Day 51 : Our first day in Russia – St Petersburg

We arrived in St Petersburg, our first stop in Russia, at 5:30am after a long, mostly sleepless night. We arrived with no local currency (rubles) and instructions to catch a bus to the hostel. Obviously, we couldn’t catch a bus without any money, so first things first we tried to find a cash point. After walking around for 20 minutes, we hadn’t found a single ATM, just lots of banks. We quickly realised that in Russia cash points were kept within the bank, rather than being a hole in the wall outside of them, and this meant that it wasn’t very likely we’d be getting money anytime soon. So, reluctantly, we grabbed our bags and tried to navigate our way to the hostel.

After a gruelling hour walking with our bags, we finally arrived at Baby Lemonade, a 1960/70s themed hostel where we would be staying for the next few days, and were really excited when the person working there offered us coffee and gave us a towel for a shower despite us being about seven hours too early for check in! After we had showered and changed, we decided to make the most of the day, despite how tired we were, so we booked a ballet performance for that night (we were so lucky to get tickets, especially as the performance was at St Petersburg’s most famous theatre), and headed off to the Hermitage for its opening time at 10.30.

The hermitage is the largest arts and culture museum in the world. When we arrived at 10.30 there was already a huge queue, and it took about half an hour to get in, but when we got to the front we realised we got in free as we had student cards, which more than made up for the wait. Inside, we downloaded an app which had a “Highlights of the Hermitage” tour, which gave us a route and also an audio guide around the must sees of the museum.

The rooms were beautiful and lavishly decorated and there were loads of different pieces of art. The most famous ones according to our tour were by Da Vinci, Raphael and Micheal Anglo, and you could tell as they had huge crowds around them, so we could barely get a look in. And yes, we only remember these artists because they are ninja turtles.

As we’re not particular fans of art, the thing that struck us the most was the size of the paintings. You always imagine famous paintings to be huge, but most of these were really small, maybe about the size of a piece of A4 paper, and they were worth millions! After our tour, we started on a new audio guide “Cats of the Hermitage” (my choice of course), but as it was getting to mid afternoon the crowds were getting huge, so we decided to escape after visiting the Ancient Egypt section (lots of cats there).

Cat’s of the Hermitage… best tour ever!

After the hermitage, we went to the oldest department store in St Petersburg, as we needed to pick up the tickets we had booked online. We got completely lost and ended up walking round the whole place about three times. This is when it really hit us that we were going to have trouble communicating with people in Russia! Round the rest of Europe, everyone spoke English, especially in the main cities. However, we had gone into lots of ticket booths to ask for help from people working there, and despite the fact they were selling tickets to tourists, they didn’t speak a word of English. Since we’d only really mastered “thankyou” by this point, communication was not easy! Time to brush up on our basic Russian…

Even the department stores are beautiful in St Petersburg

We eventually founds a tout selling tickets to the Marrinksy theatre,  which meant we were close to the box office! We searched round the area and eventually found it, 5 minutes before closing time! Tickets in hand, we headed back for a rest before we went out later.

After our disco nap, we got ready and realised we were running late (as usual). We didn’t have time to catch a bus in rush hour traffic, so we legged it across town to the theatre, and arrived 45 minutes later, just in time to run up and hand in our tickets. As we got up the ticket lady was saying no to us and not taking our tickets, which made us nervous…. maybe we were late? Until another usher came up to us and explained that as the performance was not full, people from the back rows were being moved down to the next tier, so we went down to the balcony below, where we got sent down again. We had originally bought 10 pound, third balcony, back row tickets, and we were bumped up to second row, first balcony tickets that were 5 times the cost of ours! We were actually ahead of a lot of people with better tickets now… not a great system but worked in our favour! I was already excited about going to the theatre and now I could hardly contain myself!

We watched “The Humpback Horse”, which is folk story that had so much going on I couldn’t even attempt to explain the plot. But we really loved it! Well me mostly, Matt enjoyed it as much as he could enjoy two hours of ballet! The cast were so talented and amazing and the dances were great to watch.

Afterwards, we were on a high, so decided to walk back home and enjoy the light night. Then time for bed after our amazing, but very long, first day!

Nice, light walk home at 11pm!

Day 49 and 50: Back in Tallinn 

We were back in Tallinn, and it was the day our passports were arriving. They were due to arrive from 9am onwards, so we were up at 8am ready and waiting for the delivery. We had told the hostel and the bar to look out for our delivery and we were sat on the edge of our seats…. Until around midday when we got a message through that said that the delivery was unsuccessful as no one was in. What? There was no one in the massive hostel? Where we were stood looking over the door waiting for you? I think someone’s telling porkies.

