade.  Cost of the airlift: $ 200 million and 55 deaths from air accidents.

The forests of present-day Germany were occupied by wandering hunters and gatherers as long as 40, 000 years ago. They were followed by Neanderthal people, Neolithic or New Stone Age, immigrants from southeast Asia, a wave of Indo-Europeans in the Bronze Age, the Celts, the Romans and the Huns by the 4th and 5th centuries A.D. Present-day Germany dates from 843 A.D. with the division of the Carolingian Empire (Charlemagne). For centuries after that, Germany was a collection of states in a loose federal association. From the 16th Century, the states involved themselves in European wars. Otto von Bismarck in 1871 unified the states into a nation.

Germany - Click to Enlarge

The first person, a man, trying to scale the Wall was killed by East German guards on 17 August 1962. Crosses on the West German side mark deaths from unsuccessful attempts. In May 1989, before our July-August bus tour to Russia, I worked in Houston with a young Berlin journalist, who invited Margaret (my second wife) and me to visit him and his wife while we were in Berlin.  Rolf Schulze toured us around Berlin, and then to his flat for an enjoyable evening with him and his wife. Rolf prophesied that the Wall would not come down his lifetime, because it would throw too many East Germans out of work, and thousand of East Germans would cross into West Germany, severely straining the successful economy of West Germany. Three months after our visit, the Wall came down. But Rolf was right about the results of the Wall’s removal. Thousands of East Germans flooded across the border into the West Germany, raising serious economic problems. German reunification was completed on 3 October 1990 as the Federal Republic of Germany.

Under Bismarck, Germany experienced rapid industrial and economic growth. In the early 20th century, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II began a campaign for European dominance, which led to World War I, beginning on 1 September 1914. Four years, two months later- and millions of young soldiers’ deaths- Germany capitulated, signing the

The entrance gate at the German Dachau concentration camp near Munich. The words, ARBEIT MACH FREI translate into English as WORK MAKES ONE FREE. One prisoner had scribbled, Abandon hope, all you who enter here; they fit Dante’s Inferno advice

Armistice on 11 November 1918. The defeat threw Germany into political and economic chaos. Adolph Hitler brought his National Socialist (Nazi) Party to fill the vacuum. His flaming speeches before thousands of worshipping Germans, eager for revenge, galvanized the military soul of Germany. I can remember coming home from high school and listening on the radio to his tirades in that foreign language.

A complex of six ovens at Dachau. According to camp office files, Dachau handled a total of more than 206, 000 prisoners. But according to the International Tracing Service, 31, 591 died at Dachau, the remaining shipped to other camps

Germany is the fourth largest country in Europe, with 137, 827 square miles, about half the size of Texas. Its terrain varies from coastal flat land to forested mountains. The 1998 population was 82, 079, 454. Through the centuries Germany has been a land of culture, producing Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Thomas Mann.

Hitler’s dream of a 1, 000-year Third Reich ended with Allied victory on 7 May 1945. World War II started with the German invasion of Poland on 1 August 1939, twenty-five years after the beginning of World War I.

Hitler’s Eagles’ Nest retreat overlooks the East Bavarian Alps. I can remember newsreels at the theater showing home movies of Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, frolicking on the patio of Eagle’s Nest. Today, Eagles’ Nest is a restaurant, and where Hitler and Eva danced on the patio, soft drinks and sandwiches are served, post cards sold. There is no mention anywhere of Hitler of the war. An elevator transports visitors’ six stories to Eagles’ Nest, which was named by a French diplomatic visitor who reasoned that only eagles could reach it

It ended five years, eight months and six days later in the crushing defeat of Germany by the Allied forces of Britain, the United States and many countrymen of the European nations, who refused to rest until Hitler was defeated. Germany had 2.85 million dead including a half million civilians killed. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945.

After the war, her factories and cities in rubble, Germany made a remarkable recovery and today is large and modern industrial nation.

St. Basil’s Cathedral anchors one side of huge Red Square in Moscow

before the breakup.

USSR is not just the largest country in the world, its 6, 592, 800 square miles occupy more than 1/9th of the world’s surface. It spreads across eleven time zones. Most of USSR is a vast, rolling plain, stretching from the Arctic to the Black and Caspian Seas. It boasts the longest continuous coastline in the world. Population: about 225 million, with over 100 ethnic groups. Ethnic Slavic Russians are the heavy majority of the population, but it has one of the widest varieties of ethnic people in the world. Russia adopted Orthodox Christianity in the 10th century, and Russian Orthodoxy is not the primary religion.

