The Baltic Blitz…

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!

The first thousand miles

Hello again,

Not really a lot to report, we have been busy bees working on the incomplete tasks we left London with, plus we haven’t really had reliable internet and have burned through a worrying amount of data!

We have covered good ground so far, stopping at Nurburgring for two nights to organise ourselves… one night by the lake at Hainer See… one night on a camping island in Prague… one night behind a busy motorway in a funny little spot called Camp Alpa (great for winding on a new winch rope)… another night in the Tatra Mountains, by a lake again on the Slovakian side and now we find ourselves in a very sweet little campground in Krakow!

We can finally unpack the back of the truck and enjoy three or four nights in one place, we have a little pitch surrounded by tall hedges all to ourselves and the internet is great so here it is, the last 5 days laid out on a blog post with little to talk about! Ha!

Today we travelled through a place called Zakopane, basically a Polish Aspen where the wealthy come to stay in their sprawling holiday homes and tourists pay double for everything. However, there is usually a reason for this type of set up and that is its beauty in the mountains with the spring water, baths/spas and stunning vistas. We opted for sandwiches constructed on the tailgate of the Disco with slightly stale bread and then carried on to Krakow so no living large for us in Zakopane.

Our return to Prague after many years was a big hit, we both realised how much we loved it there. So beautiful and so trendy! There are endless places to eat drink and shop in style… shame I turned up looking like the worst type of tourist! A poorly planned outfit that delivered quite a fright when I caught myself in a mirror later in the day.

We made a creepy detour to the church of the bones outside of Prague, although interesting to see at the time… it was a 2 hour detour for a 5 minute visit and with the catacombs in Paris I’m not 100% convinced it is worth the journey but hey it is ticked off “the list” and it was an experience as always.

There is much to do on this blog/website, there is tracking to add and old information to move aside for the new but we’ll get there. It isn’t as easy as it looks, I swear!

Talk soon x

J&R