We spent the next hour trying to get hold of anyone within FedEx, with no success, and a couple hours later the company who had been dealing with our visas in the UK managed to get hold of them, and let us know that they would try and redeliver tomorrow. Try? Tomorrow? No way, we didn’t like the sound of that, we wanted a definite delivery and we wanted it today – our bus to Russia was tomorrow so there was no way we were waiting all night worrying, and possibly not getting them tomorrow.

So we asked them to redeliver it today. They said they couldn’t do that. We asked them where the van would be in the next hour so we could go and meet it, which they said they couldn’t do either. After a lot of begging, they said if we could get back to the depot for 5pm, when the driver would be back, we could collect it straight from her then. Not ideal considering FedEx was miles our of town and it wasn’t even our fault! But we headed there for 4.30 just to be sure.

This wouldn’t have happened at DPD…

When we got there we wanted to be angry, but the guy who greeted us seemed so happy to see us. “Hello, and welcome to FedEx or Federal Express as you say in English”. We were laughing so much we couldn’t have a go at him! So we sat in his office while we waited and chatted. That was until he got a call saying that the driver wasn’t going back to the depot tonight, so if we wanted our passports we would have to meet them outside our hostel at 5.30… argh!

So we quickly raced back to the hostel, but the traffic in Tallinn was terrible and we didn’t make it in time. We were 15 minutes late and we were gutted. We walked back up to the hostel, and when we got up there, the girl behind reception said “heeeyy, I’ve got something for you guys” with a big smile and handed us a FedEx parcel… We got them back!

We had spent all day stressing, wasted hours and plenty of Euros going back and forth to FedEx…. but we couldn’t have cared less at this point, we were just so relieved to get them back. So we headed out for dinner and to the cinema to celebrate!

Date night!

Dinner was at our trusty staple Lido, and we went to see the Mummy at the cinema (or Mumija as it’s called here). When we walked in we couldn’t believe the size of the screen, and the seats were huge and super comfy. Then we realised, we’d booked tickets to the IMAX. We’d never been to one before, so it was the treat we needed. We settled down with a huge popcorn and drink and relaxed for the first time that day. (Though actually I stopped relaxing about 15 minutes in, because that film is way scarier than I expected).

Very kitsch but fun… the restaurant is Estonian Folk themed and all waitresses wear tradition clothing.

On our last day in Tallinn, we treated ourselves to a nice Sushi lunch… we were still in celebration mode! Also, all food was half price at lunch so how could we refuse! It was a really lovely restaurant and felt very fancy. Food was delicious, especially as we’d gone cold turkey on our sushi addiction over the last month!

We then caught a local bus and headed out of the city to the TV tower, which was a few miles out of town. We had been told about it by our tour guide, as apparently it had an interesting exhibition on there at the moment, so we wanted to take a look.

The stone monument is to commemorate the actions of those on Estonia’s Independence Day in 1991. Volunteers stayed in the tower to continue broadcasting news of the fall of the Soviet Union’s power in Estonia, despite armed troops storming the building.

When we got there, we first went to the exhibit – “Where’s all the bananas?”, which was a look into life during the communist Soviet era. It was so interesting to see how people lived, and so recently, considering communism only ended in Estonia in 1991. During this time, people lived in very difficult conditions, as food was constantly rationed, shops were always empty and people didn’t even have the simpliest of luxuries. This is where the name of the exhibit came from, most people in Estonia had never even seen a banana in real life, let alone eaten one until the ninties.

Me as a communist babushka

We then went up the tower itself, which is 314m high and gave a great view of the city. There was even a bit where you could climb out to the edge, where there was no windows, just bars keeping you away from the edge. It was so windy and so high up. Views were nice, but I preferred looking through the windows inside!

The highest open air viewing platform in Northern Europe… it was high!

A nasty surprise… the floor is opaque and then when you stand on it it suddenly becomes see through. Seriously scary!

Our very Eastern European souvenir from the tower…

Then it was time to catch the bus back to Tallinn, and go to the long distance bus station – we were heading to St Petersburg on the bus that night!

