Baltic States

6th August, 2016

The ritual placing of the sticker now we could see what we were doing...

Lithuania seems to have been torn apart, destroyed and then torn apart again so often in modern times that the population must be up for a Nobel Tolerance prize. Modern history is very grim here and the people really see being part of Europe as their future guarantee of peace. We had arrived late in the evening - just before the sun went down and we spent the following day visiting the castle at Trakai - more recent rebuilding and noticed the rather quaint wooden houses that seemed to be a local Turkic community that specialized in equivalent Cornish pasties. Funny we never saw any of that in the dark the night before. And then we went off to Vilnius which had a ridiculously high density of churches. Built history seems to be either religious or military - or both. Is that all there is to life? The Vilnius Cathedral had been transformed into a Centre for Atheism during the Communist period with plans to tun it into a Bus Garage - repairs, not storage.

Our next day we decided to visit Kernave, a UNESCO site of pre-historic hill forts.

And then on to the Hill of Crosses which had been a very important site in the modern history of Lithuania where religion aligned itself with rebellion - in some ways like Solidarnosc in Poland . Under communism, Crosses had been erected and then torn down by the Russians and then erected and then bull-dozed etc etc until it became a very potent symbol of freedom and independence whilst under Russian rule. The hill was more a mound and looked man made and that might well have been due to the bull-dozing. There were over a hundred crosses; there are now over two hundred thousand and the tourist shops sell them and you can plant your own. We were not sure how we felt about this: whetted or not this constituted a dilution of the initial statement and, if so, was that important? Was it right that people had their loved ones names written on the crosses as in a cemetery, and not just Lithuanians? Is it really about Paulo from Pisa having been there, or Peter from Pittsburg? or all the pilgrimages from Poland? Is this what happens to sites blessed by the Pope? Should the tourist part have been kept apart from the initial crosses? Most are in wood and some have rotted and fallen over and people pile more on top of them - does this strengthen or weaken the monument? And what about the censorship? there was a Star of David with, if our German was good enough, some very strong words about not too distant German actions and repentance that some people had tried to scratch out...

Overall we were moved by the struggle for Independence and the symbolism of the monument - but somewhat confused by the touristic approach. Maybe the Lithuanians are also confused as to what has happened too? And we thought it would be much bigger. Tricks of photos, we should have known. We hadn't seen a hill for days excluding the hill forts of Kernave.

 And then Latvia and Rundales Palace ( more storks) which is Versailles in Latvia and quite amazing. It has been restored and they currently have 30 gardeners restoring the gardens. The whole thing re - middle of nowhere, let alone what dodgy aspect of finance had originally paid for it - it wasn't 'state'. Although there are differing opinions on restoration it felt appropriate here rather than marveling at a rotting ruin. The evening Latvian hotel then came up with the no plug in the bathroom sink trick. Another part of our study into current trends in hotels. But as we carry a universal spare, clothes washing duties continued on schedule.

Not that we watched it but the recent BBc adaptation of War and Peace wasn't set in St Petersburg at all. Parts were filmed in Trakai, Kernave and Rundales - all of which we visited today. But we will be hitting St Petersburg too - one up on the BBC!

Two in fact as there was the Hairy Bikers Baltic jaunt too. We had the idea but clearly they sorted out the issues of time and funding before us. But they didn't really 'do' St Petersburg as they swapped their product placement Guzzis for a borrowed Ural sidecar in Russia whereas some of us are currently girding our loins for future interaction with Russian Border Control formalities.

Short couple of hours to Riga which seemed to be waking up as we arrived at eleven in the morning. Big on English/Irish pubs here. Almost felt as though they had hosed down the streets. had a good look round - unexpected but very impressive stock of Art Nouveau buildings and a great little museum which was a restored period flat. Pretty good if you think of everything it had probably been through. Apparently the Russians threw out any of the Latvians that had money and were willing to go post-war and everyone else was asked to collectivise on farms. Those that wouldn't lend their hands to this enterprise were then gulag-ed in Siberia. This happened to quite a lot of them. It left a big hole in the workforce down on the farms which was then filled by Russians. Ethnic dilution and now 30% of people living in Latvia are Russian with the highest concentration living perhaps bizarrely in non-agricultural Riga. Can one feel a Crimea coming on?

Further bizarre touch. On arriving outside our hotel on the bike we scared a couple walking on the road in front of us and taking a photo of us. Friends from a neighbouring street in Blackheath. Strange coincidence.

Tallinn in Estonia for lunch the following day and it was by far and away the best of the Baltic State capitals as as Old Town's go. Seemed less hen/stag party town as well. one of the prettiest town squares we have seen and a lot of original, old as in medieval, building stock that seems to have survived. Not that we availed ourselves of any but also a better class of tourist tat too. And some fine restaurants - Ribe - contemporary Estonian cuisine, well worth a visit.

