Turku

(September 21-22)
Turku was once the capital of Finland, under Swedish rule. When the Russians took over in 1808, they put their provincial capital at Helsinki. Finland was never a country until this century, but somehow still managed to keep its identity.

So the main thing to see there is the castle:



The castle would appear to have been fairly rubbish, because although Finland stayed Swedish for several hundred years, it was always getting conquered. It's surprisingly big on the inside compared with how it looks from the outside. It had us busy for several hours despite the fact very little of the explanations were in English. Finland's second language is Swedish, so there was no chance of us understanding any of that either!

Hence, there was lots of cool stuff like this very old fresco, but what with our lack of Finnish or Swedish we can't tell you anything about it ;0)


And here's Saint Martin watching over Charlton Athletic's fortunes. He was apparently a 4th century French bishop with a penchant for helping beggars who was for some reason very popular in Finland:


We popped into a Viking Festival they nicely put on for us. The Reindeer was yummy! But we'd just learnt in the museum the potatoes it came with weren't at all traditional.


Our first night was in a hostel that was nothing special, but they had no room for us the 2nd night and we ended up at a great B&B. They even have their own "Hotel Inspector", here investigating Joanna's pack:


We caught up with a family friend of the MacKenzies. Tiina came out to see us even though she had a poorly foot and gave us a good rundown of Finnish culture and history. She still can't believe we made it to Turku before Ma and Pa Mackenzie. We put them to shame!


And lastly, some of Finland's beautiful autumn colours - they were gorgeous all over the country:

Clio gone!

We've just donated the Clio to one of the world's least corrupt organisations: The Finnish Government! So it will be efficiently dealt with and cleaner than it's ever been when it's sold at auction! We tried to donate it to a charity but they were unfortunately unable to take it - although they did take the car safety kit and our tools! Finland's import duties are prohibitively expensive so that's why we couldn't simply give it away, but we hope it will find a good home. We'll post pictures of our last moments with the Clio when we get to a better cafe in Russia; Finland doesn't really do full featured internet cafes, just fully priced.

Next chapter: packs on our backs and the train to St Petersburg tomorrow. We'll still update this blog even though the Tales will no longer be from the Clio ...

Tallinn

(18-20 September)

The rain seems to have been following us around lately, which is very disappointing. There was a torrential downpour when we arrived but it hasn't coloured our judgement of Tallinn's Old Town. It's absolutely gorgeous and the sun even came out for a few hours on the second day so we could take pictures of it in all its glory.

The Öld Town didn't suffer too badly in WWII although large sections of the outskirts were destroyed in one night of Soviet bombing in 1944.

We'll let the pictures do (most) of the talking about the Old Town's beauty:

Town Hall:

Wall:

Russian Orthodox Church:

Parliament:

Overview:

Tall Herman:

Lutheran Church:


The main thing was just to wander around the Old Town, but we popped into the City Museum and the Museum of Occupation for a good dose of history too. Fascinating seeing different country's views on the past... At the City Museum there was a very cool exhibition of clothes made by Estonian women during the Soviet era showing how they managed to keep up with western fashions with recycled material and a few buttons! The 80s gear was especially impressive - Dynasty eat your heart out!

Finally Ben also met his drinking challenge, Vana Tallinn:

Riga, Latvia

(15-17 September)

We skipped across the Lithuanian/Latvian border and were in Riga in time for lunch! That's what becomes of staying in a Youth Hostel - early starts! On our arrival we decided to follow the signs to a campsite even though the weather was reasonably "baltic". However, what we found at the city's campsite was more like a parking lot for campervans than a lush paddock for tents. So we headed back into town to find a hostel.

It took quite a bit of organising but eventually we found a hostel right in the centre of the old town and a spot for the clio not too far out. We'll come back to the hostel in a moment ... Being a famished couple of travellers we grabbed Latvia's version of fast food - deep fried meat filled pancakes and for pudding, more pancakes filled with banana and cream cheese. Heaven!

From there we headed to the country's museum of occupation - yes, it's as depressing as it sounds but it really does give you some idea of what the people suffered for five decades under the Soviets, Nazis and then Soviets again. We ended up spending a good 4 hours there and probably could've been there longer.