The bus was delayed by an hour, so we didn’t leave till 10.30pm, and despite being tired, we couldn’t get any sleep that night. It didn’t take long to get to the border, and once we were there we didn’t leave for hours. There was a lot of waiting, police came on and off the bus several times, we had to get off the bus, take all our stuff and exit the Estonian border, then get back in the bus, drive a few metres and then go through the Russian border. And at each point there were huge queues… at 2am!

But once we were thought the border, and got a couple of hours of shut eye, we couldn’t complain… We were in Russia! Onto the next part of our adventure; the Trans Siberian!

Day 46 – 48: Parnu

On our last day in Tallinn, we got news from the company dealing with our visa to let us know that they would arrive in a few days time, instead of the next day like we had expected, so we were stuck in Estonia a little longer. We decided to the book a little trip to the beach to spend the next few days relaxing, so we picked to spend the weekend in Parnu, as it is a popular seaside resort for locals. We booked ourselves a nice room near the beach, and were excited about a weekend of doing basically nothing!

We had booked an Uber a little later than we should have, so we were running really late for our bus, and when we arrived at the bus station, the taxi driver was taking ages finding the perfect parking spot, and getting the car in perfectly straight… we were begging him to just let us out! It was like a sitcom, he was oblivious and kept reversing the car to get it in the space just right. We had to run full pelt to the bus, I even had to take my flip flops off to get maximum speed, and we got there huffing and puffing one minute before it was due to leave. The driver was ready to drive away, so he wasn’t too happy having to open the luggage compartment all over again, but in fairness we had got there in time… just!

Then when we arrived a few hours later, it was time to relax!

Our little living room for the weekend!

We spent the next few days reading our books on the beach, having a swim, and playing foosball in the hostel. The hostel also had a TV which played a few English programmes so that was a treat.

Our private beach, darling

Photo taken shortly before we both turned into lobsters

The weekend also fell on the local food festival, so we spent half a day there, walking round, sampling the many freebies, and trying some of the local cuisine. We also took a wander round the town, and it was a really pretty, peaceful place. It made a change from Tallinn, which was busy all day and night!

Lots of walking…

Lots of food…

And lots of sleeping!

Overall, it was the relaxing break we definitely needed!

Day 42 – 45: Tallinn 

We had our last short morning in Riga and then we packed up and headed to get a bus to Tallinn. When we got to the bus station, we bought our tickets and the lady asked to see our ID. We handed our driving licences, and she had no problem and we got our tickets.

Then as we went to board the bus, we got asked the same question again, and handed our licences over again but this time we got asked for our passports. We explained that we didn’t have them, and the lady said that we could get on the bus but if we got stopped at border control, we would be on our own. Absolutely fine – we hadn’t been on a bus in the whole of Europe that had stopped at border control. Every journey you just drive straight through the border, and most of the time there’s just a small sign saying that you’re now in another country. So we happily hopped on the bus and didn’t think about it again.

That was until a few hours in we saw police vans… which were signalling for the bus to pull over. Oh god. Our hearts were racing so fast, and we just looked at each other and were both scared that our luck was about to run out.

The police boarded the bus and started asking everyone else for ID, and it felt like such a long wait until they finally got round to us. The whole time we were quietly practicing our speech for them. When he asked for our passports, Matt handed him our licences. Well, threw them at him was more the word… the tension was just too much and acting normal had gone out the window. He then said it must be our passports, we explained that we had left them in Estonia (which while obviously not true, we thought was better than explaining that they were all the way in the UK).

He looked at us for the longest minute of my life, and I was sure we were about to be sent home. Then he looked away, handed us our licences back and kept going along the bus…. he clearly couldn’t be bothered to deal with this today.

We were still on edge, until the police left the bus and we started to drive away… we did it!! Our last border without our passports! It was definitely not stress free, but at least we had done it. Just a few more days and our passports would be back in our hand, with the added Chinese visa, and we could breathe easy again.

The faces of excitement and relief

So we made it to Tallinn, full of excitement and with itchy feet from the long bus journey, so when the guy working at the hostel, Josh, asked us did we want to go on the bar crawl tonight, we were very enthusiastic. So that night, we headed to the local bars, with a few people from the hostel. They were all really cool little places, and we also went to the oldest pub in Tallinn. We even found cider, which made Matt happy!

Could we have picked a more hipster drink? Living up to our Bristol stereotype

After that we headed back to the bar in our hostel, where it was karaoke night. I was so excited! I put my name down for a Queen song, but it never got called. It’s ok though, because I gate crashed a few other people’s songs that night, so I got my fix.

