Warsaw to Krakow

Warsaw, apart from being the capital of Poland and its comercial centre, is, well, not much else. This was the scene of the aptly named Warsaw uprising at the end of WWII when the Polish underground fought a vicious battle against the Nazis. The thought was the Red Army is approaching and they would time the uprising so that the Russians could help out. The timing was right, too bad about the last part. Once the Russian army reached the outskirts of the city, they stopped. They had a great view of the city and the Poles fighting, and eventually losing. The Nazis were so pissed off at the uprising that they completely levelled the city, flat. Hence there is not much to see really. Some parts of the old town were rebuilt but the rest is pretty new. There is an interesting picture of Lenin though, and quite large. So Warsaw was a rest place for us, three days in a proper hotel. Then, on to Krakow which is a different story.
Krakow is a beautiful city which was almost untouched in the war. It has a magnificent castle in the centre of he town, which looks brilliant at night. The river flows through the town which gives it a chilled atmosphere. In the middle of the town is a large square with a church tower at one end and a cloth exchange on one side. Every hour someone blows a bugle from the church tower but the song is dramatically cut short mid-note. Historically this bugle tune was to warn the town of impending attack. During one such attack, the bugler was killed with a Tatar arrow through the throat while sounding the warning, and now it is commemorated every hour.
Just outside Krakow there is a salt mine which was used for hundreds of years and is now a tourist attraction. Actually it has been a tourist attraction for about 150 years already. This was to be an attraction unlike any we have seen in Eastern Europe so far, for a start we were allowed to take pictures. Also the mandatory tour guide was pleasant, funny and informative. But don’t worry, it was balanced with the rude and pushy tourists, mostly non-native English speakers which was strange being the English speaking tour. She took us down the mine, down over 80 flights of stairs into a different world. There are many chambers, completely made out of salt and mostly hewn out of the rock itself. The main chamber is breathtakingly huge, dotted with statues, reliefs, a magnificent chandilier made of salt and what look like 3D paintings. Considering the work was done by only three men and it is ALL made of salt, this was no mean feat. It is hard to describe the magnitude of the chamber so I will leave it to the pictures to demonstrate. After the tour had finished (over two hours), we thankfully took the lift back to the surface. It took 25 seconds to reach the top and the lift was moving. It’s hard to imagine spending so much time down there it is like you are living there, which is why they built the chambers and chapels in the first place.
Not too far from Krakow is another famous place, but famous for all the wrong reasons, Oswiecim or more commonly known by its German name, Auschwitz. There are two parts of the complex open, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Birkenau is the larger of the two and the one with the well-known sight of the brick arch through which the trains would enter. If you have seen Schindler’s List you would know what I am talking about. The two camps are about a 5 minute drive apart. I think there has been plenty written about Auschwitz and most know about the atrocities committed there, but there is something different about being there. We saw more than one person crying there, especially in the crematoria, which I have to admit did feel a little emotional, especially since they look like they could still be used. There is a feeling over the place, one friend told me it was eerie, but to me it was less tangible than that. It felt, for want of a better word, industrial which gives it a morose feeling given what the industry was. It is good that the place is still there and is being visited by many people, ironically mostly Germans from what we could see. It would be tragic for this to be forgotten and happen again (at least not in Europe, Africa doesn’t seem to count sometimes, but we wont get into that. Lets just say that the sooner they discover oil in black Africa the better).
Krakow was great, Poland has treated us well. We have one night in a tiny, country town in Eastern Slovakia and then it is off to Romania.

Hiccup Count - final

So this is it, the last hiccup count. I capitulated and 'decided' that I would stop counting when she got to 1000. Well, Since today is Tanya's birthday and she has reached 1129, i think this is a good time to sign off on the hiccup count. Tanya was doing a count of her own, counting how many McDonalds there were in Poland that we saw. Somewhere about 59 she lost count. By the way, Burger King count (Hungry Jacks), two.