Rebuilt or refurbished?

1st August, 2016

Gdansk was interesting. It was also heaving. It was a Sunday afternoon and maybe it was because the Baltic cruise ships had come to town but you could not move in the Old Town - more packed than Venice and far worse than Brugge. Gdansk has almost totally been rebuilt and it was interesting to see how. It was difficult to imagine how it had been left after the war when it was Danzig and there were no vestiges of post-war communism in the tourist area. The Grain warehouse, on an island in the middle of the river remains the last area to be rebuilt and one gears a bit for what it might become - luxury flats?. Everywhere else the rebuilding is sympathetic but one fears for this area as there is already a mini London Eye, hopefully temporary but wasn't the London one also temporary? As far as views are concerned we visited  the largest brick built church in somewhere and climber the 400 steps to the top. We visited the Gate 2 entrance to the shipyard and had a fine lunch in the European Solidarnosc building, sat on a terrace overlooking a waste land and watching a stream of shipyard workers walking to a bus stop after they had knocked off for the day at half three. A late lunch - and a somewhat incongruous setting. I wonder what they thought of us sat there lunching whilst they walked by? Wasn't this what communism was supposed to be about? 

 

We also visited the beach at Sopot next door and the magnificent Victoriana Grand Hotel which had clearly survived all sorts of things.

 As to our survey of trending things in the hotel industry we have noticed the ever smaller hand basin in the bathroom trend. Gdansk seemed a leader in this and it wasn't as though there wasn't enough space in the bathroom for something larger. They were certainly smaller than the ones you normally find tucked away in downstairs toilets and it made it a lot more difficult for us to wash our clothes.

The Poles had clearly taken note of our comment about Motorway construction as that was exactly what we ran into on leaving Gdansk. More China memories. we also reckon that traffic lanes are a smidgen less wide in Poland as we had some difficulties in squeezing through and we could just see the day drawing out in front of us.  Luckily the storks provided some interest - specially constructed telephone posts gave them the perfect base for their constructions.

And draw out it did. 'We' realised that 'we' had made an error with 'our' route planning on Google Maps as the route wanted to take us through the stand alone Russian enclave of Kaliningrad -must be a duty/tax haven for those that can't afford London. Also apparently has amber mines which might be another reason the Russians want to hang on to it. We only had single entry visas for Russia and those were for specific dates too so we could not go through Kaliningrad, We had to go round it. We had it in our minds now that the day would drag on into the early evening at least. And the route was pretty boring though we did stop at rather a lively lake that reminded us of something similar in FYR Macedonia and we lunched there.

The route was still pretty boring and we had reckoned without the time shift between Poland and Lithuania which meant that we arrived at Trakai at quarter to eight in the evening which, luckily, was the most perfect time of the day for taking photos. A superb vista after a day of next to nothing, if you count nearly 600km of mostly off-motorway roads as nothing. Expensive restaurant required. found and delivered. All finished well.

Speeding East

30th July, 2016

Next stop, middle of nowhere somewhere in Poland. We needed to do some kms today and Poland is bigger than you think. The middle of nowhere corresponded therefore to where we would get to after the kms we needed to do. Quite an exact science.

On the way we lunched on the Baltic - our first real view and whilst we were still in Germany, perhaps we should say the Ostsee. Clearly very post-communist now and very post-communist prices - one does wonder what this place would have been like 30 years ago?

As Poland still has the Zloty we wondered whether there would be a 'real' border or not? We were pretty sure that we had crossed the border but then we hit a very official looking queue and we thought passport or currency control? But once the queue had got round the bend we could see it was another of those places that Woolwich ferries had been retired to. If we had been able to read Polish we would have sauntered to the front........

      

If we could read Polish we would also probably be able to pronounce where we we were heading to; Hotel Swietoborzec via Szczerin via Swinoujscie. But we can't.

We nonetheless got there. Poland needs motorways. The A roads have 50 and 70km/h speed limits every time you go past a barn, turning, village, town despite being on a dual carriageway. It is slow. So slow that it was faster sometimes to go on single track B roads where there were the barns and the turnings but not the villages and the towns and they had clearly run out of speed limit signs.



But then one hits another A road and forgets and has to show your license to a policeman......... Luckily he seemed impressed by the names of the countries we had visited stuck on the windscreen and we showed him the soon to be applied Polish flag sticker...

Onward to Gdansk the following day and the roads were similarly painful but this time we were expecting it and it wasn't that far to go. Nothing scenic though. Once you have done ten minutes on straight, flat roads through pine trees with not much else to see then you have done the route. Oh, look - there's a silver birch there! Or ten thousand...

