Standing on the corner of Winslow, AZ!

As sung by the Eagles in the song 'Take it easy' Well we've pretty much got the latter part cracked over the last 3 years but this was our chance to get the first bit checked off!! Winslow, Arizona is a tiny town on the old Route 66. Politely put there doesn't seem to be much going for it these days but after it's fame from the Eagles song they'd milked every last drop and have a fab little park dedicated to the whole 'Standing on the corner...' thing. A bronze statue of a backpacker with guitar standing on the corner. A lovely big mural of a girl in a old Ford truck is in the background (And the real life version in the foreground). It's rather cool and I've been humming that darn song the last 24 hours. Perhaps this will get it out of my system!

Also in Arizona, also on the Route 66 this time in Holbrook - a classic of the old Mother Road - the Wigwam hotel - 15 concrete wigwams, each comes complete with it's own classic car parked and rusting away outside! I'll stick to Harvey thanks but it sure looks the part! And you can still actually stay in these things - rates were starting from $48!!

More about Petrified Forest National Park which we visited the same day soon (my battery is about to die!)

Memorial Day Weekend

Finally the weather picked up just in time for the long weekend. After a couple of days cooped up in the RV half way up a mountain getting snowed on it was good to get out! This really is such a beautiful part of the state - we took a long ride out north west of Santa Fe - up to Taos area. Lots to see and do along the way!

San Francisco de Asis church - it's in some dispute whether this is the oldest or second oldest church in America - either way it's old! A lovely adobe building - the straw is literally crumbling out of the walls with every gust of wind! - But adobe building techniques are not to be sniffed out - it was built in 1815!

The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge - with incredible views into the river gorge some 650 feet below! The landscape around and approaching the bridge is quite flat and within 1/4 mile of the gorge we still hadn't seen the gorge - then suddenly it opens up like some giant crack in the earth - Amazing views along the gorge with the mountains far off in the distance.

Taos Peublo - was built around 1450 and has been continuosuly inhabitated ever since! It's the largest exisiting multi-storey pueblo structure in the USA and is traditional adobe construction and is home to a fair few ferral dogs following you round and begging for scraps!

Taos Plaza - we stopped in Taos town for our lunch and listened to the drone of Harley Davidsons going by. Being Memorial Day weekend every man and his pillion rider were out on bikes proudly wearing their Vietnam Vet jackets (did the US Military issue Harleys to their War Vets to see out their days deafening everyone with the noise???) On the up side it was free parking on the plaza and a cheery display of Stars & Stripes flags backlit in the sunshine.


Red River - we soon discovered the source of all the Harleys...Bike Week in Red River! The place was heaving. It took about 15 minutes to ride the 1 mile downtown main street. I don't like (the noise of) Harleys (who'd have guessed eh?) BUT they do look good - especially en masse and there was a party atmosphere even just riding through.

Took the 'Enchanted Circle' road - 84 mile loop around Wheeler Peak the highest in New Mexico (13,161ft) - still completely snow capped at the moment and by the time we passed by glowing in the last rays of sun.

We had such a long ride out - didn't get back till 10pm - 2 hours after sunset by which time it was freezing of course! Just as well the neighbours had a healthy campfire roaring away to sit beside!


This morning we said out goodbyes to Nancy and Chris - after nearly a week of having some Brit Rv-ing neighbours they're fast-tracking their way to California whilst we're Arizona bound. We moved further up the hill but back into a site with electricty for the night to recharge our woeful batteries after battering them with an overdose fan heating!

But with more gorgeous weather another day out on the bike beckoned. There's so many variations of roads around the area - all with such lovely scenery and good roads just to be out enjoying the ride and the long weekend holiday! (but with that ever-so-slightly smug thought that I'm not going back to work tomorrow! (Yes you can all laugh oh-so-loud at me when it's my turn, but until then...!))

Snowing in Santa Fe

Here now in Santa Fe. We're staying in the National Forest just 8 miles away from town but it could be a million miles - we're 1500 feet higher than the city (which is at 7000 feet anyway!), the air is fresh and clear, we're camped surrounded by pine trees with the most amazing smells and today we woke up to snow!! (actually it was exciting but wasn't really part of the plan!) The high altitude seemed like a great idea when we arrived in town with temperatures in the 90's. Now I'm not so sure....it's a little chilly! It didn't stop us setting off for our daily hikes but the last mile today was a determined hail storm! (nothing like a natural exfoliator!) We ventured briefly into the old centre of Santa Fe but we're here for a few more days and we'll explore more then. Camping next door to us are Nancy and Chris - the other English RV'ers. There's nothing like a good chin-wag around the campfire at night!