In the early morning, Matt was hungry and Josh took us to find what he described as the best chips in Tallinn. When we got outside I couldn’t believe it… it was still light! Apparently, Tallinn almost has white nights, as it is so northern. It was completely surreal, so me and Matt decided not to go back into the bar, but enjoyed our chips outside in the light.

As dark as it gets in Tallinn

Apparently my song got called up while we were out there though, so as nice as it was, I’m still a little bitter.

The next day, we had a long, much needed lie in, and then headed for the Old Town for a wander round.

Me making the most of my first day in Tallinn

Tallinn Old Town, beautiful. But packed!

Tallinn definitely had one of the most touristy Old Town’s that we had seen in the Baltics – it’s very popular with UK tourists (ie Stag parties!) and you could tell by the prices. So we decided that while we were staying in a nice hostel, opposite a supermarket, we would make the most of it and cook our own meals as much as possible. But first, we needed to get over these hangovers, so straight to pizza it was! Though they didn’t really live up to expectations…yes that is pickled onions on mine!

Matt’s either really excited about the pizza or still a little drunk…

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at Red Emperor, our hostel, and playing board games. This was our favourite place so far, we got on with all the staff and it was clean and comfy inside.

The guy in the back is well jell of all the fun we’re having

The next day, we went on yet another free walking tour. But this one was the best one we’d ever done, the woman taking it was hilarious and obviously her reputation proceeded her… there were at least 50 people in our group!

We learnt about Estonia’s history, from a thousand years ago when the country was made up of Pagens, to the nazi and communist occupations. The town was so beautiful and we must have taken a hundred photos.

We spent the afternoon sat outside a coffee shop, enjoying the sunshine and then headed up to a park we had walked through during our tour. That evening, we phoned home while we walked around the city some more – we are trying to do the 10k a day challenge, so we were getting our steps in! While we were talking, we headed to Fat Margaret, a big artillery tower, and visited some less touristy parts of town.

Exploring the back streets of Tallinn… very Game of Thrones

Passed the opera and they had conductors for parking barriers! Bit freaky but made us laugh

On our fourth day in Talllinn, Matt wanted to go to the gym in the morning, as he hadn’t been in a while, and the guy from the hostel let us know there was one a few 100 metres from the hostel. Perfect. So we headed down, and when we got to reception we asked if they also had a pool, as we fancied a swim. The woman at reception laughed, and said yes, they had quite a few pools in fact. That this was actually an indoor water park, which had a small gym on the side. My eyes lit up!

Watching Matt counts as exercise right?

We spent about an hour in the gym and then ended up spending the whole day in the pools. It was amazing, they had an outdoor pool and jacuzzi, loads of indoor pools, a Finnish sauna which went to 95 degrees, loads of other saunas, with different fragrances, and a salt room, where you used the salt to exfoliate yourself. I have never been so relaxed in my life!

Then relaxed and tired, we headed to bed ready to leave for the beach tomorrow!

Day 39 – 41: Riga 

Our last three days in Riga after the bungee jump were comparatively uneventful, though that’s not to say boring – Riga was one of our favourite cities so far! It has a really lively old town, but also lots of parks to walk through and chill out in.

We spent one more night in Riga Backpackers hostel, which was really social and with lots of nice people, but for the two last nights we decided to change to somewhere a little quieter. Mum says we are getting old, as this time round we keep complaining about people in hostels… and we agree, we definitely are! It’s fun for a few nights, but we had done with being social for the time being, so headed to a quieter hostel for a private room. Luckily, there was just the place upstairs from where we were staying.

The day after the bungee jump, we were pretty tired, so we just spent the day in the beautiful parks in Old Town, wandering round and enjoying the sun. Don’t ask me why I have a jumper on in the photos, it was a really warm day! There was a big lake, and we spent most of the day watching people attempt to paddle their boats and it.

That evening we went to Lido again for dinner, and spent a relaxing evening in the cinema watching Wonder Woman. It was in English with Latvian subtitles, which was perfect for us, except for when they speak foreign languages in the movie (which Wonder Woman does a lot, since she speaks every language in the world), they don’t put the English version for that, they just put it in the Latvian subtitles… so some of the jokes are going to have to wait until we watch a fully English version!

Me trying a Latvian special – cold beetroot soup. I had resisted before – because ew, cold soup – but literally every person in the restaurant was eating it and I didn’t want to miss out. And it turned to be really nice… it pays to try something new!

