Prague, Czech Republic

From Krakow we took a train to Prague (Praha), in the Czech Republic. It was difficult to find a hostel with double rooms near the centre of the city so we found a place about 5 tram stops from the centre. It turned out to be a very nice place.

Prague is another one of those places where the Brits take cheap flights to for their hen and stag weekends because it is famous for its beer!

Of all the places we have visited so far, Prague has had the most graffiti. Someone had written "We don't want a clean city" in big black letters along a wall. We noticed a lot of swear words in English and I'm sure if we spoke Czech we would have seen a lot more in that language.

There seemed to be twice as many street people talking to themselves, urinating into rubbish bins, sitting around drinking alcohol, scavenging for food in the bins, sleeping in the parks, and begging, than we have seen anywhere else.

Beside the main square were horses and carts waiting to take tourists around the old city sights.

There was this young man looking for passengers to peddle their way around the narrow cobbled streets with him on his mobile bar.

There was also a larger version of this where you could cycle your way around on a pub crawl- perfect for those hen and stag groups.

On the hour crowds of people wait in front of the astronomical clock for it to chime.


Prague Castle is inundated with throngs of tourists and is the world's biggest castle complex- like a small town really.


Visited a restaurant for some traditional goulash.

We did lots of walking in the city and enjoyed some of the parks with their great views over the city.


Charles Bridge was built in 1357 and was the only city bridge till 1841. It is crammed with artists sketching caricatures, buskers, jewelery sellers and tourists looking for bargains. Half of the bridge is being renovated at present. There are about 30 old statues along the bridge that seem to have survived without being covered with graffiti!


We were in the city square for the final of the Euro 08 football where the Spanish beat the Germans. There were several bands playing before the game and a huge screen was set up so everyone could watch the game. Tents selling beer were around the sides of the square and 3 people were kept busy grilling kebabs and sausages for the hordes. It was a fun night. We were cheerimg for Spain!

Wieliczka Salt mine, Poland

Outside Krakow is a 700 year old salt mine so we decided to take a trip there. We were taken down the mine by an English speaking guide and walked down the old main shaft which is now filled with wooden stairs.

The part of the mine that the tourists see is especially set up with lights and paving etc. The mine houses some of the original wooden machinery that was powered by the mine horses.

There are many statues carved from the rock salt underground and even a small cathedral where the miners prayed.

Today some of the huge chambers that were excavated are used for weddings, concerts and festivals.

20,000 tonnes of rock salt was removed from one part of the mine and the cavern was converted into the Chapel of the Blessed King. It took 30 years to construct the elaborate church, from 1895-1927 and it measures 54m by 17m by 12m high and is more than 100 metres underground.

The impressive chandeliers are made from rock salt crystals. There are also carvings of biblical scenes and as the previous Pope came from Krakow, there is one of him too.

Krakow, Poland

We caught a train to Krakow. Along the sides of the train tracks were many gorgeous wild flowers and I tried and tried to photograph them but the train flew past too quickly.

While in Poland in the mid seventies we visited a Krakow market to stock up with food but didn't go into the city centre. However we did visit Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps, so this time we spent time around the old city.

We stayed at a very nice place- a renovated apartment in an old Soviet style residential block a few tram stops from the centre.

Krakow is much nicer and more interesting than Warsaw and of course it was full of tourists. It was the royal capital of Poland till 1596. It has Europe's largest medieval town square (200m by 200m) with the 16th century Renaissance Cloth Hall in the middle. The square surrounding the market is full of restaurants and bars and people dining 'al fresco'. It just buzzes in the warm evenings.

It was so nice to see so much fresh fruit for sale after Russian where there didn't seem to be much at all. It reminds us of the fruits in our garden.

We visited Kazimierz which was founded in 1335. In the 15th century, Jews were expelled from Krakow and forced to live here. It later became home to Jews fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe. During World War 2, the Nazis exterminated Jews in a nearby concentration camp that was featured in the film "Schindler's List".

In the 90s some Jewish families were given compensation and some of their properties back so today many of those people are rebuilding and setting up businesses again. We visited the old synagogue and I think it is the first time we have ever been in a synagogue so that was interesting for us.

There are remnants of the old city wall and barbican and some lovely parks where the locals were dressed in traditional clothes playing local folk tunes.


Like Russia there are so many drunks on the streets and in the parks- some are old, some are young, some are females but most are males.

On a hill overlooking the city and river is the 14th century Wawel Castle and Wawel Cathedral. There are so any visitors to the sight that they limit the number of tickets they sell to the various museums and rooms.

Warsaw, Poland

We are moving quite quickly compared with the first year of our trip. Some of these places are smaller and easier to get about. We also want to be in the UK to catch up with some friends and family so we need to move along so we don't have the expense of coming back from the UK to finish the places we haven't seen.

We caught a train from Vilnius to Warsaw and arrived in the city at about midnight- just as the main train station building was closing. We managed to convince the security guard to let us in to use the money machine so we could get a taxi to our hostel across the city. We were lucky enough to get a friendly and honest taxi driver too. There are many warnings to tourists about the taxi drivers and we also had a warning from our hostel.

There was no border check at all with Poland.

It was so pretty watching the landscape roll past. The hay is being cut and the wheat, barley and oats shimmer in the wind. There are lots of wild flowers mixed with the grains and along the wasteland beside the train tracks the bright red poppies are so gorgeous.

We were lucky to spot several stork nests from the window too. Lithuania is supposed to have the most storks but we never saw any there.

When we were on a camping tour of Poland in 1975 there were many horses and carts on the dusty roads but we saw several tractors and only one horse and cart. The houses also look solid and made from modern materials with satellite dishes on the rooves.

