Into Slovakia

These hand made hay stacks started to appear just before the border of Poland and Slovakia. I had not noticed them in other parts of Poland

A view from the road of the Tatra mountains, covered in cloud, but at least it was not raining.

Blackie with the mountains in the background, no blue sky like Robs photos I am afraid.

My GPS got a little confused as I obviously drove along a new section of road that was not in the memory, kept trying to turn me off the side of the road.

Arrived at Penzion Drak (Dragon) and the owners have arranged to throw some of my clothes into the washing machine, they have also said that I can use buckets and a hose to give blackie a well deserved wash tomorrow, result.

I have my balcony room and I am currently making use of it to dry out my tent!! I also have a view of the Tatras but I am hoping for better weather tomorrow in order to take a photo.

Down the mine and up the hills

I had a very bad nights sleep last night due to a very heavy storm hitting the area. The rain started at 11pm and it rained solid and heavy till just gone 5am this morning. The sound in the tent was horendous and it was impossible to sleep, although no doubt I dozed. I was on the point of abandoning the tent this morning if it was still pouring down, but when I got up at 7am it had actually stopped, although the outer tent was soaking. The rain had also bought out slugs and snails in their thousand. They were all around the tent and even in the porch area, where they had climbed over the kit I had left there. Before I could take the tent down I had to evict about 50 slugs of various size.....yuk.
I had to pack the outer tent whilst it was still soaking wet and I just hope that as a result my sleeping bag does not get soaked. I am hoping that I can dry the tent out at the pension that I am stopping at tonight.
I left the campsite and rode the 15 mile to the salt mine in Wieliczka. This is a world heritage site where, in the past miners have made carvings in the rock salt, even making chapels underground, it is a must see if you are ever in the area.
The mines were actually started in the early 1600's and production (from mining) seased in the late 1990's, however, salt is still produced but now from de-salination of the water pumped from the mine.
I arrived at the mine just before 9.30 and I was just in time to join the English language guided tour. You are not allowed to wander around by yourself but have to join a tour, but they do go every few minutes. The tour actually involves walking about 2km but this is only about 1% of the tunnels that do exist.
The tour starts by everyone walking down the stairs, however the stairs do take you down to a depth of 64mt below ground, and means you use over 300 steps. At the 64mt depth the walk starts, and the first carved statue passed is a statue of Nicholas Copernicus, carved in 1973. It is only a taste of what is to come. The vast majority of the carvings were done by the miners themselves when they were not mining salt.
The first few chambers tell the story of the salt mine, and is told by life sized salt figurines. The detail is amazing.
During the tour you actually visit 3 levels of the mine, depth gained by stairs and sloping floors, the levels are at 64mt, 90mt and finally 110mt.
The most amizing chamber on view is St Kinga's chael which was laid out in 1896, after excavation of a huge block of green salt.The chapel measures 54mt long, 15-18mts wide and 10-12mt high. It is still used as a chepel and mass as said in it every Sunday. It is also possible to marry in chapel, and concerts are also held. The last supper, carved into the wall in St Kinga's chapel. The depth of carving is only 17cm but the perception of depth appears far greater.

Joseph and Mary, also St Kinga's chapel.

Even Pope John Paul II has a carved statue in the chapel.

The chanderliers are made of wood but all the drops are high grade polished salt crystals. The floor is just polished salt, the patter of the tiles has actually just been carved into the surface.

Another chanderlier in the wooden chamber.

Life size carving of 2 miners.

At the end of the tour you are 110mts below ground and need to get back up. This involves going up in 4 miners lifts that are stacked 1 on top of the other, each lift taking 9 persons. It is really a squeeze in each lift and the absolute max is 9 people! You could not get a 10th person in. The lifts do travel at 4mts per second though, so you are not in them very long at all.

It was then time to head out of Poland on some of the best roads that I have been on yet, and through some lovely countryside and through some very pretty villages, however I did fail on one point, I left the country with 35 zl in my pocket, a waste of nearly £9.00.