After that much achievement in one day, surely there couldn't be more?!? Oh yes, Ben scored an A+ for his drink challenge - Riga Black Balsam:



Back to the hostel. Apparently rooms are hard to get in Riga so we were pleasantly surprised when the hostel had no trouble accommodating us. We should have smelt the rat then! The hostel bar was open until 6 o'clock in the morning and inconveniently located under our room. We are both champion sleepers, but when they play the same 80s cheese on a loop there is a limit to what a person can put up with. But the hostel round the corner, where we spent the next two nights, was lovely!

Riga's old town is gorgeous, although as we learnt many of the "old" buildings had been rebuilt generally since independence. Here's the "House of the Blackheads":



The Blackheads were the Guild for unmarried merchants and those from out of town, so a few parties were no doubt held here. Apparently they named themselves after their favourite patron saint, who was black. Also in the main square is the town hall:


A short distance away from the central square is the freedom monument. Latvians put flowers there regularly throughout the Soviet occupation despite the threat of deportation to Siberia if the practice continued. Today, it is guarded by two soldiers and people are free to lay as many flowers as they like.


Joanna has been feeling left out of the drinking challenge so has made one up for herself. Yes, it involves large amounts of tea!


And lastly, eagle eyed Ben spotted this interesting logo on the side of a car. It maybe doesn't translate as well to English!


And a small addition to this post: Riga's cathedral. It has a Kellog's cockerel style weathervane, but this picture doesn't really show that much detail, sorry! But we had a wander inside and there were lots of artifacts from Riga's past in the cloister. Including the retired weathervane (saw service early 1500s to 1985).


As ever there's celebrations on our arrival, Riga's contribution was impressive fireworks. They may have been for the local TV channel's b'day but we prefer to think they were for us...

We'll do Tallinn soon, but internet is mad expensive in Finland...

Update

There's a few things that don't fit into any particular post, so I'll just throw them all together.

The Google Map link: our journey now goes onto 2 pages. If you want to see where we have gone after Latvia you'll need to click to go to page 2. Very impressed with ourselves that we don't even fit onto 1 page!

The poor wee Clio... we're still hoping a charity in Finland might take our trusty stead so it doesn't have to go to the knackers yard. But it's going to stop here in Finland, which nobody guessed (or even knew we were going to); so that at least saves us on chocolate fish! But seriously, we think we'll have 2 winners. Ben's brother's political answer of going "all the way we want it to" (no country specified) is most correct and we can see how he got his job. Closest by both geography and kilometres will be Peter Burton. So we guess we'll be giving them 5 choccy fish each. We've just clocked 10,000 miles since Calais today, so it'll end up at something over 16,000 km.

The one last point of order: we've had a few requests from some ladies for a pic of Joanna sideways. This from the City Museum in Tallinn:

Also, her new hat!



She's also just got some new maternity troos, and discovered that it was her old trousers that were uncomfortable, not her tummy. We'll try to get a pic of the groovy pants soon!

We're in Turku, and fortunately Ben isn't uncomfortable with people staring at him. Somehow his Hawaiian shirt and blue corduroy shorts don't fit in... Yes we've just done a big load of washing...

Lithuania

As we drove through the towns of Lithuania it became clear where Poland's vowels had gone. We made our way to Siauliai (no good for Scrabble like all those Polish places), a moderate sized town on the road to Latvia.

When we arrived everybody looked grim-faced, but we found a very helpful tourist information kiosk, a lovely hostel, and by the time we were out foraging for dinner everybody seemed happy. The difference between the home-from-work crowd and the going-to-the-pub crowd!

We found a nice pub with traditional Lithuanian food so Ben could complete the customary drinking challenge:


Lithuania were playing Croatia at the European Basketball Champs, which provided a bit of noise about the place. They evidently won from the car horns through the night. Always nice when the locals do well...

The next morning we visited the Hill of Crosses. Lithuanians have been putting crosses on this small mound since the 14th century. Many are memorials to people deported to Siberia. The Russians bulldozed it at some point but the Lithuanians snuck past guards and barbed wire and planted more. It´s now more than 100m wide and 100m deep with crosses.