The next day, we just set about walking round the town:

The national theatre and it’s beautiful grounds

The Freedom Monument, dedicated to the lives of those who fought for Latvia’s freedom from 1918 – 1920. It’s huge and can be seen all over the city.

This statue is based on a Brother’s Grimm tale, that tells the story of the animals climbing on each other’s back to get a view into the cottage, where they see robbers inside, and later drive them out. It was made in 1990, when Latvia was on the verge of breaking free from the Soviet Union. It was meant to symbolise the animals looking through the “iron curtain”.

St Peters Church – the oldest church in Riga

For lunch, we visited Folkklub Ala Pagrab, supposedly one of the best places to eat in Riga, and definitely the most lively. We had hoped to go in and book for the evening, but it’s too popular and we couldn’t get a seat. But there was a free table for lunch, so we decided to stay and eat. There was folk music playing and the staff were really friendly and keen to tell us about all of the traditional food and drink.

Later on, we headed to the huge outdoor market for a wander. It is one of the biggest in Europe, with around 3000 stalls, and is a UNESCO heritage site, as it is made from old German Zeppelin hangars. We got some fresh supplies for breakfast and lunch the next day.

The final day in Riga, we finished exploring the Old Town, but there was a huge bike ride on, that closed off loads of the paths. It turned out to be a good thing, as it meant we were diverted through lots of small backstreets we’d have never explored if we hadn’t had to.

House of Blackheads – Basically a huge bachelors pad since the 14th century

A small side street next to the old city wall

The Powder Tower… Yup, that’s a lot of gun powder

We went to see the three oldest buildings in Riga, known as the Three Brothers, but we were stopped as the Latvian Film Society were filming a movie, called Blizzard of the Soul, which is a love story about a 16 year old who goes into battle during World War 1. We were watching a scene being filmed where the soldiers march through the town and everyone is cheering them, and hanging out the windows. It was cool to watch everyone all dressed up, and we couldn’t believe that the whole 30 minutes or so, we watched them they just kept filming the same minute long scene again and again. Working in films must be pretty boring.

Since it was our last night in Riga, we treated ourselves to a drink on top of the Raddison Blu hotel – which we had read has the nicest view in the city. Well, we were going to treat ourselves to a drink there, but the prices were beyond extortionate, so we treated ourselves to a view of the city while we hid from the waitresses. After that we headed back into the Old Town, which is really lively in the evenings and then had some late night dumplings at Pelmeni XL, which is a little cafe where you help yourself to different flavours, toppings and soup and then weigh it at the end – kind of like frozen yoghurt for Pelmeni.

As we were walking back to the hostel, we realised that we hadn’t tried Riga Black Balsam on our visit. And the saying goes (on it’s own advertisement) “you haven’t been to Riga if you haven’t tried Black Balsam”. So we couldn’t miss out! But we definitly were not feeling a shot of liquor at this point, so we decided to try it in chocoate form from Laima – another famous Riga brand, one that makes really tasty choccie. I didn’t get to taste much of the liquor itself, as I took one bite and it went pouring down my front. Oh well, at least we had completed our “Riga Tourist Checklist” before we headed off to Estonia the next day!

Day 37 and 38: Riga and Sigulda

We arrive in Riga after spending half the day on a mini bus ride crossing the border between Lithuania and Latvia, when we finally made it to our hostel (no passport issues luckily!). After a quick Subway (not very Lativian but we were craving some home food) went out to check out the dorm…. and may have fallen asleep for an hour or 4! The cycling from the day before had wiped us out. When we woke up, a lot of people were milling about the dorm, so we went and had a cider and played some poker…. until we realised that we were starving, so we headed off to find something more authentic than a Subway salad.

We were recommended a buffet style restaurant by the owner of the hostel, and apparently it’s very popular with locals and where they would go to eat for a cheap bite. It was almost 10pm by this point, so we rushed and got there just before closing.

Stolen photo from the internet of Lido… lots of choice, though we didn’t know what half of it was!

After that Lido became our go to restaurant. It was a big buffet, with all different Latvia foods to try at low prices. We liked it because we could take a risk and try something new, knowing that it wouldn’t break the bank, and we could just get something else if it was not what we expected.

Vegetables that haven’t been pickled… very elusive in Eastern Europe

When we got back, we got talking to a girl in our dorm about her plans for tomorrow, as she was heading out to a nearby town, Sigulda, to do a bungee jump. When we found out she was going on her own, we offered to go and keep her company and take some snaps of her – no one wants to do something like that alone! And it worked out well as we wanted to visit Sigulda this week anyway.