Country number 9 tomorrow.

I am off across the Tatra mountains tomorrow into Slovakia, which will be my 9th country on this whirlwind trip through Europe.

On my route tomorrow I will be visiting the salt mine just south of Krakow, then its up and over the mountains, first I will have seen on this trip.

A day in Krakow

Once again on waking today it was raining, well only a light drizzle really, but still wet. I had already decided that I would go into Krakow today, so, after a cup of tea, it was umbrella up and a short walk to the bus stop. One very short bus ride, and a change to a tram for 4 stops, and I was in the centre of Krakow at the base of Wawel Hill, the castle.
Climbing to the castle, I joined a short queue to buy tickets for the various sections of the castle, the ones I chose were The State Rooms, The Royal Private Apartments and The Crown Treasury and Armoury. After parting with a suprisingly small amount of cash I was given a ticket with the times that I had to be at the various locations. The most important one being the Royal Private Apartments at 12 o'clock as this was for a guided tour in English.
They sell only a set number of tickets per day to the various attractions and it does say that at busy times of the year you may not be able to buy a ticket in the afternoon as they will have all gone during the morning.
The castle and apartments were really stunning and well worth seeing and my photos would not have done them justice, it was a good job because the taking of photos was not allowed! Inthe arcaded courtyard of the castle. The castle was built in the early 1600's and was the home of the Royal family, when Poland was a monarchy and when Krakow was the capital. When the capital was moved to Warsaw the castle was still used to crown the king or queen. When Poland ceased to be a monarchy the castle was turned into a museum that you see today.

Following the various tours I had a walk into the old town and one of the first things I saw was this old couple in national dress selling bird whistles.

The photo below is in the old Cloth Hall in the old city square. It is lined both sides by stalls selling various items for the tourist, but in the main they sell Amber which is fozzilized tree resin from the pine tree. It is found all over the Baltic and is polished and made into jewelry.Another stall was selling chess sets and boards and I was very suprised to see that a basic wooden set housed in a wooden box opening into a board, cost only 25zl. The most expensive set I saw was a set depicting knights in armour, again in a wooden box that opened into the board, was only 140zl, with about 4zl to the pound it made it only £35.00, a bargain.

One way of seeing Krakow is in one of these beutiful carriages which do a tour of the old city together with a commentry. They really looked the business.

Not too sure about the fancy footwear for the horses though, not see anything like these before.

This in is just for Cuth, see what you are missing mate! Free beer it says on the sign AND look at the size, Ha Ha.

A day for reflection

Today I was to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau, this was part of a trip bought at the campsite, the trip actually left from Krakow but the minibus stops at the campsite for a pick. When the mini bus arrived there was a mother and 2 daughters on board and a couple from Anchorage, Alaska who were making a 1 month tour of Europe by train. We were joined shortly after by a couple from New Zealand who were making a 6 month trip. They had actually bought a caravanette in Holland and intended to sell it bfeore leaving in November. Turned out he owned cattle ranches in New Zealand and they were under management so no propblems.
Once on the mini bus and off on the 60km ride to Auschwitz, the driver played a film recording shot by the Russians when they liberated the camp, this obviously gave us a historical point of view before our arrival.
When we arrived at the camp we joined another small group and started the tour, led by Christina. The tours are done very well in that the tour guide is miked up and you all wear a receiver and headphones, this way they can do many tours all at the same time utilising differant channels on the receiver.
It turned out that Christina had been doing the tours for 36 years and that her father in law was a prisoner in Auschwitz for 2 years. He was a very young Polish baker in the town and he used to give bread to some of the outworkers from the camp. He was caught doing this and his punishment was 2 yrs in Auschwitz. He was eventually released after 2 yrs, aged 21yrs but the experience made him a broken man and he died aged only 41yrs.
We toured Auschwitz for about 1hr 10 mins then after a short break were taken to Birkenau, this camp being some 20 times larger than Auschwitz and it is where the main killings took place.
I am afraid that although I took plenty of photos they cannot give the true scale of what went on in the camps. I am also sorry that I have loaded the few photos that I have posted in the wrong order, but I will try to explain the photos.
This is the main enteranceand to Birkenau showing the rail tracks and arch through which the trains, crammed with prisoners, arrived at the camp. The train made its way in and the prisoners were disgorged onto the ramp. Here they were met by the SS doctor who made a decision whether the prisoner lived or died. If he he pointed left, you lived and entered the camp in order to work. If he pointed right, you entered another par of the camp and your destiny was the gas chamber. 85% of the arrivals were pointed to the right, including all aged persons, children, babies, cripples and the deformed and pregnant women.
This entrance and track were used in the film Schindlers List as some of this was filmed at Birkenau.