Albuquerque part II

Had a busy time in Albuquerque. Lots of chores to do - a new fridge fitted, new tires for the RV and for the bike (already!!). But we still had time for some fun. Did a couple of hikes in the Cibola National Forest - We rode up to Sandia Crest - a 16 mile scenic highway to the 10,000 foot peak overlooking the city and hiked from there. Or rather it wasn't so much of a hike as a 'trudge' - it was still pretty thick snow on a well shaded trail - at times knee deep! The view from the top was spectacular - that was moments before the cloud came in and obscured the view and treated us to a little snow in case we were in any doubt who was boss!

Back at the bottom of the hill we stopped by a great museum - The Tinkertown museum. We've done our fair share of musuems during this trip but this was totally unlike anything else. It was put together by an artist called Ross Ward who spent most of his life creating what today comprises Tinkertown. It started with a collection of miniture hand-carved figures back in the 60's and 70's which he travelled to carnivals and fairs to display. Now the museum is housed in buildings made of glass bottles (over 50,000 of them!) and is a crazy maze-like series of rooms with various collections - the original figures & old southwestern street scenes, circus scenes, a collection of wedding cake bride & groom toppers, antique tools, dolls, a 35ft boat (Which spent 10 years travelling the world - that's a whole other story!), fairground entertainment - we had our fortunes told by 'Esmerelda', established that I should be a 'Dictator' on the career wheel of fortune and listened to music on the wurlizter! It was just an amzing place and such fun! You turned each corner never knowing what delights were in store and there was so much to see! We met Carla - Ross's wife. It was her brother Fritz that had travelled for 10 years in the boat. We chatted for a while about his travels - so interesting for us also being travellers! The boat he wasn't able to sell after his adventures so it took the trip across the land to settle forever in the Tinkertown museum. As we left Carla gave us a copy of his book - we haven't finished it yet but already it's such a fascinating read.

Our second day being tourists we went downtown. First to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Centre - we got there in time for the traditional dancing. There were just 5 dancers but they all performed different traditional dances - lots of fancy names which I'm afraid were totally lost on me. The costumes were what I loved the most - so colourful and vibrant and full of texture and flow as they moved! The rest of the centre was dedicated to the 19 pueblo villages that still exisit in New Mexico. Although they often get lumped together as similar cultures they are all quite distinct with a number of different languages and customs.

We spent the rest of the day at the National Atomic Museum (it was here in New Mexico that the first atomic test bomb was exploded) and in the old town area - eating ice-creams in the shade of the trees surrounding the traditional plaza.

Albuquerque

We have a new camera! Very excited! After a false start on Sunday when we bought the camera orginally, we took it home, played around, and discovered the colour was off - like REALLY off - Chris's new bike was bright pink! After a call to Canon they agreed it was defective. Somewhat frustrating as we were in wilderness 200 miles from the nearest store to get it exchanged. So now...it's sorted. We have our brand new fully functional Canon Digital EOS Rebel XSi!! and very nice it is too. Currently wading our way through the instruction manual. It's a late birthday present from each other and from Pat who gave us birthday money this year towards it - so thank you all!

Have just spent a few days in a town called Truth or Consequences. Yes a strange name for a town, but in 1950 they changed their name (previously called Hot Springs) as part of a publicity and fund-raising effort and it's stuck ever since! It was named after a popular game show at the time.

From here we took a fantastic ride out on the bike up into the hills and Gila National Forest. The roads were fabulous biking roads through very picturesque scenery. Past the HUGE open mine pit of Santa Rita (the oldest active mine in the SW - it's 1.5 miles wide and 1800ft deep and is producing 300 million lbs of copper a year!), over the 8228ft high Emory Pass and through a few small (nearly) ghost towns . Stopped for lunch in Silver City - it was a silver mining town, then got lucky and found copper once the silver ran out so now it's still going strong as a funky bonhemian town with every other store an art gallery, a few good cafes, wineries and at least one brewpub that we noticed! The old downtown is full of Victorian brick buildings and a real wild west town feel to the place! A great stop and a chance to stretch our legs for a couple of hours. We then took an incredibly twisty road north to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument - the road was actually TOO twisty to be really good fun on the bike - but at least we weren't in a car - the recommended drive time was 2 hours to do 58 miles!! (we did it all in about an hour! - the advantages of a bike on narrow roads - at least we could overtake the slow stuff!) Gila Cliff Dwellings were inhabited about 700 years ago by the Mogollon people - there were a series of 7 caves set up in the cliffs with dwellings built in stone inside them making up some 40 or so individual rooms. Quite fascinating stuff - quite reminiscent of the Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, CO we visited a couple of years back but these were very quiet because of their remote location - we only saw 2 other people in the area!