I joked that Matt would do the bungee with her, but I couldn’t of course with my back… nothing to do with the fact that I am too chicken. Matt said no way, but we agreed to be ready to go tomorrow at 9am for our day out.

When we woke up the next morning, Matt said straight away “I’m gonna do the bungee, might as well while we’re there”. I was a bit shocked, but he booked a slot 6pm, the same time as Sophie and off we went.

After our hour long train to Sigulda, we went to tourist info who gave us a self guided route to take of the town, and then we headed to a little coffeee shop for a caffeine fix and a bit of breakfast.

Our first stop was the bobsleigh track, which supposedly had a great view. Hmm. Not so sure about that. But, it was actually a very cool place itself. It is the track that the Olympic team practices on and it was amazing to see how steep and long the track was. Apparently, on the weekends you can have a go on the bobsleigh and its supposed to be a real adrenaline rush. Maybe we’ll be back one day.

View from the bobsleigh run… look how far down it goes! The track is 1200 metres long, goes up to 125km/h and has 16 curves….It’s definitely on the bucket list!

We also headed to the castle, which actually did have a great view. We could also spot the bridge which marked the spot where the big jump will take place later.

The bungee river! Hopefully no one would be taking a dip…

We then wandered round the town, and it was a really sweet place, full of parks and pretty streets.

The ‘Walking Stick Park’ as they are what Sigulda is most famous for … apparently

After our little tour, we decided to stop for lunch somewhere we could relax until it was time to head to the bungee place… best to give it plenty of time for food to go down!

Matt trying a Latvian desert, literally translated as “Bread Soup”, as it is fruit and rye bread in a ‘soup’ of custard.

Then it was time… I couldn’t believe how brave Sophie and Matt were being, neither seemed like they were that worried, and I was literally shaking thinking about what they were about to do. We headed to the bungee office, and we were greeted with champagne and cake because it was the first day of the season. A nice touch but perhaps not the best idea before you fall face first from almost 50 metres up! Oh well, more for me.

Then it was time for me to take my position at the bottom of the hill, and the adrenaline junkies headed off for a safety briefing,

and after a long wait, they got into the cable car and slowly made their way over the river.

Matt said that the wait felt really long for them, and in that time they got pretty nervous. The guys working there were teasing the jumpers saying it was the first day and that they hope everything was in order…. Matt could see that there was still people working on the cable car they were about to get in, and there were wires coming out of it, so it seemed less like teasing and more a bit of reality.

He said he was excited and raring to go as the cable car made it’s way over the river…. but excitement faded and nerves started after watching a few of the jumps. Poor Matt was eighth out of ten people…. that’s a lot of screams to listen to!

Sophie jumped first and her scream was so loud and blood cuddling, the instructors said she should be in horror movies. After that even I was nervous waiting on solid ground.

When it was eventually his turn, Matt jumped off like a pro! He said it was amazing and loved every minute…. but he’s not so sure if he would do it again.

Tarzan, is that you?

placeholder://

Poser

We were all really excited still walking back to the train, though the weather wasn’t complying and we got caught in a huge downpour. Nothing could dampen our spirits though, and we headed for a pizza to celebrate before we caught the train back!

Day 35 and 36: Klapeida and the Curonian Spit

Note: Sorry for the lack of posts during the last month. I’ve been writing, but the internet in China was way too slow for any uploads. This means that for the next couple of weeks there may be a bit of blog overload while I try to catch up!

Klaipeda is a small town, on the very west coast of Lithuania on the Baltic coast. We had headed here as we wanted to do a day trip on the Curonian spit – a small strip of land just off the coast of Klaipeda, that is a UNESCO world heritage site, as it has Europe’s highest drifting sand dunes, with some hitting 60 metres. It is around 60 miles long in total, however about half of this belongs to Kaliningrad which is controlled by Russia, and therefore cannot be entered without a specific visa. The other 30 miles of it, however, belong to Lithuania, so we planned to explore this part the next day.

As we hoped to cycle round the island, we arrived a day early, to plan our trip, organise our bike rental and book ourselves tickets on the ferry over. We are also glad we hadn’t planned to visit on the first day, as it turned out to be a dull and drizzly day, whereas the rest of the week had been bright sunshine. We spent the first morning organising our cycle trip, and spent the afternoon wandering around the town. Klaipeda is famous for its sculptures, having more than 200 in the town, so we went sculpture spotting.