I am afraid that we now jump back to Auchswitz, this is a punishment cell found underground in the cellars of the prison block where prisoners were held before execution by firing squad, this was for crimes usually committed in the camp, such as helping a fellow prisoner! This small chamber was originally bricked up to the ceiling but the bricks have been removed to show people. This "cell" measures 90cm by 90cm and at the bottom was a small doorway through which the prisoners had to crawl, the door then being shut. The prisoners were then in total darkness for the night. I say prisoners because it was used by 4 people at the time. It was called a standing cell as once in there was not enough room to sit or squat.

If the prisoners were still alive in the morning, they were sent off to work only to return the next night.

The Nazis destroyed the gas chambers/ovens at Birkenau just prior to the Russians arrival in an effort to destroy all the evidence, this is all that remains of a gas chamber used to exterminate 2,000 prisoners at a time by use of the gas zyklon B. The bodies then being cremated in the attached ovens. There were 5 chambers like this one at the camp.

This is inside the smaller gas chamber at Auschwitz, it was deemed ineffecient by the Nazis as it could only handle 800 prisoners at a time. The zyklon B was dropped through small openings in the ceiling and would kill everyone in the chambers within 20 minutes.

This chamber was not destroyed as, once it was deemed inefficient it was used for storage of ammunition.

This case shows just a small pile of shoes that were taken from the prisoners on arrival at the camp. Other cabinets held glasses, pots and pans, clothing and most shocking, a huge room containing human hair. The hair would be used to make material and things like socks for submariners, It appears that the Nazis were quite able to bear wearing clothes and hair from the jews!!

The main enterance into Auschwitz.

In retrospect, I am glad that I did an organised tour as I feel I gained more of an insight, but overall I did not feel that we were given long enough in the Auschwitz camp to read all the material in the few display cabinets, I know I would have liked longer. I do not now that if you turned up at the camp as an individual whether or not you would be put on an organised tour, or whether you could wander around by yourself.

A Hard Day Today

For those of you that would be interested (and I can't think why) this is the new stadium being built on the edge of the city centre in Warsaw in preperation for Euro 2012, Warsaw is one of the hosting cities by all account.
Got back to the campsite after visiting Warsaw yesterday afternoon and shortley after 2 motorcyclists arrived, one on a Yamaha FJR 1300 and the other on a naked Suzuki Bandit, both had slightly more luggage that me believe it or not. I haerd them talking in broken English at reception, so, after they had put up their tents, and just before they had their evening meal, I went over to speak to them. It transpired that they were both from Riga in Latvia, and that they had been down to Split in Croatia (where Rob was for a few days) they had ridden up through Budapest and were on route back to Riga. We had a chat, the younger one speaking very good English, and then their meal arrived so I left them to it.
I went into the bar to continue with my blog and I noticed a couple at the bar talking perfect English, I then noticed that there was a English registered caravanette parked up. Well, one thing led to another and we got talking. The couple were from Skipton and they were en route to Tallinn via Lithuania and Latvia, the opposite from what I had just done, they were then to return to the UK via the north coast of Poland via Gdansk. Anyhow, as we were chatting they asked where I was from and it transpired that they had lived on the Isle of Man for about 17 yrs, in Ballasalla and Port St Mary. They also told me that were going to a wedding in Douglas in September. You just would not credit it would you. The only brits on the site and both with Manx connections.
After tea, and at about 10pm I made my way back to my tent, to be joined shortly after by the 2 bikers from Latvia, carrying cans of beer which the willingly shared!. We stood drinking and talking bikes for a very pleasant hour and a half before they returned to their tents as they wanted to be off for 8am.

