So… almost another thousand miles done and a few things seen and done, not really sure any of it will be of much interest but I will try!
Poland has delivered spectacularly, it was a country I was really looking forward to seeing and it hasn’t disappointed. Loved the Tatra Mountains and Zakopane, Krakow was relaxing and quaint, Warsaw was spacious and very beautiful (for the few hours we had to spare, naughty!) and lastly the Masurian Lake District that we have left behind today. All worthy of a visit but long drives in between with tricky roads and road works to contend with.
We visited Auschwitz and Birkenau, it’s a bit odd to say but I didn’t want to see it but more experience it (even though that isn’t really a thing). I wanted to be moved and appalled and shocked… it was all those things and more. To walk where those people walked and try to imagine the last months, hours or even minutes of their lives, well I don’t know what to say. Madness. Richard and I don’t believe it is a place for photos so you won’t see any from us, it just wasn’t that kind of day.
Within the Masurian Lake District you will find the Wolf’s Lair, a complex village of camouflaged concrete bunkers where Hitler and his Cabinet spent more than 800 days of the war… fascinating to say the least. This is also the location where he was one person away from dying in a suitcase bomb explosion but after the suitcase was moved out from under peoples feet he survived.
So! What next… the baltic blitz! Tonight we are in Vilnius, tomorrow night Riga and Sunday night Tallinn then on to Helsinki where we are stuck for up to a week arranging visas for China and Mongolia plus a follow up jab for tick-borne encephalitis?! That’s a thing apparently.
A few pics below but we have been forgetting to take photos of stuff to be honest!