Read in 2026 - 33: Prague Winter

Prague Winter

Madeleine Albright

Once again, I have not lost count of the books I have read. #32 will share a review with #34, but this one - #33 - fully deserves its own post.

A paperback lent to me from my book-swapping friend A., "Prague Winter" is not merely an autobiography focusing on Madeleine Albright's childhood. It is also not merely a book about WWII and the years immediately preceding and following it, or yet another account of the horrors committed by the Nazis (and others) during those years.

It's all of it, and more. The book puts the author's family history in the context of her country of origin's history, and that in the wider context of European politics shaped by the contradicting ideologies of communism, capitalism and patriotism, with racism and anti-Semitism being by no means exclusive to just one nation.

While I knew a little bit about Madeleine Albright*, there was a lot more I didn't. She herself only learnt at the age of 59 that her family was originally Jewish and that a large number of her relatives were murdered in the Holocaust.

Her parents put the family's safety first, but her father was definitely not one to take a back seat in politics and current events; he talked to everyone he met, listened to their differing ideas and opinions, maintained his personal integrity during his entire career as a diplomat and later professor, raised a family and didn't take lightly the choices he made. The author loved both her parents dearly but was influenced mainly by her father's example.

Also, of course I knew (we were taught at school and also from my own reading) how the Nazis rose to power, how they started the second World War and all the atrocities they commited. But I didn't know what a pivotal role Czechoslovakia had played, and how the reluctance and misplaced trust of several of the other heads of state contributed to it all.

I find this an important book, as well researched as it is written. In the back, the book contains a useful list of personalities mentioned, and an even more useful timeline as well as extensive notes pointing to the sources of quotations and statements.

Next time I'll see friend A., I'll ask if she has more books written by Madeleine Albright.

*For instance, that she was a refugee herself, as I only learned from the unforgettable R-E-S-P-E-C-T campaign video. Sorry for the bad quality, it's the only one I found at a quick research on youtube.

Last October Week

Last week brought out more of the classic "Golden October" weather. Nights and mornings were cold to match the season. I was less busy than the previous two weeks and glad for the respite before another flurry of activities starts this week.

Monday to Thursday saw me looking after my neighbours' pets, which means me going to their place (in direct line of view from my kitchen, but on foot having to walk around the corner and into the next street) twice a day to fill their dishes, clean the rabbit hutch and - if he's around - play/snuggle with Neo the cat.

Monday (26 October) was a hassle-free day of working from home until I left early enough to walk to Benningen, getting there around sunset and taking the train home to Ludwigsburg. It was dark by the time I reached first my neighbours' house and then mine.

Moonrise from my kitchen that evening

Another golden day followed on Tuesday (27 October). Because with all the conferences I had accumulated some extra work hours, I took a couple of them off that afternoon and walked to the palace by the lake.

Reflections for Monica!

A bit more work followed before I met an old friend at 6:00 pm near the station for a meal at the American Diner on the other side of the road. It was nice to catch up but a little worrying that neither of us could remember exactly when we'd last met - a year ago? Two? More? Time goes by so quickly I sometimes get the years mixed up.

When I popped in to check on the rabbits and the cat afterwards, Neo was home and very insistent that he snooze on my lap for a while.

I worked at the office in Weilimdorf on Wednesday (28 October) and, as is frustratingly often the case, the trip there took almost an hour instead of the scheduled 17 minutes. The trip back was a little smoother, and I arrived at my Mum's a bit before my sister. The three of us enjoyed a delicious meal of fluffy cheese omelette and spinach.

Thursday (29 October) started with fog so dense I could only see as far as the houses in my immediate neighbourhood. The photos do not do the somewhat mysterious atmosphere justice.

It brightened up eventually, and my after-work walk took me to Pattonville, where I'd not been since the end of March.

It was a cold morning at 3C/37F on Friday (30 October) but sunny. 

After work came my usual cleaning round and then a bit of pottering about until it was time to leave for the "Blauer Engel" (blue angel), a restaurant maybe ten minutes from my house in the city centre where a table was booked for a group of former school mates of mine. We meet a few times a year, but I had not been to any of the meetings yet this year. They didn't know that I got married in May, and I happily gave them an update.

The food was good and service friendly and efficient, and I enjoyed talking to most of the group (there were ten of us), but it was VERY noisy at the restaurant (it's all tiled floors and concrete, steel and glass - no curtains, carpeting or cushions to muffle the soundwaves a bit) and I was the first to leave.

On Saturday (31 October) I took a series of three trains to Offenburg. The connection between #2 and #3 didn't work out, as the second train arrived in Karlsruhe exactly one minute AFTER the third train departed there, as you can see on this screenshot from the railway "navigator" app on my phone: 

All in all, I was almost an hour late - but only almost, which was good for the railway company but not for me: After a 60 minutes delay, you are entitled to a refund - at 59 minutes, you are not!