Matt’s favourite sculpture. Not sure why.

The next day we took the first ferry of the day across to the Spit. This took about 15 minutes and took us from Klaipeda to the top of the island. We then took a bus down to the other side to a lovely little fishing village call Nida, a few kilometres from the Kaliningrad border. There we rented a bike from a local man, who when we explained that we wanted to ride the bikes one way and leave it there, he said no problem just lock them up in Juodkrante, which was the town on the other side of the island, where we would catch the bus back to the ferry. We were confused about what to do with the key, but he said don’t worry, just stick that under the tire… Very safe!

After getting our bikes, having shown no ID and given no deposit (free bike!), we cycled to the very furthest tip of the Lithuanian boundary, to the biggest sand dune on the island. We climbed up and the view from the top was amazing. We were told not to wander off the path around the sand dune for two reasons: 1. If people walk onto the sand dune constantly, it will disturb the sand as it is a moving dune and will significantly shrink, and 2. There is no obvious border between the Lithuanian side of the island and the Russian side… if you end up in the Russian side without a visa you could be in a lot of trouble. So we explored the dune… diligently sticking to the paths!

From the top of the biggest dune… hard to show how huge it is up there!

Then we cycled back into Nida for some lunch. Nida is popular for it’s smoked fish, which is caught just off the coast of the island, and then is smoked in the BBQ’d for at least 12 hours. Matt asked the lady to point to the one she liked the most, she didn’t really understand him, but he ended up with what we think was mackerel (maybe) and he enjoyed it so much he went back for a second!

Lunch with a view

We then set off on our 20 mile cycle, trying to follow the not-very-well-defined cycle path. We started by cycling along the waterfront, which was very beautiful and a lovely easy ride. We could see the coast of Klaipeda right in the distance, and the views of the peaceful water were just fantastic.

All the houses on the island looked like this.. gorgeous!

We then cycled through the middle of the island that was full of trees and forestry, which was quite a hard bit of cycling. At some points we weren’t sure if we were still following the cycle path, as it was supposed to be an easy cycle – Matt had been told he definitly didn’t need a mountain bike and half way through he realised he definitely did need one – but getting lost is all part of the fun!

These trees were on the coast, facing out to sea, where the strong winds have made them grow wonky

After a few hours of cycling, we popped out on the other side of the island, and spotted the beach… we cycled as fast as we could and went for a paddle to cool ourselves down and then sat relaxing in the sand for a while.

Our very own beach

In the excitement of discovering our own secluded beach, we had sort of forgotten about time, and when we looked at our watch we realised there was only 45 minutes until the last bus to the ferry and we still had a couple of kilometres to cycle. So we hopped on our bikes and did a speedy ride back to the bus…. until we saw a sign for the bird watching platform, and decided we couldn’t miss it, so we took a quick detour.

And we were sooo glad we did! There were literally hundreds of cormorants and herons all over the top of the trees, sitting in their nests and flying above us. It was amazing and it’s hard to show in photos quite how many birds there were. It’s also hard to describe the smell. With all those nests in one place, it stank. Bad.

Close up of the nests

Hundreds of birds nests in the trees

We were then running really late, so we cycled the last km or so at full pelt, and made it just in time to lock up our bikes and run straight onto the bus, out of breath and tired out! We took the bus back to the ferry, the ferry back to Klaipeda, and headed back to the hostel and collapsed.

Cute statue at the pier after we got back from the Spit. It was at least 8pm at this point and the sun was still shining!

Day 34: Vilnius

We woke up this morning determined to make the most of our one day in Vilnius, we had expected to get in at 9am the day before, and had actually got in late afternoon, so we had time to make up. We dropped our bags off to be stored for the day at reception, and the receptionist offered to make us waffles for breakfast. Now, we were in a rush, but we are also penny pinching backpackers, so we couldn’t really say no to free waffles could we. So we sat and had a chocolate spread waffle each with a cup of coffee. … then a jam waffle… then we were on our way. 

There was a free walking tour on, but we decided we wanted to just make our own way round, and discover things at our own pace, so we decided to grab a map and take ourselves on a little tour. 

We started by heading to Uzupis, which in 1997 declared itself an “independent state” within the city. It has it’s own flag, national anthem, constitution and even an army (of 11 people). Although not officially recognised, it attracts many artists to live and work there, and has regenerated the area, which had been neglected for years after most the inhabitants were killed during the  holocaust. It was a nice area to walk around, and definitely had a very hippy vibe. 