And so now we're in Albuquerque. Getting a new fridge fitted! After 2 years of intermittent problems with the thing - going from +15 and everything warm to -5 and frozen food I've got fed up and booked us in Friday, whilst Chris was still mincing about it all (it doesn't help that for the last week everything seems to be fine). I figure it's a kitchen applicance and therefore my domain and whilst Chris sits gazing adoringly at his mistress (aka the new bike) I'll get on and admire a new shiny, clean fridge - a fair deal - nah!!! - get me my leather jacket and helmet and take me for a ride baby!! (but I WILL get a cold drink when I get back!)

The Fireblade's first track day

A bit of an exciting 'in a nervous kind of way' day today; I took the new bike, aka 'The Mistress' (as named by Helen and for probably obvious reasons) on the track for the first time; not bad really as it is only two weeks old and barely run-in! Not that modern Japanese bikes really need much of a running-in; more of a case of stay under 120mph and don't practice too many racing starts... The nerves were there anyway, what with it being a new bike that I'd hardly had chance to get to know. (unlike 'Donkey' who had over 25,000 miles on him before he was subjected to track abuse) And then compounded by the track owner who gave us a drive/walk round first thing explaining as he went just how technical and complicated to learn the track actually was. And then there was the bad surface, the dips and bumps, the gouges dug by previous unfortunates and the desert wind blowing sand and dust across the place. Being a sensibly mature(?) kinda guy I set off at a comfortably slow pace choosing, along with another 'new' guy - Bill, to follow one of the locals to learn the lines and was more than a little surprised to see Bill hammer it down the first straight, brake waaay too late and run straight off the track into the desert; the last I saw out of my peripheral vision was him and his beloved bike cartwheeling into the distance. Almost comical considering the conversation we'd just moments before about taking it easy for the first few sessions! Thankfully that was the only mishap of the day and the rest of us had a good safe day exploiting the sheer excess of power, speed and ability way beyond any of us mere mortals that is a modern sportsbike. So now my head is buried in magazines looking for any up-coming track days whilst Helen has resigned herself to second place... No chance honey!!!

Viva Terlingua!

We so didn't want to leave Terlingua. Such a great place that just felt so 'right' straight away. It obviously helped that we met great people - Cynta, who in turn arranged for us to park the RV in the yard of Sue & Joe. Such a warm welcome. The plan was just a night - Cynta laughed at us and said people never stay what they planned - and she was right - it really didn't take that much persuading for us to stay an extra day (And really it could've been so much longer). Terlingua Ghost Town is such a funky little community that we felt right at home in - out walking the neighbourhood dogs with Cynta in the mornings and sitting on 'The Porch' at the Starlight in the evening (and really the BEST margaritas I've tasted!). Last night we also met another great couple - Nancy and Chris - English (check), Young (check), RV'ers (check), wanting to emigrate to Canada (check)!!! Talk about conincidence! In all this time of travelling we've met next to no RV'ers our kind of age and then we do and we're similar in those other aspects too! Obviously we had a fair amount to chat about!! With 4 Brits in the house we treated Terlingua to a little of the weather from home - got them pretty exicited about the flash of rain that passed through - first for them since November I think it was!! With that came a spectacular show - lightening like we'd never seen - dramatic fork lightening going across the sky in all directions - amazing!

Staying the extra day also gave us the chance to check out a wicked little biking road that Sue & Joe implored us to do. (FM170) Just 62 miles long between Terlingua and Presidio it was non-stop twisties and roller-coaster straights - sometimes both at the same time! There were a few crazy blind bend hilltops and some seriously steep hills - following the Rio Grande all the way. We stopped in Presidio for lunch then turned around and did the route in reverse - which was just like a whole new road of turns and twists putting the new bike through it's paces. We stopped at a little old film set village and some fun teepees (or wig-wams?) check out the pics!