Anyway, as it was a beautiful afternoon, I enjoyed the last leg of the journey, looking out at the beautiful colours of woods and vineyards along the way. 

My husband picked me up as usual and we had enough time for a very welcome mug of coffee before he drove us to a nearby village where we met with a couple of friends for a meal at a restaurant in yet another village, a place I'd never been to. Again, it had been a while since we'd last met those friends, and we enjoyed catching up as much as the food.

Sunday (1st of November) was All Saints, an important day in the Catholic church. The village is predominantly Catholic, and it is tradition there that on this day an open air service is held at the cemetery with the village band providing the music. The priest walks around blessing the graves, and the people sing and pray and light candles on the graves of their loved ones. 

As I've been coming to the village for more than ten years now, I already know several people who have found their last resting place there, among them my father-in-law and a fellow band member who died a few years ago before her 50th birthday. To gather as a community to remember our loved ones can be helpful with grief, and for some, such traditions steeped in their personal faith are important. Admittedly, I wouldn't be there if it wasn't for my husband playing in the band - and neither would he.

It was not freezing, but cold enough with an unpleasant wind so that we were happy to go home and warm up over mugs of steaming hot coffee and a piece of walnut pie before we set off again, this time for a walk to take in the beautiful late afternoon light.

A cosy evening at the cottage followed, and as usual an early bedtime in view of Monday's early start. Another month gone and only two left of this year!

What We Did Last Saturday

In my previous post, I mentioned that the Saturday of that week deserved its own post. Here it is!

For our wedding, among other gifts my Mum and my sister had given us a voucher for a famous and popular restaurant in Stuttgart. It was founded in 1991 by chef Vincent Klink and received a Michelin star for the first time in 1998. Mr Klink is well known in Germany, especially in our area, as he's been on cooking shows on TV for many years. My parents loved his show and often watched it together, but somehow a visit to the restaurant never came about.

Now that my husband and I had been presented with the voucher we only needed to find a date and time for our visit... of course that's easier said than done! It took several emails back and forth, because the relatively small restaurant is almost always fully booked (Wielandshöhe, the website is only available in German but has photos of the place).

Contrary to our usual meal times, we booked a table for lunch last Saturday (24 October), as evenings are even more popular. It turned out to be a good idea, because it meant we still had plenty of daylight left for a walk afterwards.

Having skipped breakfast, we took two local trains plus a funicular to Wielandshöhe in Stuttgart, a journey of about an hour. I'd last been in this area in April 2025, and after our meal we walked part of the tour my sister and I had done back then with some of her colleagues. Click here for the post from 2025 and scroll down until you reach Sunday, if you want to see the pictures from then.

We had been asked not to turn up before 12:00, and since we had a few minutes to spare, we walked up from the funicular stop to catch some views of Stuttgart. It began to drizzle just as we were on our way back to the restaurant.

View from Wielandshöhe towards Fernsehturm ("TV Tower"), a famous Stuttgart landmark

Mr Klink's daughter, Eva Klink, manages the restaurant. She stood at the entry, checked our reservation and lead us to a table by a window to the terrace. My husband gallantly offered me the seat with the best view. Hot wet towels were brought to our table so that we could wipe our hands - a small but very effective gesture, adding to our comfort and making us feel welcome.

The meal was very good, the food and wines as excellent as the service. There was plenty of staff, and at one point Mr Klink walked in from the kitchen, stopped at every table and exchanged a few words with the guests. His daughter made the rounds at the tables several times, and although she was friendly with us, we overheard a conversation with guests at a nearby table where she reacted very brusquely when they politely asked where the mushrooms had been picked.

We enjoyed every one of the three courses (plus "Greeting from the Kitchen", plus an unexpected selection of mini desserts served with our espressos) and knew we weren't going to need a full meal that evening!

The sun had been out on and off and there had been the odd sprinkle of rain while we dined. When we eventually left the restaurant at about 3:00 pm, it was dry, windy and sunny, and we started on our walk, consulting the leaflet I had picked up on the way. The exact starting point was a bit hard to find, as the map wasn't very detailed and I couldn't remember at first where we'd started 1 1/2 years ago (I was part of a group then and not responsible for finding the way, and therefore didn't pay all that much attention).

Good part of the way was in the woods, then past one cemetery and across another before we reached the historic cable car that took us down into the valley of Stuttgart again.

The cable car travels on top of this bridge to cross a busy road.

From there, we took a tram into the city centre and walked along the Königstraße ("King's Road"), Stuttgart's largest pedestrian area. It had seemed a good idea, but we were soon fed up with the throngs of people, similar to my recent experience in Munich. Anyway, we caught a local train back to Ludwigsburg, where I made use of the remaining daylight and dry weather to clean my neighbours' rabbit hutch and the outside enclosure.