In the 1930s, the tomb of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to us as Lenin, was added to Red Square. Russians stand for hours, shuffling along in the line for a brief glimpse of modern Russia’s father

In pre-Christian times, the huge expanse of what was to become USSR was inhabited sparsely by tribes, later called Slavs. Territorial expansion from all side brought German Goths, Huns, even Viking, and in 1223, Genghis Khan with his Mongolian army. Genghis withdrew, but his grandson, Batu Khan, invaded in 1237 A.D., sacking most of the major cities. USSR eventually developed its own rulers, some of whom were as vicious as the intruders: Ivan the Great, Ivan the terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and the Romanov dynasty that lasted for three hundred years, chopped off by the 1917 revolution.

Struggles for power erupted after Lenin’s death, with Joseph Stalin emerging as the victor. He banished his rival, Leon Trotsky, from Russia, and Trotsky settled in Mexico, where  he was later murdered. But that was only one of the 42, 672, 000 people ordered killed by Stalin during the years 1929-1935. For mass butchery, he leads a shameful list.

Our bus took the same route to Moscow that Napoleon and Hitler employed- only we succeeded in our mission, taking Moscow without a single casualty. Catherine the Great ( 1762-1769) annexed 180, 000 square miles from Poland. It was her grandson, Alexander I, who defeated Napoleon in 1812, with the help of a Russian Winter, and all those miles to cross. Alexander’s great, great grandson, Nicholas II, was the czar, or ruler, when the discontent of the Russian people burst into revolution in 1917. With the removal of Nicholas, civil war broke out, a brief interlude of democracy was tried, but in 1921, the communists stood

The stunning Hermitage in Leningrad was originally built in 1765 as the Winter Palace for Peter the Great’s daughter, Elizabeth. Today, it is one of the premier museums of the world. Leningrad has had three names: Petrograd, St. Petersburg, and Leningrad. It was Leningrad when we were there, but in 1991 it reverted to St. Petersburg

as king of the mountain. In 1922, they established the USSR. In 1991, the USSR collapsed, a victim of its weak economic state, brought on partially by its striving to match the United States in arming for defense. The growing power of the independent states moving toward democratically elected governors, aided by the weak economy, forced the USSR in 1991 to set them free.

On 5 March 1946, Great Britain’s former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, responding to a personal request from his friend, U.S. President Harry Truman, made a speech at a small college in central Missouri. Westminster College enrolled less than a thousand students, but on that day the feisty Churchill gave birth to the words that would describe the Soviet Union for the next four decades. He said, “From Stettin in the Baltica to Trieste in the Adriatica, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Indeed, Stalin’s Russia, following World War II, had been gobbling up Eastern Europe countries with the gusto of a bear raiding honey-combs. Soon after, the words “Cold War” would be added to “Iron Curtain”, and they described the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. In the 1980s, efforts were made on both sides to ease the tension, and it disappeared with the dismantling of the Soviet Union.

As we drove toward Leningrad, we stopped for a picture of a “gingerbread” house alongside the highway. Emerging from the tour bus, we were besieged by those beautiful blond Russian children. They thrust “red star” and “hammer and sickle” trinkets at us, asking in return for Life Saver mints and fountain pens. After the exchange of merchandise, they reluctantly posed for this picture. Because of the variety of facial expressions, it has become another of my favorites

Our Eastern Europe and Scandinavia tour was one of the most rigorous of my entire 30 years of photographic travel. Forty-nine members of our tour group boarded the Cosmos Tours’ bus in London. Eighteen days and nearly 4,000 miles later, we stepped off it in London again. In the interim, we visited nine countries (three of them twice), eleven major cities with 13 different sightseeing tours and five ferry rides. The group was compatible without any major frictions or personality conflicts. It was a difficult way to travel, but we did see the countryside, the cities and many sights.

“Future ages wonder at us, as the present wonders at us now.” Pericles (490-429 B.C.)

the Acropolis, a shell exploded a powder magazine, destroying the inside and roof of the structure.