Vilnius revisited

Having looked at the previoius blog, I believe that I havent given Vilnius its fair due, so here is an effort to rectify that.
Vilnius has lots of statues, some of them are typical statues of dudes, or dudes on horses, but some statues in this town are eclectic, eccentric and some are just down right wierd. To start with the dudes, there is a communist looking statue on a bridge called the green bridge, which is actually green, of a pair of workers, male and female holding a sheaf of wheat, symbolising everything good about communism. It was such a good symbol that these are the only communist statues left, the rest were torn down, but apparently they like these. There is a statue of a dude with a horse, called Gediminas (the dude, not the horse) who is trying to cut the air. He was a famous king around here and may or may not have done some good\bad things. His statue is just outside the cathedral and the whole area was once an important pagan site. Then there are the odd statues. There is a statue of an egg on top of a pole. It was there for a long while when it hatched... and another statue came out of it. This statue was of an angel with a trumpet. >Both of these are in different places in the city. There is also an angel sitting, wearing a pair of rollerblades. Vilnius could not be called unimaginative.
Another cool thing is a bridge that has hundreds of locks on it. People come on their wedding day and put a padlock on a bridge, to symbolise their union. Most of them have engravings on, with names and dates. I think that someone must come along every now and the to remove them because none of the locks were more than 2 years old. Speaking of weddings, we saw quite a few on the Saturday, and Sunday for that matter, in the numerous churches in this city. One must have been for a rich or important couple (read mafia) because they had a square in front of the church to themselves, and a camera man who was filming them while they danced. Without music. And the camera man was doing circles around the couple like it was a Michael Bolton film clip. One more thing that is really eccentric. There is an area, kind of a suburb called Uzupis which has its own declaration of independence and bill of rights. Every April fools Day you can get your passport stamped from this pseudo-country and there is a plaque written in several languages with the constitution. Some examples are: Everyone has the right to be idle, Everyone has the right to sometimes be unaware of his duties, Everyone has the right to realize his negligibility and magnificence, Everyone has the right to understand nothing, Everyone shall remember his name, Everyone has the right to be misunderstood and my favourites, A dog has the right to be a dog and
Everyone has the right to look after a dog till one or the other dies. There are a lot more, look it up (Uzipis constitution).
Moving outside Vilnius and there is a place called Siauliai and near there is an interesting hill. During the communist era, people would come to this hill and place crosses there, some with names of deceased loved ones, some decorated, some just plain wooden crosses. Needless to say (even though I am saying it) it did not go hand in hand with communist doctrine so they were removed, only to be replaced almost immediately. This happened a few times and apparently after a while they just stopped removing the crosses. Today there are quite a few there.
So that is Vilnius revisited. Much more betterer than the first time.

Bill Lawry's hated countries

Lithuania and Lativa would be very hard for Bill Lawry to pronounce...
It was supposed to be a long drive, over nine hours with a wait at the border of Poland and Lithuania. But it didnt seem like that, at least not to me. Tanya was not feeling 100% and was, lets say making some street pizza. The border crossing was not really a crossing at all. There was only one police car there and they were just making sure everyone slowed down to the 30km/h limit. the place was overgrown with grass, totally deserted. So, with no beaurocratic hassles to deal with we proceeded on to Vilnius. As soon as we got over the border it was evident that the country was different. Although Poland is much bigger, Lithuania seemed to be open and have lots of space. The roads went from bumpy and pothole filled to stretches of clean, open roads, and straight. One piece of road was straight for about 20km. Our arrival in Vilnius coincided with our first brush with the law. The lady in the navigation system told us to make a U-turn, which she would usually follow with "if possible" meaning only if you are allowed to. Since this time she just demanded us to make a U-turn, who are we to argue with a computer. Aparently, you cant do a u-turn at that particular spot, especially in front of a police car. It wasnt a huge problem, since the cop didnt speak English and my Lithuanian is rather lacking, I showed him the navigation system with the u-turn, he checked my rego and sent us on our way. So, next time you are pulled over, blame the woman in the navigation system and hope the cop only speaks Lithuanian and you will be right.
We arrived in Vilnius late in the evening, so the next morning we headed out and luckily for us, there was a festival going on. The main street was closed off and turned into a large market with lots of food stalls, craft stalls, concerts, sport demonstrations, an old car exhibition and about 10000 Scots wearing kilts (Scotland played Lithuania in a Euro 2012 qualifier the night before, a thrilling 0-0 draw). None of these things can I show you, since for the first time in my travels, I had something stolen, my camera. I said to Tanya that morning that I was going to download all the photos that evening, but I lost them all, bugger.