West is West

29th July, 2016 

Not much to say about the route through Germany except that they drive fast. Our objective was simply to get to Lubeck. 

Lubeck old town was well worth the visit. The old town is an island with a large port with the un-German sounding name of Travemunde not too far away to the North. The western side of the island was far prettier than the eastern side. In fact it was very pretty indeed. Lots of stiletto church spires  and cafe and cake shops. Unlike the east. The old East German border was not far from Lubeck with Lubeck being in the west - had the island old town already split and done a Berlin? Oh yes, and marzipan. Why marzipan? It's not as though almonds grow in Northern Germany - or elsewhere around the Baltic we would have thought?

But Lubeck also felt like a genuine place where one could live and enjoy living there -  we weren't that sure about Brugge. And there weren't the millions of tourists.

Lubeck was about Baltic trade. It was a founder member of the Hanseatic League which has absolutely nothing to do with minor league football but was a medieval Baltic NATO or EU but for towns as opposed to countries. Maybe countries weren't that important then either. The Club verses Country issue.

Our accommodation was rather special as we also had to check in the bike. Not a big place;three rooms. And we breakfasted by candlelight in a small hall dating from 1304 which the bike passed through. presumably following in the treads of single digit horsepower transportation previous centuries ago. After quite a lot of recent experience we are now defining what constitutes a 'good' hotel and coffee served to you in the morning at breakfast is becoming a pre-requisite for 'good' status. Its a definite 'No' to serve-yourself machines and those jugs that are left hanging around at the end of buffet tables. Also got the first pickled herrings of the trip.

There's only the BBC..

26th July 2016


Not sure where the BBC gets its news from but what was all this about mega queues at the Channel ports? There was not one car in front of us when we checked in at Eurotunnel! Why 14 hours wait at Dover and nothing at Folkestone - not complaining. It was the enhanced security according to the news but our passports weren't required by the Brits on leaving or the French on entering. Just a thought; will Eurostar and Eurotunnel keep their names in this new, post-Brexit world we will have to become accustomed to?

Clearly we are off travelling again. London to St. Petersburg via the Baltic States and then - because it is easier for us to get the bike back from an EU country (for the moment at least), a little jaunt into Finland. Leave work at three, go home, get changed, load the bike, leave at four, have a coffee at Folkestone, check in at the B&B in France and be sat in the restaurant eating before nine French time. 

Not sure how many times we have done this crossing but only recently did it occur to us that we could gain a morning if we set off the night before - a tad obvious one would have thought...

No need either to stay encamped at the Port - Chateau de la Garenne set amidst fields of cereal and root vegetables was a different world. If only sterling hadn't wobbled somewhat it would have been near perfect.

"Route Barrée" as a road sign took us back to China as we ignored the sign and trundled through roadworks the following morning - well that's what one did over there. Dubiously coloured waterways were also reminiscent of other trips.

A short ride to Brugge along the Belgian coast - view nearly completely destroyed by hideous blocks of flats but if you are on the beach and looking out to sea then you probably don't care. World's most expensive asparagus in a gallery design museum café restaurant in Ostende - Francoise HAD to have them and the place showed off its credentials via a two page spread in a Dutch language 'design' magazine that we couldn't read and wouldn't have heard of anyway. 

And then Brugge in the drizzle along with possibly as many as a million others. still, sheltering from the damp was a half decent excuse for beer and coffee stops. But Brugge is not cheap and sterling kept adding its little bonus. Smile and think of the days when you got 1.5€ to the £. Smile or grit your teeth.

Noting the Belgian national treasures we did manage chocolate, chips, beer, shrimp croquettes, Dame Blanche and of course, the white asparagus in a very short amount of time. Time to leave and we headed North to what was sign-posted as a small ferry. Small. When we got nearer we found 'small' meant foot passengers and bikes without motors. 35km detour and 2.5€ toll.

A bit of a blast through Holland. Yes, its flat and pretty boring but we followed the sea and crossed the sluice bridges waiting for a charming vista. Road side cafés, with or without views , don't seem to exist. However when we crossed the Zuider Zee there was rather a nice little cafe at the monument half way along. Lots of old engineering photographs and films of the construction. Suitably invigorated and motivated and egged on by the very straight road and protection from the wind we hit 160km/h - it was very straight indeed and there wasn't much to think about. So two days in and fourth country - c'est l'Europe!

Northern Germany is just as flat as Holland. The three countries, Belgium, Holland and Germany were all very agricultural with some very agricultural smells too - you get that on a  motorbike. Belgium was definitely 'pig'; Germany was a sweeter, Winter Warmer dark beer smell whereas Holland was somewhere between the two of them and no better for being so.