Monday morning, Jed checking the rear tyre very carefully, he does not want another American fiasco, he says.

At just before 8am the 2 from Latvia came back across to my tent and wanted to take photos of myself and the bike, I agreed provided that they also included Jed, they were more than happy to oblige and even posed for a photo for me.

It also transpired that they, and the british couple had stayed at the camp site where I would be spending the next 3 nights, Campingplatz Smok, on the outskirts of Krakow.

I left the site at abou 9.15am in order to go to Krakow which is about 250 miles from Warsaw. The first 45 mins of the journey found me fighting traffic just trying to cross Warsaw, it was very slow going I can tell you, stop, start and an aching left wrist from holding in the clutch, anyhow, the traffic eventually thinned as I satred to go out of Warsaw.....until I hit the roadworks. I had been warned by the Latvians and the English couple that there were roadworks on my route but they were a lot slower that I thought they would be. I hit abou 100km (60 mile) of single lane contraflow which was flowing at only about 40 - 60 kph. It was taking an age, and by now I was also developing a headache, and wasw feeling very tired. I made a couple of stops to try to wake myself up, and also to take some headache tablets, but neither seemed to help.

Around about lunchtime I pulled in again at a garage, and went to sleep on the grass next to the car park, waking about half an hour later to the noise of kids chattering. I sat up to find a group of about 8 lade aged in the early teens gathered around Blackie. I got up and managed to have a little chat to them as 1 spoke a little English. It transpired that they were Polish and were on a school trip to Rimini in Italy, not bad eh.

I carried on a bit further and was forced to stop about 40km short of Krakow in order to re-fuel. As I did so I noticed a couple of bikes parked up and that they had yellow number plates fitted. I rode over to them and saw they were 2 Scottish registered bikes, so I stopped to have a chat with the riders. It appeared that they were 2 weeks into a 3 week holiday, and they told me that on the boat over they had met 2 other bikers from the Isle of Man, they had also been over to the TT this year as well. It really is a small world. These 2 were also staying in Krakow for a couple of days, but in a hotel, not a campsite.

After a day lasting 8hours I finally arrived at the campsite and the first thing I have done is to book a tour for tomorrow to Auschwitz. The tour picks up at the campsite on the way though from Krakow and apparently last 6 hours, it also includes an English speaking guide, so that is me sorted for tomorrow. More to follow soon folks.

Warsaw in the sun

First of all I start with an apology......I cannot do Warsaw justice in just one day, I barely scratched the surface, but here goes.
From the camp site I bough a 9 zloty bus transport pass that gives unlimeted access to the bus, tram and metro system around Warsaw which was great as to get to the old town I needed to catch a bus, the tram and then a second bus, travel time about 30 mins.
All went well, bus 1 caught and then the tram, however, when I went for bus 2 the road to the old town was shut due to a fashion show later in the day. This meant I had a warm walk of about 1 and a halk km.
Anyhow I made it, seem to be spending a lot of time walking lately. The first part of the old town I came to was the Royal Palace that sits dominating one of the squares of the old town. I later took a tour of the Royal Palace (free when I went in) and the history of the place is facinating.
It was bombed by the Germans during the war and then tottaly destroyed when german soldiers blew it up, leaving nothing standing.
It has since, obviously, been rebuilt as an exact copy of the original and work was only completed in 1988. The interior has been lovingly restored and looks superb with loads and loads of gold.
One room is dedicated to Canaletto paintings as he was the court artist for years. An impressive site to see all his original works on display in one room.
On the walk into town there are also glass blocks which show Caneletto works with the view from his days. The view, apart from street furniture has hardley changed.