We did a day trip to a place called Trakai that was recommended by the guidebook and by another traveller in the hostel, for its great castles and lake side scenery. Well, the scenerey was ok without being spectacular, but the castle was something else. It is built on an island in the lake and looked ok from the outside, but I wouldnt go as far as "one that will make your jaw drop" that the guidebook describes. Once at the entrance, you can walk through the gates to look at the courtyard of the castle before you have to pay to see the rest. If only we had followed our instincts and left it at that, but since it was fairly cheap and we had walked 45 minutes around the lake to get there we decided to go in. We bought tickets and were ushered in a direction of viewing the castle, starting at the end and working backwards, ok. There was a shooting range that had a sign saying 'open' like it was a privilege for it to be open. Since I had never used a crossbow before, I thought I would give it a go. The range supervisor was outfitted in full medieval regalia and after handing over my money, let me use the crossbow. The whole thing had the excitement and fanfare of opening a can of baked beans. There was no enthusiasm and no atmosphere at all, which must have been a condition of working there because it was to continue. We followed the suggested route, and by suggested I mean mandatory, to a large open tower with walkways on two levels. Entering one room, it led into another so I thought I would look at the second room and then come back. Whoa, there, that is not part of the suggested route and the old lady who was sitting in the corner didnt like it one little bit. She let me know that there was only one suggested route to take and it did not involve going backwards. Not knowing if I should laugh, be apologetic, angry or do all three, we continued on the suggested route. I tried to read the displays to learn something and get something for my entrance fee, but the exhibitions and explanations were, shall we say a little beige. The entire castle 'tour' seemed to be an afterthought. It was like they decided to charge people to come in, and THEN thought there should actually be something to look at. There were a lot of coins, mostly with the explanation of "Coin" written next to it, there was a bedroom set up in period style described as "bedroom of the castle". After two thirds of the tour, we began to wonder if it was a piss take or if they were serious. I think that the presence of an old lady sitting on a chair in EVERY room in the castle making sure you followed the suggested route and didnt steal a 'coin' revealed that it was an attempt at seriousness. Of course the suggested route ended up at the giftshop where you could buy your very own coin.
The border crossing into Latvia was almost as exciting as the crossing into Lithuania, only without the police car. Riga is a fun looking town that seemed to be very exiting and full of life in the evening and ull of activity, if rather mundane, during the day. I think that Riga people live to work, and work to live at night. It has a good and friendly atmosphere and is small enough that it can be explored well enough in a day and a night. It has a charm about it does Riga, with lots of cool looking buildings, funky looking statues and is supposed to have a lot of Art Deco houses, although we didnt find any.After two nights it was time to make our way back to Lithuania and a stop in Kaunas, alas it was not to be. The hostel, in its wisdom, gave the wrong address on the hostelworld website. The address we put into the cars navigation system led us to a back street leading to nowhere. The next step was to call them using the number on the website. So, we found a phone at a petrol station, but all payphones in Lithuania need a phone card, which the petrol station doesnt sell. We found a phone outside a small supermarket, which also doesnt sell phone cards. Eventually we found a shopping mall which has a booth that does sell phone cards, but the phone number we had for the hostel was wrong, to the annoyance of the guy on the other end (I called twice just to make sure and received a click as a response the second time). Since we were only staying the one night, we made a decision and would make our way to our next stop, Warsaw and find somewhere to stay along the way. (The next time we found internet access, we found that the hostel's own website has the correct address, nothing like the one on the hostelworld website). The next installment will be Warsaw, capital of Poland.