A cosy evening followed with only a plate of light snacks for each of us later on while watching a film.

Not the sun, but the moon as seen from my kitchen window at 20 to 7 that evening.

Eating at the Wielandshöhe certainly was a unique and overall pleasant experience, and when we were at my Mum's for coffee & cake the next day, of course we told her and my sister all about it - after all, it had been one of their wedding presents for us. Thank you, Mum and Sis!

Another Busy Week

Last week was a little less busy than the week before but still kept me active enough with a work trip to Munich and what was probably the last time this year that I walked home from Zuffenhausen after work. A special visit to Stuttgart on Saturday will be the subject of my next post.

On Monday (19 October) I worked from home until the late afternoon sun lured me out for my customary walk to Benningen. I changed the route a little bit and took almost exactly 2 hours (as opposed to about 1 hour 45 to 50 minutes), enjoying every step and the autumn colours.

Tuesday (20 October) saw me up very early, taking a local train into Stuttgart at 6:30 in the morning and from there a long-distance train to Munich. Two hours later, I arrived there and caught a tram almost immediately to the location where I was to spend the day at a meeting with other Data Protection Officers (DPOs) in the insurance industry. 

I knew some of the other DPOs, and it was good to catch up with them, as was making new acquaintances. One woman has the same first name as I, spelled the same way; it doesn't happen often that I come across a "name-sister".

The invitation had stated the end of the meeting for about 5:30 pm, and so I reserved a seat on a train back to Stuttgart for 6:50 pm, allowing for enough time to get back from the location to Munich Main Station. To my surprise, we wrapped up the meeting an hour earlier, which gave me ample time to head back into the city centre and have a stroll.

It had been a long time since I last visited Munich "properly" - that was for a wedding anniversary weekend with my late husband, around 20 years ago. 

Munich has some iconic sights and beautiful, if somewhat pompous, buildings. The pedestrian area is large and VERY busy. In fact, I was a bit fed up with the throngs of people milling about, always seeming to stop right in front of where I was going. Also, I was tired after the early start and the discussions and talks with my fellow DPOs, and not in the best mood for a touristy stroll. Still, I had a look round, retreated into two churches for some peace and quiet and eventually made my way to the train station, where my train was already at the platform but had a delayed departure of about 20 minutes. That turned out to be good, though, because it meant that in Stuttgart I managed to catch a local train to Ludwigsburg right away with no waiting time at all. At 9:00 pm I was in my flat, relieved and tired, but satisfied that all had gone well.

Start of the pedestrian area

Inside St. Michael's church

Frauenkirche, one of Munich's landmarks

"New" town hall...

...as opposed to the old townhall

I worked at the office in Weilimdorf on Wednesday (21 October), afterwards going to my Mum's for a chat and a meal. It rained all day, so no walk other than the distances between home, the office, Mum's house and the train stations.

Thursday (22 October) was again spent at the office. The sun came out during the day, inducing me to leave as early as I could (around 4:15 pm), take the train to Zuffenhausen and walk home from there. By that time, it wasn't as sunny as I'd hoped, but still good, and I walked under some marvellous skies.

This walk mattered all the more as I knew that with the setting back of the clocks on Sunday, from now on there won't be enough daylight left after work for this. It will be around six months before I'll next do that particular walk.

The stormy winds reached us on Friday (23 October) but brought rain only in the evening. I worked from home, did a spot of food shopping and my weekly cleaning and got everything ready for my husband joining me for the weekend. He arrived at around 9:30 pm, and we sat down to eat the shakshouka I had prepared a few minutes later.

On Saturday (24 October) we skipped breakfast, only having a biscuit with our first mug of coffee, and left the house shortly before 11:00. A local train and tram took us to Wielandshöhe in Stuttgart. I will tell you more about the day and what we did there in a separate post.

Sunday (25 October) was almost completely wet and VERY windy. I am on pet-caring duty for my neighbours again, and checked on their two rabbits and the cat in the morning. 

Early afternoon, my husband and I walked to a bakery in my area, one of a handful around town that are open on Sundays. We bought an assortment of cakes and carried them all to my Mum's, where the four of us - Mum, sis, O.K. and myself - had coffee and the cakes, all of which were delicious.

A couple of hours later we went home and spent the rest of the afternoon quietly, reading and listening to music until it was time to prepare a salad and pasta with pesto for our evening meal. My husband left a little after 8:00, and I went round the corner to the neighbours' house to make sure all was well with the rabbits and the cat.

Almost full moon, as seen from my kitchen that evening

It was still VERY windy but at least the rain had stopped, and as always when my husband has been here for the weekend, I was relieved when he rang to tell me he had arrived home safely.