This is the small square in the old town, and agin was destroyed during the war and rebuilt from photographs and memories to what it was before the war. The bell in the centre had never been hung in a church, but it is supposed to be good luck to walk around it 3 times. I found this out later, I had only walked around 3/4 of it, does that count for anything?

Whislt looking for a section of the ghetto wall I came across this building on which was a version of street art. I like the window, in the picture below, being used for the soldiers mouth.

I did manage to find a couple of sections of the old Ghetto wall which have been preserved as a reminder of the horrors of the holocaust. The wall surrounded the whole of the ghetto area housing the jews and was about 3mt high and 1mt thick.

This statue, showing a small boy in a over large German helmet, is dedicated to all the children of Wasaw that rose to fight the Germans during the war. He is called The Little Insurgent.

As I walked back from the old town, the fashion show was in full swing. It never ceases to amaze me what strange walks these girls have, they just do not walk normally, how do they do it? I watched for about half an hour and in that time saw designs from about 5 designers. I would think that, in total, about 5% of the clothing could be worn by a normal person.

As can be seen below, could you wear any of this, in your dreams or fantasies perhaps!

I am really sorry that this has been such a brief view of Warsaw but I must move on again tomorrow to Krakow, which I must admit I am looking forawrd too.

I finished my time at Elk witha very nice steak with pink peppercorn sauce and a couple of beers for about £10.00 then it was time for bed and hopefully a good nights sleep. I was rewarded, never heard a thing all night and certainly no jet skis blasting across the lake at 5am.

Woke, had breakfast and packed and it was off on the 200 mile ride to Warsaw, via Treblinka. The roads today were, in the main, great, long undulating straights and sweeping bends with loads of great overtaking opportunities, superb riding, although with a bit of a breeze, quite cold at times. Had to stop at a grage to re-fuel and I took the opportunity to put on my EDZ windblocker top under my jacket. It may be tissue paper thin but it certainly cuts out the wind, fantastic bit of kit, every motorcyclist should have one.
After about an hour and a half I came to the village of Treblinka only to find no signs at all the site of the extermination site. After trying to speak to a couple of people, an old farmer type shouted "Camp, 10km, gravel road, right", so on I went along a concrete road that had seen better days, in 10k I did come to a large boulder marked Treblinka and a 100yds further, a cobbled path off to the right which led to the car park.
From the car park the Treblinka camp was a further 400 mt walk, with the penal labour camp and execution site a further 2km walk. By now it was very warm and I was glad that I had taken my gore-tex liners out of my motorcycle trousers.
The Treblinka camp only operated between 1942 and the end of 1943, the first shipment of Jews for extermination only took place on 23rd July 1942, and ther was a prisoner rebellion on 2nd August 1943, however in that 13 months an astonishing 800,000 Jews and Roma were exterminated in gas chambers in the camp.
Following the rebellion the camp was destroyed by the Nazi's so everything that is on voew today is symbolic. These concrete sleepers have been laid along the line of the original train track that bought the prisoners to the camp. The station platform is actually as it was in the day.
It has been claimed that the Nazi's "boasted" that it took only 7hrs from the arrival of a train load of prisoners for them to be seperated, stripped of all possesions, gassed and the bodies burnt on speacial grids and the remains reduced to ash.
What a very, very sad place.

On the site of Treblinka II extermination site have been placed thousands of symbolic standing stones off all sizes, they represent towns and villages, all across Europe and Russia, from where the Jews were transported to the site. Many bear names of cities, towns and villages but the majority are plain.
Only one stone bears a name.

The stone for Januscz Korczak. This man was an author, Dr and Paediatrician who worked at an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazi's demanded that 168 children from the orphanage together with 20 staff were to be shipped to Treblinka to what was certain death. Korczak was, on many occasions, given the opportunity to save himself, however, he refused each time and insisted that he accompany the children, knowing what his end would be. Even on the station at Warsaw he was given a further chance, but again he refused and boarded the train. He was never heard of again.