Tired of life

We left Berlin and started off on the way to Poznan in Poland. This was an occassion since Poland will be the first time both of us have been to a place neither of us have been to before, if you follow. We had a day in Poznan which we spent walking around the old town. We did the whole place in 3 hours, not rushing but its just not that big. And not really that interesting, in other words not worth writing home about. The only thing of note was a restaurant called "Pierrogeria" which is basically a pasty house and something that I think would do well in Australia. They had all types of pasties and it was really cheap too. So, Poznan done. Next we drove to Gdansk on the north coast and I have now found a contender for drivers worse than those in Adelaide. They really seem to want to die. The road is only two lanes but somehow Polish drivers seem to think you can fit three cars into two lanes. All it requires is the car you are overtaking to move onto the shoulder, and the car coming the other way to move onto the shoulder too, without slowing down of course. This is all done at 100+km/h. Of course, if you are coming the other way, you dont necessarily have to move over, as its your piece of road, but the alternative is to die. It doesnt matter if the road is approaching a bend, or rise either. The overtaking philosophy is "if I pull out and there isnt a car immediately on the other side of the road, then its ok to overtake". We havent seen an accident yet, but a few times its been close. Apparently, cyclists are hit quite often riding in the "bicycle lane" which is Polish driver's code for "extra overtaking lane". There was even a sign that could be perceived to be humourous, of a car hitting a pedestrian and the pedestrian is flying through the air. It was funny until I went around a bend and saw a pedestrian walking on the road, which is a fairly main highway (for Polish standards anyway) and then realised that the sign was there for a reason.
So, we arrived in Gdansk, found the hostel and were greated with a glass of wine. Cheers! The hostel deserves a little note here, It was called the "Lucky Hostel". It seemed to be a house that is slowly being converted to a hostel, and there were locals there who carried on "conversations", regardless of there proxiity in the house. One could be on the ground floor, one on the third floor, you just talk a little louder. It was interesting to behold. It also had the coolest shower ever. It was lit with a funky blue light, played music and the water came like rain from above. Gdansk itself wasnt too bad. This was were the cracks first appeared in the communist stranglehold. At the shipyards, they held a strike which turned into a riot and 44 people were killed. Now there is a cool looking monument, cool in a communist sort of way. I thought it poignant that it was in the shadow of this monument we saw two boys about 8 years old, talking on their mobile phones.
Just near Gdansk is a place called Westerplatte, which is the site where WWII started. This was the fortification that the Germans attacked that forced Great Britain to declare war. There is another monument here too, and 71 years on there are still flowers being laid.

Not too far from Gdansk there is a large castle which was the headquarters of the Teutonic knights who ruled the whole area in the middle ages. The castle, at Malbork, was called Marienburg (the name reminds you that this land has changed hands between Polish and German peoples for quite some time). It is an impressive building, mostly intact and made of brick. It was a nice little day trip from Gdansk. On the way we stopped of at a seaside town called Sopot, where it rained the whole time we were there. It reminded me of an English seaside town that way. One thing I thought was rather odd was that you had to pay at a turnstile to get on to the jetty. Even in the rain. It was here that Tanya had the biggest stick of Candy Floss I have ever seen.
Next we are on our way to another new country for us, Lithuania.
PS the internet here is as slow as... well its really slow, so photos will be posted soon.

Hiccup Count

Woah, 10 days without an update, apologies.
We have 2 new rocords to report. The first is an all time low, of 11 hiccups in one day, the second is an all time high with 32 hiccups in one day. Total 712.

Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a donut?)