Kaliningrad

(12-13 September)
After a cheery entry into Kaliningrad from a friendly border guard ("welcome to Russia!"), we set off to find somewhere to spend the night. Little did we realise that our two Lonely Planet books were worse than useless. Prices had doubled, so we wouldn't recognise a bargain, and Svetlogorsk is no pretty wee village to spend the night. There is no camping, or even a beach. It's not far from a beach, but still, you can get these things right...

So we ended up back in Kaliningrad city, at the Hotel Kaliningrad. For an ex-Soviet hotel it was actually very nice. It did face onto the worst monstrosity the Soviets built after their arrival:


This was built on the site of an amazing 12th century Prussian castle, that was badly damaged in the war. Rather than repair it, they replaced with something hideous instead that has never even been used! They later discovered it was built on hollow ground - tunnels that had once connected the castle to the cathedral.

Konigsberg, as it was before the Soviets grabbed it after WWII, was one of the finest cities in Europe by all accounts. The old pictures show an amazing place with stunning buildings and a vibrant city life. Most of the buildings were destroyed in the Soviet assault in 1945 - which could have been largely avoided but the Nazi commander refused to surrender until the Red Army was knocking at the bunker door.

We went to the bunker, which Hitler had used for a lot of his planning earlier in the war. The details of the assault and damage to the city were all somewhat depressing. Similarly depressing was the ethnic cleansing the Russians then carried out - from an almost purely German population there are now virtually no people of Germanic descent living there. People either fled or were carted off to Siberia.

On a brighter note, since the fall of Communism, the city has started to be re-built. The Cathedral, which sat damaged for half a century, is being resurrected:


The cathedral also has the tomb of Emmanuel Kant and his museum. After 15 years it is still under-going work, but is well on the way to recovery.

In the last few years the city has enjoyed much better times economically, which has also allowed some new buildings that are not concrete tower-blocks. Here´s the new Orthodox cathedral (also not finished):


The main thing that Kaliningrad is famous for is amber - it produces 90% of the world´s supply. The Amber Museum was impressive with its works of the fossilised sap.

We had another good drive around the Kaliningrad region as we attempted to leave. We hadn't learnt not to trust our guide book and followed their recommendation to cross to Lithuania via the (apparently) very picturesque Curonian Spit. However the Russians make it prohibitively expensive to take a car that way, so we were diverted back to the main route, only getting slightly lost on the way. Joanna's cyrrillic reading is improving though.

Warsaw

Before we left Krakow we tried to get a russian visa from the consulate there... but to no avail, they only process locals. So we drove north, faced with torrential rain and the prospect of getting our visa from the main embassy in Warsaw.

It was dark by the time we got to Warsaw, which didn't help our search for a campsite. Neither did its apparent non-existence. Hostels turned us away at the door, and it was looking like we'd have no room at the inn... Our only option was to stay in a suite at the Metropole - you've got to do what you've got to do!

After quite a bit of toing and froing, and a wack of cash we got the visas. It would have been near impossible, due to Russian tourist bureaucracy complications beyond our control, without a very splendid lady at the embassy. She had had an English professor from Oxford and was very keen to chat and help two harmless looking stragglers out!

Whilst we were being processed, we popped out to see Łazienki Park on our visa lady's recommendation. This has to be one of the most stunning parks in the world and could take days of your time meandering through it. Here are some of the highlights:







The park's so great it still has red squirrels!


Having had such a battle looking for accommodation for the previous night we decided to head north to the scenic town of Olsztyn. So we did a quick bit of drive-by sight-seeing on Warsaw's city centre. In WW2 85% of the buildings were badly damaged, and needed rebuilding - so they did, exactly as it was before the Germans came. It took them decades, and even longer to pay for it. So we felt a little guilty we weren't spending more time as we wendled our way around the picturesque streets.

We made it up to Olsztyn; it was pleasant enough, but the real attraction is meant to be the forests and lakes to the east. We couldn't dawdle though; we had a date with some Russian border-guards...

Clio for Free!

We've had a little change of plan. We were looking at logistics and it was going to be too difficult to get rid of the car in Russia/Kazakhstan; also we would be driving constantly to get to China in a few weeks' time.