When I eventually returned to my bike there was a group from a motorcycle club in Hungary parked up, including 2 Blackbirds, 1 Blue and 1 Silver. I did sort of converse with one of the group and he told me they had ridden 900km over 2 days to get here. I'm afraid as he had little English and I no Hungarian it was pretty tough going but he did ask where I had been, when I told him he seemed impressed, especially when I said I had a 5 week trip.

Continued onto Warsaw and was taken aback to see a fair number of ladies of the night standing at intervals along the main road next to dirt tracks into the forest. I assume they were of that proffesion from what they were wearing and how they were standing, of course they could have just been waiting to catch an early bus into Warsaw for the nights clubs, but I think not.

I have seen this before when travelling along forrested roads in Poland nearer to the German border but that was a few years ago. It obviously has not been stamped out.

Arrived at my camp site for the night, Camping Wok, just outside the City centre, and what a revalation it is, it is how camp sites all should be. It is spotless and obviously very well kept. I am sure that you could eat your dinner from the floors of the toilet and shower block, they are that nice, it also has a club, kitchen and laundry, and a bus at the end of the road into Warsaw. It will be a pleasure to spend a couple of nights here I am sure.

Will get up tomorrow and bus it into Warsaw and see what the big city has to offer to a foot weary torist. I am sure it will have plenty.

Chill out day

Well today is chill out day. Got up and went to breakfast and this morning had a bowl of chocolate ball type cereal follwed by Nutella on bread, not your usual breakfast but still very tasty. Could not eat it everyday though.
The day had started with what the Irish call "soft weather" a very light drizzle, so I decided to do a little clothes washing before popping out for a little walk around Elk. The town itself looks quite nice, and another change from the 3 previous countries was that the flats, (very few houses) although very poor looking in means of repair, all seem to have flowers on the balconies. It is obvious that the occupiers take some pride in the surroundings.
I wandered about and eventually came to the railway station and a subway under the tracks to the Elk Narrow Guage Railway Musuem. What the hell, surely its worth a look.
The gates were wide open but there was no one about at all so I just wandered into the yard and had a look around. It appears that the narrow guage railway was built at the start of the last centuary to help get the Polish economy back and track. From the look at the rolling stock and engines on the tracks that was about the last time anything had been worked on, as witnessed by the poor state of the engine in the photo below.
There was one smaller engine that did look a lot better and on certain days you can take a ride to a neighbouring town about 40km away...you,ve guessed it, one of the days was yesterday and the next one was on Sunday, oh well, back to the hotel.
Whilst walking back I saw the below little group sitting in the "soft weather" trying to sell a few jars of home picked berries, I also saw a couple of old women trying to sell a couple of bottles of milk, I suppose it is one step removed from openly begging.

That reminds me of when I entered Lithuania, I went into the 1st town to go to an ATM, you never know if you need fees to drive on the roads, and its always nice to have a little local currency in any case. I withdrew some money and it gave me a single 200 Lita note, the eqivalent of about £50.00. I went back to the bike and I was approached by a scruffy male who was a little unsteady on his feet to say the least. He then tried to speak to me in, very broken

English, and was asking where I was heading to, he then tried to give directions. At the end of that he asked if I had any change, at least he had the honesty to say that he wanted it so that he "could buy a little drink", if I had the change I would have given it to him for his honesty, there was none of this " 10p towards a cup of tea" crap.

Anyhow, back to the hotel, via a corner fruit store (cherries and plums) and a supermarket (bottled water and Milka chocolate) and back to my room for a brew, hence the bottled water because the water from the wash basin tap has a definate yellow tinge. As it was still drizzling a bit, I had my brew and cherries whilst lying on the bed reading from my Kindle, next thing I knew I woke up about 2hrs later and the sun was peeping into the room. It was nice to have a little snooze I must admit.