Berlin. A mix of the slightly old and the new, the eclectic and the down right strange. It is a hippies paradise, but it also has a chic side to it. In short it is the most cosmpolitan city we have seen yet. For pure tourist sites, Berlin has a good number of things to offer, the Brandenburg gate,
the Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, the prominent bits of the wall. These we saw in one afternoon and gave them their full due I think. We had help though, from our friends Andreas and Annelie, who drove us around and gave us what I would call the "check-box" tour. Since we had four days in Berlin we had time to scratch beneath the surface and see the eccentricness of the city. We went to an 'art gallery' and sure, they had art on display (and for sale if you want) but the place was also a bar. It was in a 4 storey building and each story had a different type of art, including a girl whispering in a creepy kind of way "come in, come in, dont be scared" which was very inviting. In the courtyard outside there was art made of metal, sculptures I guess they would be called and you could even get a glimpse of new ones being welded into shape. The place is famous apparently but I cant remember the name of it, apologies.
Another cool part of Berlin is the East Side Gallery. It is a kilometre or so of the old Berlin Wall that has been turned into an art gallery of painted murals. It is a good way to make something that was negative into a positive. Some of the artwork is a little abstract, but most of it has some kind of political aspect and most of that has leftist tendancies, which I found ironic given the history of the wall.
Berlin is apparently a poor city, its Mayor won the election with the phrase "Berlin is poor. But sexy" and I guess that really does sum it up. Poland coming soon.

Hiccup count

An update on the last 4 days. Current count is 512.5 If you are wondering where the half a hiccup comes from, well if there is a hiccup but her mouth is closed, it doesnt really count.

A tale of two Cesky's

We left Prague and headed South almost to the Austrian border to a place called Cesky Krumlov. The plan was to go via Plzen and have a Pilsner in the place where it was born, but for some strange reason we just did not want to have a beer at that time. We did have lunch though but then moved on. Cesky Krumlov is a town right out of a movie. If a knight in armour on horseback rode past, no one would look twice, they would probably say "hello Sir Stefan" and carry on. It is a quaint little town with most of it surrounded by a river that does a very flat 'S' bend so that one part of the town is completely encompassed by it apart from a small piece of land about 15-20m wide. Our hostel was inside this little enclave, with a great view and a balcony overlooking the river. After another great meal at an out of the way restaurant that looked like it was hewn out of a solid piece of rock, we watched the sun go down on the balcony. After it got dark, there was a thunderstorm that seemed fitting.It was the first time I had experienced a storm like in the movies when out of nowhere there is a clap of thunder then the rain starts. That is pretty much what happened. The storm was fast moving though and was over in about 20 minutes, off to somewhere else. Which is what we did the next day as, disappointingly, we only had one night in Cesky Krumlov.
Ceske Budejovice is only about half an hour away and is the place where the original Budweiser beer comes from. Since the American Budweiser company sewed the Czech Budweiser for being both the first to call themselves Budweiser (but only by a few hundred years or so) and for being better than the American one, the original Budweiser can no longer call themeselves Budweiser. Clearly having more money is a better legal arguement than originality or quality. A similar arguement went on with Coca-Cola and the Athens Olympic Committe in 1996 I think. Anyway, Budvar is now the beer from Ceske Budejovice. The brewery is there, just a few km out of town and we had every intention of going to czech it out (get it?) but I had found out that it is now just a modern brewery and not too interesting. They do, however, have a special yeast beer that is sold in special places in Ceske Budejovice. We found one of these places just off the main square, and since we had seen the whole old town in 2 hours, we had a few beers there. The place is a restaurant called Masne Kramy and it was full of tour groups, one from Spain and one from Thailand of all places. We sat at the bar on stools and just watched the drama unfold. The Thai group were very demanding and it was amusing to see the staff try to keep them happy. I was reminiscing my time in hospitality and Im not too upset that I no longer have to deal with situations like that, lots of customers and lots of pressure. Still, it was good to see that the hospitality industry is the same everywhere.
The plan after this was to go to eastern Czech to a place called Olomouc but after getting in contact with a friend who lives in Germany not far from the Czech border, we changed our plans. So its off to Chemnitz in the old GDR,or East Germany.