So we decided it would be nicer to sleep whilst a train driver did the miles.

Which means the Clio is going to be left in Finland.

And it's either going to have to go to a very special Clio retirement home; or if someone knows someone who wants a free car - with only the small catch that it'll need picking up from Finland - it's theirs!

We'll be wanting to get rid of it in Helsinki on 24/25 September...

Any takers?

Krakow

(3 - 9 September)
Well we did quite a bit in Krakow, although a fair bit of it involved wandering about in the rain. We were there for a whole week, which is the longest we've been stationary since early June, and will probably be the longest we're somewhere until early November.

Krakow has the largest medieval town square in Europe apparently. This is half of it, the clothmarket building is in the middle of the square.


Sorry for the rain in all the pictures, but the only fine day we went to Auschwitz (more on that later).

Also sorry for the darkness of this picture, but we'd been the largest gothic cathedral, in Seville, so a photo of the largest gothic altar was necessary (this in a church on the town square):

The church, St Mary's Basilica, also has a trumpeter who plays all around its tallest tower every hour on the hour, all day and all night. Very impressive. We went to see him many times...

We spent our first couple of days in Krakow camping in the rain, before Joanna's parents flew over to join us, and convinced us we'd be better off in a nice hotel. We hadn't done too much sight-seeing before then as we attended to some admin, and wanted to wait to see things with Joanna's folks.

After we'd shown them the wet town square, we managed to make a trip to Wawel Hill, which is the spiritual heart of Poland for the religious and atheists alike, apparently. It has the cathedral where most of the Polish Kings, Queens and Heros were buried from way back in the 13th century onwards. And it also has the main palace from when Krakow was the capital.
Hill:


Palace:


It was raining of course:



In the cathedral there is King Sigmund's Bell:

We went to the inn where the Bell ringers have gone after ringing it for the past few hundred years - they each have their own numbered tankards. And they serve nice food there too.

As we said before, the only (vaguely) sunny day we decided we couldn't handle the sudden cheeriness and went to Auschwitz.

Due to a slight wrong turn we ended up at the Birkenau (Auschwitz II) camp first, which was the death camp where most people were killed.


About 1.5 million people were murdered there, almost 90% Jews. The scale is all pretty hard to comprehend. Auschwitz was the only camp that they tattooed prisoner numbers onto their bodies as they were killing in such volumes it was hard to keep track any other way. They think 1.1 million went to the gas chambers (with the scale increasing until the end of the camp - particularly as Hungarian Jews started arriving in numbers in late 1944); the rest were worked to death on starvation rations.


This is the inside of the gate to Birkenau that would have been seen as victims were getting off the trains for "selection" - where about 90% (including virtually all women & children) were selected for death in the 4 gas chambers.


After a long old wander around Birkenau, past the huts where Mengel & other doctors did hideous experiments and other nightmares, we went back to the main camp, Auschwitz I, actually in the Polish town of Osciewim - although all the locals had been forced out. This was better built as it had been a Polish barracks (at Birkenau they built wooden huts of a design intended for a few dozen horses but housed hundreds of people instead), but living conditions were still fairly horrendous.


In Auschwitz I is the museum, filled with horrifying things like 2 tonnes of human hair, all the confiscated shoes, brushes, combs etc of the gassed victims. There's also the wall where shooting executions were done, the parade ground where the prisoners were forced to stand at attention for up to 12 hours in a day, and the cells where prisoners were sentenced to starve to death. It's all very sobering.

Ben was probably a bit naughty taking this photo of his mother-in-law going into the main camp's gas chmaber:


The next day, to cheer us up, it of course rained. But it was National Dachshund Day (it's always an occassion when we show up):


And just for good measure another couple of pretty Krakow buildings; the Florian gate:


and a church with the Twelve Apostles out front:


And then it was time for Ma & Pa MacKenzie to go home. It was great having them over for a few days. Although after getting excited planning family visits to NZ with them it was bit hard getting travelling again. But we're back into the swing of things now. We're in Latvia, having made it in and out of Russia & raced through Lithuania. But we'll catch up a bit more on the blog whilst we're here in Riga, we plan to take things a bit easier the next couple of days...