I have reviewed the next few days and the plan (at the moment) is to ride down to Warsaw tomorrow for 2 nights camping in a site near the town centre, that will be followed by 3 nights camping just outside Krakow. I am really looking forward to Krakow and I will use it as a base to see the city, Auschwitz, and also the giant salt mine just outside the city.

I will then cross into Slovakia and I have found a pension (guest house) at a town named Liptovsky Mikulas, which is about 20 km from Vlkolinec, another place that has been recommended to me to visit. Following that I have 1 night at a pension in Bojnice before crossing into the Czech republic.

However, that is all getting well ahead of myself and I have loads to do before then.

Fireworks at midnight.

Last night at midnight, 1am to me as I had gained an hour coming over the border into Poland, the world erupted as a group of kids let off a barrage of fireworks. This went on for about 15 mins, some of the loudest that I have ever heard. At least they sounded loud as everything else was so quiet!
Then at 3am a group of girls went up the road making one hell of a din, then to cap it all, the bloody jet skis were flying back and forth over the lake at 5am, what is wrong with people, don't they know that I am supposed to be chilling out today.
I think (read know) that I am getting old.

What a difference a border makes.

When I woke this morning, as predicted, it was raining, however as check in time from the hotel was midday I was in no rush to get on the bike. During breakfast I noticed that the rain had stopped and the ground was drying fast, so at 1030 I decided to make my move. By now there wer actually one or two blue patches up there. First stop was to re-fuel in order to use up my local currency, well I used up some of it at least. I decided to stop again just before the polish border and top up the fuel again so I could go out of the country skint. That was the plan anyhow, however, after riding only about 30 km I felt really tired and started to yawn, so I was forced to stop early in order to wake up. A can of red bull later I was once agin on the road.
I did manage to stop again at what I later found was the last petrol station before the border, and used up all my currency, almost, I was left with equivalent of about 60 pence. By now the sun was also out and it was nice and pleasently warm....for a change.
I crossed the border and almost as soon as I drove past the abandoned customs post the scenery and roads changed, how can this be, I only drove over an imaginary line on the map.
The roads in Lithuania were staright and went through and past open farm land but as soon as I crossed the border the road started to twist and turn, going inbetween small hills and through heavy, broadleaf woodland.
One sight I did see before I left Lithuania was a farmer ploughing his field with a horse (does that work better than a plough I wonder), in the UK you would expect the farmer to be followed by a hoard of seagulls, not here, about 30 storks were patiently walking along behind him picking at whatever he was turning up. A sight to behold.
Another feature of the roads in Poland, and they started to appear straight after the border, were shrines at the side of the road, I presume to honour people killed in car accidents, no doubt someone will correct that. I have seen them before when I have driven through Poland, but on this occasion they all seemed to have been dressed. There were also loads of people about in their Sunday best walking along with flowers or branches from trees. I know that the Latvians had a "longest day" celebration and I wondered if this was the same for Poland. In fact, as I pulled into Elk the Police had the road closed and as I found an alternative route I came across a large outdoor gathering with people all dressed up and a priest conducting some sort of service and blessing. At the end of it all the poeople rushed to the podium and started to tear braches of two small trees that were alonside the podium. Again perhaps some on will enlighten me. I arrived at the apartment I had booked yesterday, and as I was alone I was moved from a 3 person apartment to a 2 person one, it meant I lost my kitchenette but the plus side was that I gained a room overlooking the lake, nice view eh!

Blackie looking resplendant outside the aprtment/bar. The 2 windows for my room are the ones over the words "& Pub"

Jed enjoys the view over the lake and catches a few rays of sunshine. He hopes that the forecast for the next few days is good.

My reward for the day, a nice long, cold local beer. What could be better, a cold beer, blackie in the background and the sun shining.

Tomorrow is going to be a chill out day. There is a bench on the side of the lake with my name on it!