On our second day in Tallinn we went for a walk outside the old town, which turned out to be just like any modern city with shopping malls, restaurants and bars. We quickly became bored walking around the shops, and so went for a drink in the old town before spending some time in an … Read more
It was a 300 km drive from Riga to Tallinn, which took most of the day with a couple of stops. There are no Lidl stores in either Latvia or Estonia, so we stopped at a Maxima X instead (X denotes a small supermarket, XX is a large one, and XXX is a hypermarket). It … Read more
On our way out of Kaunas we stopped to visit the Ninth Fort museum, on the outskirts of the city. At the end of the 19th century Kaunas, then part of the Russian Empire, was fortified to protect the empire’s western border. Nine forts were constructed, with the Ninth Fort being completed on the eve … Read more
On our travels behind what was the Iron Curtain, there have been regular reminders of the oppressive totalitarian Nazi and Soviet regimes which once held sway here. We’ve visited museums in Berlin, Leipzig, Pivka, Sofia, Budapest, Dresden, Warsaw and Gdańsk, with each one giving a different take on the events of the 20th century, and … Read more
Lithuania is another new country for us both, the 17th country we’ve visited on this trip, and it’s a country neither of us knew very much about. Reading the blurb in our guide books, it’s had a long and turbulent history, though the modern Lithuanian state is only 100 years old. Our first full day … Read more
Our next stop after leaving Malbork was Wilczy Szaniec, or Wolf’s Lair, Adolf Hitler’s headquarters on the Eastern Front, hidden in the forests of eastern Poland. The drive to Wolf’s Lair, along tree lined avenues through miles and miles of flat farmland and lakes, was a bit of a bumpy one as several stretches of … Read more
Malbork is only 80 km (50 miles) from Sopot, so it only took an hour or so (via Lidl) to drive here. In the 13th century Malbork was the capital of the Teutonic State, one of medieval Europe’s most powerful states, and at 59 acres the famous castle still claims to be the largest in the … Read more
Since the last update we’ve spent a couple of days in Gdańsk, celebrated Carol’s birthday in Gdynia and had a day at the site in Sopot to get all the laundry done. Our first visit to Gdańsk was to spend the day in the old town. It’s a 20 minute train journey costing 8zł/€2 return, … Read more