The first people to put foot on what is now Greek soil were immigrants from southwest Asia and Africa, some 50,000 years ago. By 7, 000 B.C., people from Asia Minor wandered onto the mainland. About 6,000

The Parthenon is 228 feet long, 101 feet wide and 66 feet to the top of the pediment. It consists of 46 columns, eight on either front or 17 on either side, counting corner columns twice. Diameter of the columns at the base is six feet 1/12 inches; their height 34 feet

years ago settlers from Asia Minor created the first great culture, on the island of Crete, the Minoan Period, from about 2200-1400 B.C. Further immigration to mainland Greece led to the Mycenaean Period, about 1,500-1,000 B.C. The next 250 years are called the Dark Age, because wars limit our knowledge of the time. The disappearance of the Mycenaean civilization led to the birth of independent city states by about 750 B.C. From 750-500 B.C., the period is called the Archaic Age, because it is compared with what followed.

The Classical Period, 500-323 B.C., produced a marriage of brilliant

Silhouette of the Parhenon

thought, arts and literature, with equally stunning successes on the battlefield by Alexander the Great (356-323 B. C). It included two Greek victories over the numerically superior forces of the Persians, Darius and Xerxes, 490 B.C. and 480 B.C.

Despite the Peloponnesian War with Sparta, the arts flourished in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.; Euripides’ Medea, Electra; Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex; Aritophanes’ The Frogs, and the philosophy of Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato (429-347 B.C.), and Aristotle (384-322 B.C). Alexander extended Greek territory to include most of the civilized world. It is said he wept because he had no more territories to conquer. After he died at age 33 in 323 B.C., his generals tore apart all he had built, with squabbles and skirmishes. In 146 A.D, Greece was made a Roman province, and would remain so until Rome’s demise in the 4th century A.D. During that time, the Roman Emperor Constantine built Constantinople as his eastern capital, with Greece under the Byzantine Empire. This lasted until 1200 A.D., and the next three hundred years were periods of great confusion, with Greece occupied by Franks, Catalans and other warriors. This was followed by over 400 years of rule by the Ottoman Turk Empire. The Greeks revolted in 1821, and after nine years of fighting were granted independence in 1830. Except for the brief years of 1923-35, it would remain a hereditary constitutional monarchy until Nazi Germany’s invasion in 1941. The Germans withdrew in October 1944, and after World War II’s end in 1945, a civil war erupted between nationalists and communists.

Our tour group flew to the Greek island of Rhodes, in the eastern Mediterranean near the coast of Turkey. After visiting the 1309 A.D. Crusader castle of St. John of Jerusalem, we wound up the cobbled, narrow street to ancient Lindos. We came across the smiling Greek woman who agreed to a picture

With U.S. financial aid under President Harry Truman’s Doctrine, in 1947 the nationalists were able to defeat and oust the communists to end the civil war. In the 50s, the Greek economy quickly recovered and ushered in a period of rapid economic and social development. Political infighting and instability followed, however, and in 1967, the military took control and stripped away most of the king’s power. This lasted until 1974, when military rule collapsed and the people voted in a republic. The new constitution ended the monarchy and established posts of president, prime minister and a cabinet. The president became a ceremonial title, and the prime minister with the help of the cabinet actually runs the country.

Greece’s land area is 131, 957 square miles, about half the size of Texas, with some 2, 000 islands comprising 20% of that total. North to south, Greece stretches 493 miles, east to west 616 miles, and 80% of the country is mountainous. Mount Olympus, at 9, 570 feet, was considered in ancient times as the home of the gods. Greece is relatively poor in natural resources, with primary exports bauxite (for aluminum), asbestos, nickel, magnesite and marble. Greece’s estimated

Classical Greek architecture at Corinth, which dates its history from the 9th century B.C. The apostle Paul’s letters to the Christians in Corinth became Corinthians in the Bible

1998 population was 10, 662, 138, with more than 95% ethnically Greek. Ninety five percent are Greek Orthodox religion. Greece is a prosperous country with a high standard of living. I found the Greeks a solemn and unsmiling people, but in the evening, with a few shots of ouzo, a Greek liqueur, they transform into frenetic dancers and soulful singers. The Athens Bar at the Houston Ship Channel has for many years been a watering hole for Greek sailors and adventuresome Houstonians.