Big Bend National Park

We've just spent the last 3 days in Big Bend National Park. Right at the bottom of Texas on the border with Mexico. A very remote and beautiful part of the state. The Rio Grande runs along the edge of park creating a natural border with Mexico. We camped down by the river - the hottest place to be! But the other campsite was up in the Chisos Basin - 5500ft up with a small, twisty and steep road with a bunch of switchbacks to contend with - not a road that Harvey could handle! It would've been nice but I don't think we'd have lived to be writing this blog!! Instead we used the bike to get around the park. We did a couple of amazing hikes up in the basin - one out to 'the window' - a gap in the mountains surrounding the basin where you can see out into the surrounding area (slightly spooked at the idea that the trail we used had had a bear sighting only the afternoon before - a bear with 4 cubs no less! - our crazy bear song came into good use once again!! - actually it was a pretty well used trail and we saw a bunch of other people out hiking too) The second hike of the day 'Lost Mine Trail' was way more peaceful - the trailhead had 2 other vehicles parked up and we passed 2 groups of people heading back down within a few minutes of us setting off so it seemed like a safe bet we were the only ones out on that particular trail that evening. We didn't leave till 6pm so we had gorgeous late afternoon light when we got to the top - just amazing views. Back in the basin we watched sunset - conviently it lines itself up just so with the window!! From the basin we had a 20 mile ride back down to the river campsite and here we were ran the gauntlet of sucidal animals that seem to live in Big Bend. We had near misses with 3 birds (added to the 3 birds that met their maker on the 8x12 foot speeding wall that is Harvey!) We saw 3 deer and then 3 javelinas - which we stopped in good time for but the truck coming the other way wasn't so good on the brakes... and lets just say if Javelinas were pigs then I'd be cooking myself a bacon butty right now! Finally the sucidal Jackrabbit so I seriously don't know how we missed - and by this time we were crawling along at a snails pace after all the near misses!!

But besides all the crazy animals there's been a few 'new' animals sightings for us to add to our list! Javelinas (they are NOT pigs!!) and a real live tarantula (not in a zoo!) and though we've seen them before we had a cute little roadrunner hanging around our campsite! The morning we left the winds had come in. Bad for visibility but great for the heat - so much cooler down by the river and we took a nice hike out along the river, through the desert to the Hot Springs. The cooler temperatures made it so much nicer easing yourself into the 100 degree water too of course!

Right now we're staying in Terlingua Ghost town - just a few miles outside of the park on the western side. We came here to meet up with a couch-surfer - Cynta. She lives in a beautiful house she'd rebuilt from the ruins of the ghost town (this was an old Mercury mining town which was abandoned in the mid 1940's). It's a great little place full of funky old ruins and the old Stralight theatre - now a great reaturant/bar/meeting place. The town mercantile with a huge porch full of intersting characters and impromptu music from someone sitting out and stiking up a toon on the banjo! It's so peaceful here! We just whiled away the evening sat on Cynta's porch star-gazing - and boy can you see the stars in a place like this?! There's just no light pollution - the sky just doesn't seem big enough for all these stars!

That grin...

Still hasn't worn off!

Yesterday we'd moved on to Hill Country, TX and some classic biking roads. There's a loop route of three roads - the 335,336,337 that are sweet (according to a t-shirt we saw someone wearing the 3 roads are called 'the 3 sisters' and it's a very well know biking route), We took a ride in of about 300 miles. A great way to get used to the bike a bit and help with that 'running in' thing. Hill Country is just gorgeous. This is actually the 3rd time we've visited (the first time we had no bike, the second I was ill so Chris went riding the route by himself). There's a whole bunch of exotic animals living in Hill Country (at times the scenery it quite African looking. We saw giraffes and plenty of exotic hooved animals with fancy antlers - not your regular white-tailed deer that's for sure!) I was most excited by the kangaroos!! (At least I think they were - they had the whole bouncy thing going on but were quite small - what's a wallaby? could it have been them?) Anyway, Cute and all chilling out under the shade of a tree in the heat of the day! There's so many rivers and the contrast between the lush greeness and the bright blue sky was wonderful. We ate roadside BBQ at a bikers joint and kept the jackets open-necked to let the breeze in - it was a hot day!

