We hear why the city of Potsdam — home to elegant Prussian palaces and parklands, all in quick reach of central Berlin — is worth a day's visit. Then we get a sense of what life was really like for the emperors of ancient Rome, with the help of classicist Mary Beard. And we travel back to 1978 with Rick and his longtime buddy Gene Openshaw as they retrace their post-college adventures along the infamous "Hippie Trail" from Istanbul to Afghanistan to India, all the way to Kathmandu.

• Berlin-based tour guide Jim McDonough
• Classicist Mary Beard, author of "Emperor of Rome" (Liveright)
• Gene Openshaw, co-conspirator in Rick's "On the Hippie Trail" adventures

• Jim McDonough provides custom tours in Berlin and Potsdam. His direct e-mail address is [email protected].
• Dame Mary Beard explores day-to-day life for the head of the Roman Empire in her book "Emperor of Rome." She writes an online column for the Times Literary Supplement (TLS). Her latest entries under "A Don's Life" were written from the vantage point of her posting with the National Gallery in Washington DC, and in them she compares the change of administration in the US government with how the Roman Empire operated.
• Mary Beard's book "Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old" looks at why antiquity continues to exert a powerful hold on the contemporary imagination. It's due to be released in May 2026 by the University of Chicago Press.
• Rick's memoir about his 1978 adventure is called "On the Hippie Trail."
• Gene Openshaw is the author of "Michelangelo at Midlife: Chasing the Tomb of Julius II," and co-wrote with Rick "Europe's Top 100 Masterpieces: Art for the Traveler."