South Africa is a land of enchanting beauty, spread across 471, 445 square miles, almost twice the size of Texas. Its borders run

South Africa - Click to Enlarge

a thousand miles east to west, 875 miles north to south, with 1650 miles of coastline. It’s the world’s largest supplier of gold, chrome and platinum, second in manganese, third uranium, fifth in diamonds. In 1993, gold export revenues reached six billion dollars U.S. Almost two million of the 30 million blacks works as migrant labor digging gold on 9-12 month contracts. The largest seam, the Witwaterstrand, is 300 miles long, beneath the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Of South Africa’s 42 44 million population, four million are coloreds (mixed blood), Asians more than one million, whites seven to eight million, and various minority groups of one million.

But South Africa’s beauty belies a turbulent past. Those Bantus we met in Zimbabwe continued to push east and south, and by about 700 A.D, had absorbed or conquered all they met. By about 700 A.D., African mined copper, iron and gold. Another eight centuries would pass, in 1488, before the San and Khoi Khoi would be surprised by the arrival of men in ships with skin white as sand, the Portuguese. A century later, on 18 June 1580, the Englishman Sir

The Cape of Good Hope, southernmost point on the African continent

Francis Drake, awed by the windswept beauty he found at the tip of the continent, would note in his log. “This cape is the most stately thing and the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth.” The scene was being set for a disruptive conflict over two hundred years in the future.

Cape Town served originally as a makeshift post office for sailors facing voyages of several years. That changed in 1652, when the Dutch East India Company, controlling the rich tea and spice trade, sent three Dutch vessels under the command of Jan van Riebeek to the Cape. That April, some 80 men and a few women and children left the ships in small boats and rowed to the beach. According to present-day Afrikaaner thinking, this day was the beginning of South African history. Dutch plans for a supply and trade station went awry when slaves were brought in from Java and Madagascar, a restless Dutch drifted outside stockade walls to establish their own farms. They became South Africa’s first “Boers”, the Dutch word for farmers. Conflicts with the Khoi Khoi were settled by the whites’ superior weapons and organization. In 1702, by the fiftieth anniversary, the white population had swelled to 1,500 people.

Many wineries dot the area north of Cape Town. South Africa’s Zinfandel has fared well in competitions with American Zinfandels. This time of year, their fall, the grapevines are scrubby

Enter the English. The British, to foil French plans, in 1795 captured Cape Town, returned it to the Dutch in 1803, reoccupied it three years later, and in 1814 the Netherlands gave the Cape Colony to Britain. When the British and the Dutch clashed, the Boers set out to carve a new state in this vast, open land. The Great Trek, from 1836 to 1838, is the storied era in South Arikaan’s history. They formed small bands of wagons that trailed cattle, children and dogs. On 16 December 1838, the

Trekboers faced 10, 000 massed, fierce Zulu warriors. Drawing their wagons into a tight circle, the Dutch laager, they prayed to God to give them a covenant. They defeated the Zulus, and 16 December 1838 became the Day of the Covenant.

On Robben Island, the quarry where Mandela and other prisoners worked. Mandela spent the last 18 of his 27 captive years here

Using his wealth, Cecil Rhodes in 1890 became prime minister of Cape Colony. The Boers had moved 400 miles north, but continued clashes with the British resulted in the first Anglo- Boer War of 1880-81, which the Boers won. But then in 1886, a huge gold seam was discovered at Witwaterstrand in Afrikaaner Transvaal. In less than a decade, some 80, 000 foreigners jammed the mining sites at Johannesburg, outnumbering the Boers two to one. The eventual friction produced the Second Boer War of 1899-1902, won by the British Generous in victory, Britain granted full political rights to Afrikaaners. Britain had defeated the Boers and the Zulus in 1879 and was not undisputed master. In 1910, Britain and the Afrikaaners joined to form the Union of South Africa. This lasted until 1931 when Britain granted independence to South Africa.