Poland has a population of 38 million and is famous for Chopin, Copernicus, Marie Curie, Solidarity, and vodka- as we argue with the Australians about who invented pavlova they fight with the Russians over who invented vodka. In 1990 Solidarity leader Lech Walesa became Poland's first democratically elected president. In 1999 is was granted full NATO membership and joined the EU in 2004. 80% of Poles are Roman Catholics.

Accommodation in Warsaw is very expensive so we stayed in a hostel and had to share a dorm with 6 people. It was a lovely place but very noisy as they had a smoking area on the stairs and it was like an echo chamber right outside our room. Added to this was an Iraqi guy who was up and down praying and an Iranian guy who was snoring.

We did another city walk in Warsaw and visited the old town that was completely destroyed in WW11 and rebuilt to exact details. The Old Town is also on the Unesco World Heritage List. Sadly the graffiti everywhere is an eyesore.

In the Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy) there was an exhibition of fibre glass bears and they were decorated by different artists. It seemed to be a similar project to the one that featured fibre glass cows several years ago. The New Zealand bear had tattoos on its face.


like Moscow, Warsaw had changed considerably since our last visit.

Trakai, Lithuania

Trakai is Lithuania's ancient capital and a short day trip from Vilnius.

It has a beautiful red-brick Gothic castle on an island in the middle of Lake Galve. The castle dates from the late 14th century. The locals were swimming, riding paddle boats and sailing on the lake. Along the path to the drawbridge were beggars, berry sellers and a busker with an accordian.

In 1400, Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas needed some bodyguards so he brought about 380 families to Trakai from Crimea. They belonged to a rare Middle Eastern religious sect called Karaites and 63 remain in Trakai with another 280 in the country but the numbers are dwindling rapidly.

There are still some very old wooden houses where some of the Karaites people live in the village of 6,ooo people.

Vilnius, Lithuania

Caught a bus all the way from Sigulda to Vilnius with a very short stop in Riga. We passed through lots of birch, larch and pine forest as well as fields of wheat and potatoes.

Lithuania was once a part of the USSR too and the last Soviet troops pulled out in August 1993 and the currency changed from rouble to litas. They joined NATO in 2004 and a month later became a part of the European Union.

It is famous for basketball, baroque churches and a potato stuffed dish called zeppelins (cepelinai). Cepelinai is very filling so it's no wonder the working peasants ate it.

The city is full of little squares and our hostel was just off this square in the middle of the city. The weather was sunny most of the time so there were lots of restaurants with seating along the sides of the street.

We did several different city walks and at every intersection you could see the spires of many churches, there are dozens and dozens of them. It was the last pagan country in Europe but today is 70-80% Roman Catholic with strong Russian and Lutheran Orthodox minorities. The city is also a Unesco-listed Old Town.

The walk took us to the old Jewish Quarter which had once been the most prominent Jewish community in Europe until the Nazis wiped them out with some help from the Soviets. We also visited the Museum of Genocide and the Old KGB headquarters. It was horrific to read of the way the people were starved of food and interesting to read about the resistance movement.

We visited the university which was founded in 1579 and run by Jesuits for two centuries. The Russians closed it in 1832 and it reopened in 1919.

Uzupis is an interesting district, in 1998 the resident artists, dreamers, squatters and drunks officially unofficially declared this the Uzupis Republic. It has its own tongue-in-cheek president, anthem, flag and constitution. It comes a live on April Fools' Day with border guards and a huge party!

Sigulda, Vidzeme, Latvia

We decided to take a few days away from the cities and visited Gauja National park which was only an hour's drive from Riga.

We booked into a bed and breakfast place that is owned by an 80 year old Latvian woman. The house was two storied with a large glass conservatory upstairs as well as 4 bedrooms. She put us downstairs in what doubled as a lounge and dining room. We slept on a couch that folded down into a double bed. it was a huge room and one wall full of books.

Tija, the owner, did not speak any English so we had to communicate in my very rusty German. She spoke clearly and simply and that helped a lot. She told us that she worked as a gynacologist at the local hospital until 12 years ago. If I had more German vocabulary it would have been interesting to hear how life was under the Russians.

Tija had an enormous garden with rows and rows of potatoes. She also had a glasshouse with a heater that was entered from the basement of the house. She had tomato plants and herbs growing there.

Tija had traveled several times across the USSR and had once taken a cruise by ship to Japan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Nearby Tija's house is a bobsled track. It was once the main training track for the Soviet bobsledders and lugers. It was closed when we visited but it is possible in winter to sled with a professional driver at 100kms per hour.

We visited the local tourist office and found some trail maps that we could walk in the national park. Although the park is supposed to have 150 bird species and 50 different mammals we only managed to see a few birds, a dead mouse and this sole squirrel.



We visited the 800 year old medieval Turaida Castle.


Latvia is pretty flat and so the castle sits on a small mound beside the river. Some of the other castles in the area are in ruins but this has been renovated and is part of a compex that shows life in different centuries.


The town near the castle has many old stone houses and this one has all the letterboxes for the residents in this street attached to its wall.

Majori, Jurmala, Latvia

We made a day trip by train to the Jurmala Beach area, known as the Baltic Riviera.

Although it was raining intermittently it was warm but there were not many people on the beach or in the restaurants.

There are many small towns:14 spread over 32 kms, all running into each other along the coast and joined by a path that runs parallel to the beach. It was a popular place for Soviet-era sanatoriums.

Near the beach are some beautiful wooden houses owned by wealthy people. There were also some once impressive places but now they are dilapidated and neglected.

We enjoyed the tranquility after frenetic Riga.