Before leaving Austin we stayed with some other friends - Marty and Tom. They were fantastic tour guides who gave us an 'Austin in 8 hours' tour! Boy we crammed in a lot, it was great! We toured the capitol building (with a 4 floor building set underground next to the original domed building) and the senate & house of represenatives and into the Governors reception room. We went by Lake Travis (Another of Austin's lakes that was dammed), We saw their new house, had lunch at their new neighbourhood restaurant and finished off the day at the University of Texas Club in the Longhorns Football Stadium (the Longhorns are the College Football team of the Univeristy of Texas Austin). It was a great day out - thanks Marty & Tom!

A new addition to the family, Donkey is put out to pasture and Happy Birthday Chris!!

Well what a busy couple of days. It's all change in the Mills-Backhouse household. After nearly 3 years of loyal service Donkey (or 'The Donkster' as he was more recently known as (hey - it was a Buell we had to make him a little more hip and cool y'know?!)) was put out to pasture - to see out his days in a more relaxed and better place than hanging off the back of the RV for about 35,000 miles!!

And of course y'all know better that Chris isn't saying goodbye to one motorbike without welcoming in a new one! Yes we welcome a new (as yet un-christened) motorbike - a Honda CBR1000RR (Fireblade). To me it's a large shiny red and black thing. It has a higher pillion seat making it more difficult for me to clamber on and off but it IS much smoother ride, less vibrations and it sounds nice - much less like a Harley, much more my thing. Chris, well he's just spent the last 24 hours wandering around with an ear-to-ear grin - it's beginning to look a little scary, you know - village idiot look!

It wasn't REALLY that planned an event. He'd hankered after the 2007 model Fireblade since last November just before we left Texas when he saw they'd been discounted over $2000 on the new price (there's a new model out now which he prefers less). I reigned him in at that point but there'd been various mutterings over the past months and finally I suggested he phone round the Austin dealers 'just to see' if they still had any in stock in his colour choice. So all we'd really gone into the showroom for was to see what kind of trade-in price they'd give us on Donkey. He'd had a hard life, several scuffs and all and we'd been offered just $1000 last November which was a joke. When the guy looked at the bike and offered us considerably more than what we'd even hoped for we didn't even look at each other (we just knew it was good!), and pretty much signed on the dotted line right there. About 45 minutes later Chris rode out the door on the new bike!! I got all upset about Donkey - poor old thing. I was probably more fond of him than Chris (being the underdog, and I never really appreciated all his faults and shortfalls than Chris found so frustrating). That was all yesterday. I like to think that it was his birthday present - that's what I'm saying anyway - because that makes me sound like a really cool, understading wife!!

Today we're staying with friends John & Michelle and their kids Kate & Callum in Austin. Started the day off watching a VERY exciting little league Baseball game that Callum was playing in. This is WAY more interesting than grown-ups baseball and I even totally got the hang of the scoring, along with a little screaming and cheering! John & Michelle took us out to lunch for Chris's birthday. It was a scorchio day and what better place to be than down near the water - Lake Austin to be precise. There was a great Hawaiian themed place called 'The Hula Hut' (though I'm sure most of the food was TexMex) right on the water and we sat out drinking cold beer and margaritas on the deck before eating a late lunch.

Back in the USA!!

Oh it's so good to be back. We had an OK journey back from Gatwick, via Philadelphia and into Houston. At least this time US Airways served something vaguely edible!! We had a 4 hour stop over in Philly but just as well as we spent some time chatting to the folks at immigration. Of course we're nice people and once they realised this they were more than happy to stamp our passports and see us on our way. But that only left time for our first American junk food meal (in the form of Chick-Fil-A - it could be worse!) before boarding for the second leg of the journey. By this time I was quite frankly cranky. I'd worked out we were fast approaching the 24 hour-with-no-sleep time and I still had to drive from the airport back to the Storage facility where Harvey was parked. Things looked right up when we ended up landing 3/4 hour earlier than we'd expected. We're still not sure whether we'd got the times wrong or the pilot just drove fast!!(Oh - you know how we always moan about England. Can I just point out the America charges $3 for a trolley at the airport (compared to free) AND the bottles of water at the airport were more expensive than England. Now don't say I never say anything nice and complimentary about my place of birth!!) The hire car place was empty so we were through that in a flash. They had no compact cars so we've ended up with a monster of a 7-seater MPV - it's SO embarrassing - someone might think I've got children!! I set to the drive with new and renewed energy and we even zombied our way round Walmart to stock up on some immediate essentials. We were in bed at 12.30am local time - just 25.5 hours after we'd got up in England the previous day.