In elections in the ensuing years, the Boers took over the government,

Our guide, Patrick Matanjana, with tourists at Robben Island, where Patrick served 20 years. We saw Mandela’s cell (6x8 feet), mat, blanket and bucket for toilet

and in 1948 passed a notorious serious of apartheid (“apartness”) laws, codifying what had been customs. During the next 50 years, blacks were moved to distant townships. Where they could work and what they could do were strictly enforced with passbooks. Violations meant jail, beating, and murder. Black were offered “independence” in new homeland, often the most barren of the country’s territory. To combat this, despite certain torture, black leaders emerged, and foremost of these was Nelson Mandela. He entered prison in 1963, and didn’t emerge until 1990. In 1990, the South Africans dismantled the apartheid system. With blacks voting for the first time, in 1994 Nelson Mandela was elected president. Though many problems lay ahead, the long nights of misery and torture were over.

Zambia - Click to Enlarge

In Zambia, looking toward Danger Point cataract and the Boiling Pot, at bottom. I was told that some of the best viewing of the falls was from the Zambian side, but other than this picture, the heavy spray obscured the cataracts completely, and also drenched me. Once back at the hotel in

Zambia - Click to Enlarge

Victoria Falls, however, the dry air and sunshine quickly dried all my clothes. If you visit Victoria Falls in the non-flood period of the year, you’re not as impaired by the spray from the surging waters, but you do miss the full rush and sound of the falls. Over 150 million years old, the falls were created at a time when the earth’s crust cooled and contracted, forming crevices.

Cecil Rhodes dreamed of an English-controlled railroad from Cairo, Egypt, in the north to the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa. Like so many dreams, it died in the surge of nationalism that swept across the African continent.

Today, vehicles, trains and pedestrian traffic cross the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Some adventurous tourists bungi jump from the bridge, hurtling toward the Zambezi River below. In fact, on my Antarctic cruise in January 1999, one of my fellow passengers, a woman, had done that very thing. And I recently received a card from her reporting she was up to her old tricks again, in Cairns, Australia.

Devil’s Cataract, the tourist’s first view of Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe lies in southeast Africa, north of Botswana, which is north of South Africa, and south of Zimbabwe and Malawi, Mozambique to the east. Most people visit Zimbabwe to view and photograph Victoria Falls. The falls are a violent interruption of the 1700-mile-long Zambezi River, which forms the boundary between Zimbabwe and Zambia

their flight”. He named them Victoria Falls for his queen.

Though Zimbabwe’s history date to the Stone Age culture, 500, 000 years ago, the most solid information starts around 300 A.D. with the arrival of the Bantu, who drove the  San (Bushmen) into the Kalahari Desert. Five hundred years later, another culture built the great Zimbabwe, along with more than 200 other structures. The Muslims came in the 10th century, the Portuguese in the 17th. First half of the 19th century, the Ndebele, a Zulu clan from the south, arrived and conquered the resident Shona, but were outwitted by that empire builder, Cecil John Rhodes.

Son of a priest, Cecil Rhodes left England to join his brother in South Africa. The younger Rhodes made his fortune buying rights to diamond fields in Kimberly; in a few years he owned the rights to 90% of the world’s treasure. Spurred by tales of King Solomon’s mines, he raised a private army and in 1890 crossed the Limpopo River, tricked the king, Lobengula, into the signing away prospecting rights and finally defeated him, native spears no match for English Gatling and automatic Maxim machine guns. Rhodes ran the

At flood stage, April-June, the Zimbabwe pours two million gallons of water every second over the mile-wide falls, and then plunges 355 feet to continue on its way to the African east coast

territory like his own private reserve until 1923 when it became Southern Rhodesia, a self governing British Colony. But the mines were never as rich as the prospector’s imaginations.

Southern Rhodesia formed a federation with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After ten years it fell apart in 1963, with the two other countries gaining independence as Zambia and Malawi. Against the growing tide of nationalism raging on the continent, Prime Minister Ian Smith declared Rhodesian independence on 11 November 1965. Great Britain declared it an illegal act: the UN imposed sanctions. By 1972, black, armed resistance independence was declared giving the blacks an opportunity to be part of the government. Fearing bloodbaths, in the next few years over 3/4s of the white population fled. Of Zimbabwe’s eleven million populations today, whites represent only about 80, 000. Recently, blacks, impatient with the slow land distribution, have taken over forms of whites. President Robert Mugabe has most of the

The Main Falls, widest cataract of the falls

time supported the seizures In contradictory rulings, the courts have ruled for and against the actions of the blacks. The bloodbaths haven’t happened, though there are individual incidents of white farmers being killed. Some whites have drifted back, but overall, enormous challenges confront Zimbabwe.