Slowly life returned to what passed for normal in those days. And once again I found myself drawn to the banks of the Inn. It was early summer and the river, swollen by the snowmelt high in the Alps, was still in almost full spate; its roaring and tumbling progress music to my ears. I would sit there for hours, watching the sandy-coloured mass of water rushing past just below my feet, carrying with it twigs, branches, sometimes even whole tree trunks.

After my 10,000-kilometre odyssey to the mighty Mississippi and back, I was at long last home again. Home to my family and to my beloved River Inn–timeless and untouched by the pettiness, the politics and the wars of man.