Harvey had no power or water that night. But everything looked good by torchlight. The lady from the storage facility had come by and opened the windows for freshness but I'm sure it still smelt of the air freshener I'd blitzed 5 months previous! We had a surprisingly good nights sleep and and when we came to move next door into the campground Harvey even started on the 2nd try - no dead vehicle batteries!!! And everything IS GOOD. Harvey is great. A small hiccup with some rain through the roof but nothing we didn't know about. Still confused as to why our plastic sunflowers are in a vase full of water???....(I'm sure there wasn't THAT much rain come through the roof!!!)

Tallinn, Estonia - last days in Europe

OK. So it's been awhile. Once we got back to the UK we had just 6 days to get our gear in order before heading off again to the USA. It's only today that I got to download the photos from our last days in Eastern Europe!..

Our final stop was Tallinn in Estonia. We couch-surfed here for 2 nights with a wonderful host - Marion (thanks!!). Her apartment was just minutes walk from the old town. She took us out to eat at a great restaurant - Kompressor. They did enormous stuffed pancakes and were a bargain price. Apparently EVERYTHING in Estonia gets served with sour cream - and Kompressor didn't let us down - I had a garlic sour cream with my cheese & mushroom stuffed beast! (It was so good we wound up here on our 2nd night too!) She also gave us a private guided tour of the Old town theatre - the Linnatheater. It's in a beautiful old building (or rather several buildings on the same block). The facades are all classicly old and inside it's a wonderful higgildy piggidly maze of rooms, backstage areas, workshops, dressing rooms and stages. There are 3 stages, all only seating a few people (maybe 100-150?) Somehow it's all been fused together inside even when each building looks so 'separate' from the street. Sadly the weather in Tallin was terrible. I guess it was the most north we went on our 3 week trip and it's on the Baltic Sea (now doesn't that just seem to shout COLD/WET at you?!?!?) We still did a walk round the old town cobbled streets and buildings but it was inter-jected with a darn sight more cosy coffee shop stops than usual!! (Check out the spire of that church - you can't even see the top it's so shrouded in mist!!) There was a particularly great coffee shop right on Raekoja plats (the main town square). It had rough, uneven stone floors, low ceilings, cosy soft lighting and comfy old sofas in the corner AND they served a great hot cocoa and mulled wine (not together!) and cheesecake - what more could you ask for?!

So after 3 weeks and 1 day we flew back to the UK. Sad for our short trip to be over but had a brilliant time visiting 7 different countries. We travelled by plane, train, bus, underground, tram, fenicular, foot & cable car!!

Latvia

This was Riga. In Latvia. Great place. We spent 2 nights here staying in a great hostel right in the centre of the old town. A small old town area and very easy to get around by walking alone. Sadly already overpopulated by drunk English who have already made a name for themselves (we were there on a Saturday night so at it's worst). But then, where Easyjet go, the drunk British yob will follow...

This trip we've seen more cobbled streets than you could shake a stick at. Also since getting to the Baltic countries we've seen a LOT more rain. (and there's something quite lovely looking about wet cobble-stones glistening in the neon lights of an evening!)

From Riga we took a bus ride about 50km out of town to Sigulda. It's a town of castles. 3 in fact. Pretty old - around 800 years. 2 are in serious ruins but the 3rd - Turaida castle is in pretty good shape with the help of some restoration! It was a great place for some hiking along the Gauja river and in the woods. We took a cable car across the river valley in one direction then walked (And got lost!) before finally making our way to the castle. At that point the heavens opened (lucky we weren't still walking) so we took refuge in the castle until it eased off!

Happy Anniversary to us!! in Lithuania!

6 Years and counting!! We celebrated our 6th Wedding anniversary today in our 6th different country! Yahay!! A fun tradition that crept up on us a couple of years back and so far so good!! This year we were in Lithuania! We were staying in the city of Vilnius. It was lovely (though didn't quite live up to my expectations of old world euro capital - I must admit I've been somewhat spoiled for choice of late!!) It was a small city and so ideal for us to just stroll around. We had some great food and yet more of the wonderful European beer and visited the Museum of Genocide victims (housed in the former KGB headquarters!). It was a great museum, with excellent displays and plenty of English langage info. In the basement were the old cells and exocution chamber.

