Ah yes, Venice. Overcrowded, overpriced, filthy and smelly. Graffiti and tattered posters all over the Rialto bridge, the stagnant canal covered with rotting oranges just outside the restaurant window - these are a few of my unfavourite things.
Now for funny-peculiar. Driving into Hungary from Austria in 1972, along a kilometre of straight road raise a metre above empty ploughed fields, my wife and I reached the frontier post with its 5-metre high wire fence, entered the frontier post through the two sets of gates, past a dozen sentries with machine guns, handed our passports and documents to the guard, and settled down to wait. We had been there before: it had taken three hours to get cleared, during which time we tried to drink the weakest and sourest coffee in the world, an experience not to be repeated. But not this time. No sooner had we settled ourselves in the line of waiting vehicles than an officer appeared, escorted by two goose-stepping soldiers with bayoneted rifles shouldered, coming straight towards us. And what an officer ! Tall, handsome, pencil-thin moustache, gleaming half-boots, and a uniform obviously tailored for him and impeccably pressed - he should have been in full Hussar kit. He ceremoniously handed us our documents, all duly stamped, saluted, and called to the guards at the exit gates. They called something back (neither of us spoke Magyar) and he drew himself up and shouted at them. Both sets of exit gates were opened for us, to our amazement and that of the other people who clearly had been waiting for some time, and off we drove as the exit guards presented arms. Why we were given the VIP treatment, I can't imagine.
Got any story from here? 