From Vilnius we took a 4.5 hour coach journey to Riga in Latvia. Now this is far more my idea of classic, old world quaint European city....

Auschwitz & Birkenau

Today we took a day-trip to the Auschwitz & Birkenau State museum - about 1.25 hours from Krakow.These are such famous names they need no introduction.
The Auschwitz site is much smaller and was the original camp - many of the original buildings remain. Once they outgrew that and needed more gas chambers and crematoria they built the Birkenau site about 3km away. This covers approx 1 square mile, and although the retreating Nazi's tried to cover-up the horrors that had taken place by destroying much of the place some barracks, the railway lines, the unloading dock and perimeter fences remain. It truly is a vast place (there were over 300 barrack blocks here, 4 gas chambers (holding up to 2000 people at one time) and crematoria.

Because so many of the deportees arrving at Auschwitz were gassed on arrival and were never registered (as many as 70%) it has never been agreed exactly how many people perished at these camps. However it is estimated that the figure is in the region of 1.5 million; 90% of which were Jews. It was an insightful day...

High Tatras Mountains

We’ve just spent a couple of nights up in the High Tatras mountains which is a stunning range that just seems to pop up in the middle of hundreds of miles of flat lands; covering the area around north east Slovakia and southern Poland. The Slovakian side is a large national park called Vysoke Tatry. It was the end of the winter season but there was still plenty of snow on the high ground, (around 3,000ft plus) with a few die hard skiers still on the slopes.

We stayed in a ‘chata’ which is an old style mountain chalet up in the snow covered forest and had the most amazing views back down into the valley and up to the 8,000ft peaks higher up.

We took a cable car, (in fact three cable cars) up to the top of Lomniky Stit which is the highest mountain in the region and with the bright sunny day we had, offered amazing views of miles around both of Slovakia and Poland.
To get to Poland we had to take a bus to the border town of Lysa Polana, then get off and walk across the border to catch another bus to Zakopane and beyond to Krakow.

I know the poles have had a rough time of it in the past; first under the Nazi occupation and then under Soviet rule but the country is doing pretty well for itself now. The countryside is beautiful and most of the houses outside the cities are huge five story picture postcard style alpine villas.

Krakow itself is also a very modern and cosmopolitan city that has just the right mix of old and new, and hasn’t as yet been ruined by the stag/hen party crowd; although why I’m not sure as the food and drink is as cheap as anywhere! We’re staying in a fab hostel that is spotlessly clean, includes breakfast and supper in the price, has free internet, laundry etc and is perfectly positioned with a five minute walk to either the train station or the old town; which of course is where the best eateries and drinkeries are!!!

Day off in Kosice!

We've just enjoyed a relaxing day in Kosice. It's Slovakia's second city but is quite small. The main street is cobbled and there's a couple of old churches and a Tesco! There's very little to do (a couple of 'attractions' mentioned in the book seem to be closed for the winter) but it's been nice taking a day off from the rushing around and sight-seeing. We've stayed in a great apartment and indulged in a mini 'LOST-fest' on the laptop - catching up on the last few weeks episodes!! Our first opportunity to get some laundry done and the first time we've had a private bathroom too! (it's not that common compared to America, or is it just the sort of place we stay in?!)

Hungary & Thirsty!!

We have just spent the last 3 days in Hungary. After an interesting 9 hour sleeper train journey from Romania to Budapest on Sunday night we arrived early on Easter Monday morning. Much of Romania is Orthadox so they were not celebrating Easter at that time and so when we left everything there was busy and open. A contrast to Budapest when we arrived - even the McDonalds was closed!! We were able to leave our bags at the station and set off for the day on foot to explore.

Our first stop was the Szechenyi Furdo (thermal baths) in the city park. They were built in 1908 and are wonderful. Huge. Outside were 3 very large swimming pools. The air was cold and the water was warm to get into compared to the air but not so much once we'd sat around for a while! And so inside were more smaller baths & saunas of various temperatures ranging from 32-38 degrees - much more like it! We whiled away our morning here until we were thoroughly wrinkled and warm!

There is much public transport systems in Budapest but we ended up spending the whole day walking around the sights - we must've walked 10km! We had a tour of the 'Magyar Allami Operahaz' (Hungarian State Opera House) which is a beautiful 1884 neo-Renaissance building and wonderfully ornate. We walked along the River Danube and across the Chain Bridge to Buda (the west banks of the River, compared to Pest on the eastern banks). In Buda is 'Varhegy' (Castle Hill) which is high on a hill with fantastic views of the city and the parliamenet buildings on the Pest side of the river (which were apparently modelled after the London Westminster buildings but have many more spires and elaborate features).

During the day we had a couple of helpings of the famous Hungarian Gulash soup to keep us warm!! That evening we had arranged to couch-surf for the very fist time. It is an internet based network of people who offer to host people on their spare 'couch' or bed. You either host or are hosted. We were staying with Zsuzsa + Daniel in Buda. On our arrival at their apartment they had cooked for us traditional Goulash and dessert which was wonderful. We also sampled the Hungarian 'Firewater'brandy 'Palinka' It is strong and fruit flavoured - this one was apricot but it comes in many flavours. It was somewhat 'warming' but very tasty!! We enjoyed 2 great nights at their apartment which was just minutes from the centre of the city. It was a great first experience of couch-surfing and we hope to try it again soon!

Our second day we took the train 20km north of the city to Szentendre (sen-ten-dreh). It is a small quiet town with narrow winding streets and many souvenirs shops, cafes and galleries. It was a great place to spend much of our day just strolling around and shopping! (and today we tried the Hungarian Pancakes (I forget the name of them) They are stuffed with meat and served smothered in a yummy creamy paprika suace!). Back in the city we visited the 'Terror House' museum. The building was formally the headquarters of the secret police. It portrays the life expereinced in Hungary during the times of Nazi occupation during WWII and the Communist occupation between 1945-1990 (they had a hard time in this country!). It was a great museum, though covered a lot more information about the Communist occupation but didn't beat around the bush about how tough life was here (some video and pictures were quite graphic and very sombering).

We had the most incredible meal on our second night. We had been reccommended a restuarnt by an Australian girl, living in Budapest but travelling in Romania when we were staying in Brasov (can you get any more confusing?!). It was a good call! Trofea was near the River Danube and was an all-you-can-eat buffet (including all you can drink wine, beer, champagne, soft drinks etc). It was very good value (though I suspect quite expensive for Hungarian standards) It cost 15GBP each. There was the most incredible salad bar, fresh meats & fishes cooked to order, many Hungarian dishes (a great way to sample lots of the them!), soups, breads, cheeses and plenty of desserts! We must've stayed there for maybe 3 hours!!

Today we are heading for Eastern Slovakia - a 5 hour train journey to Kosice and our 3rd country in 8 days!

Brasov

From Bucharest we took a 3 hour train journey to Brasov - on the edge of the Transylvanian mountains. We are staying in a dorm in a hostel in town (the dorm of 7 people in itself being an interesting 'first' for us! - and possible last - I'm too old for it! - I have nothing to prove anymore!) However the hostel is good and organises cheap tours to the sights of the area. We have just returned from a wonderful day trip around the Transylvanian castles. First stop this morning was Rasnov - a small 13th century citadel on top a hill. After a 10 minute hard walk to the top there are tiny little allies leading up from the central square with some great views out over the town. I tried leaving Chris there, locked in the shackles but alas...!

Next stop was Bran Castle . It's famously called 'Dracula's Castle', but in reality Vlad Tepes only ever 'popped in for a cuppa' sometime in the 15th century. The castle is set up on a rocky outcrop and is quite harsh looking but inside it's surprisly small and currently has lots of displays of photos, not giving much of an impression of what it was actually like 'back in the day'.

The higlight was Peles Castle for sure. (Though not the footballer's, though these days most of them I'm sure would be trying to buy up this kinda joint as a summer home!) Actually it was the summer residence of the 1st King of Romania, King Carol 1 from Germany. Completed in 1914 it's pretty amazing. It had a 15 year long refit between 1975-1990 and is open for tours covering just 30% of what's there. It's simply stunning. Huge grand reception halls, dining halls fashioned in Florentine, French & Moorish styles. More carved walnut and gilding than you could shake a stick at and a particularly lovely spiral stair case 'just for ornament's sake' in the entrance hall. It was pretty advanced for it's time. It had a central vacuuming system, central heating, elevators, electricty, a huge stained glass window skylight covering the whole entrance hall (several metres wide) that can be opened electronically in summer - and all this stuff still functions! It was so cool! And our tour guide spoke English with an accent just like a female version of Count Dracula from Sesame Street!!! - Very sing-song-y!!