Bridge into Uzo and big banner welcoming you

The constitution: “A cat is not obliged to love its owner, but must help in a time of need”

Lovely little bridge on the other side of Uzo

Then we went to Bernadine Church and gardens. One of the must visit places in Vilnius was the Bernadine church gardens, and when we went in we could see why. They were so beautiful, with loads of flowers and sculptures. There was also a wedding happening in the park when we walked through, so we got to spy on the reception and the couple having their photos taken. It’s a shame we didn’t have more time, as we would have happily sat and people watched all day, rather than just walking through. 

Big, beautiful park

Bernadine Church

Afterwards we went to the cathedral, where we had been told there is a square on the floor, that if you pass you need to spin on 3 times and make a wish. I did 3 twirls and felt like a right fool. Worth it for my wish though. Matt did not join in, so he will not be getting any of my lottery winnings.   

Cathedral

Make a wish

We then decide to wander up to the castle. There was supposed to be a funicular to take us to the top, however apparently this had been closed for repair for quite a while. The road to climb up was round the other side of the hill, and we were running out of time, so we decided to admire from the bottom instead!

Castle on the hill

We went to see parliament and right outside there was the Lithuanian Festival, which is an annual festival where people dress up in traditional outfits and perform dances tradition to their part off the country. There were also lots of stores selling different crafts made by local people. We hadn’t realised that this was on, so it was a bonus to stumble upon, and we sat and enjoyed the dancing and watching people walk by dressed up. 

After all the walking, we were really tired, and it was absolutely sweltering, so we stopped for a late lunch of bagels and iced coffees.

We had a walk around the cute little back streets, and along the main shopping road, and then it was time to head off. We had a train to catch at 4:45pm to Klaipeda. So we grabbed our bags and headed to the train station. 

It was a 4 hour train, but we didn’t mind at all, it had big, roomy seats, WI-FI the whole way and most importantly ice cold air-con, just what we needed after carrying our backpack in 30 degree heat. When we got to Klapedia, we checked into our hostel, relaxed for a little while and then tried to find somewhere to buy food. Which proved to be quite difficult. We had wanted to go to the supermarket, but it closed at 9. We tried to find a restaurant or a cafe, but they had also closed at 9. We had got so used to being in big cities, we forgot about closing times! We asked the lady working at the hostel, and she said the only thing she knew that was open this late (is 9.30 late?) was a pizza place in town, that closed at 10. So we ran for our dinner that night and made it just in time for a big veggie pizza! Note to selves: be more prepared!!

Our luxury train ride



Day 32 and 33: A couple of difficult days!

Today we had planned to go to the Warsaw uprising museum, which we had been told from people in Krakow was really good. The only problem was that this morning I had woken up with really bad back pain, I think from a mixture of carrying my bag from the train station last night and from the hostel beds being really uncomfortable, even Matt couldn’t sleep properly in them. 

We got a voucher from reception which gave us a free breakfast in the cafe across the road, which was nice as it meant we had scrambled eggs and fresh veggies, which made a change from the usual hostel breakfast of toast and jam. But my back was still really aching and it was hurting to sit up. So I decided the only way to get through the day was to head to the pharmacy and get some painkillers. 

Which turned out to be a big mistake. I didn’t react well to them and ended up spending the whole day like this:

On the plus side, Matt had found a crossfit where he was able to go, so he went and worked out, which he probably preferred to a museum anyway! At about 6, I was feeling a bit better, but it was too late to go the museum at that point and we thought it was best to stay close to the hostel, so we decided to go the cinema and watch Pirates of the Caribbean. We got a huge coke and popcorn and relaxed.

Me looking excited until I realised our bucket of popcorn was salted not sweet. Now I’m not saying Matt did this on purpose so he got all the popcorn to himself, but he wasn’t complaining when he ate the lot…

Afterwards, we had a enough time to get a quick dinner of zapikanka (polish pizza bread) and grab a few snacks for our nightbus – we were catching the coach from Warsaw at midnight to Vilnius in Lithuania, and would arrive at 9:30 the next morning. We had booked a posh coach to make sure we could sleep, so we were actually looking forward to the journey. 

Hi and Bye Warsaw

We made our way to the coach station, which was about half an hour from the hostel, spent the last of our zlotys, waited for 20 minutes and when the coach arrived we loaded our bags and started to get on. We were asked to show our passports or ID, so we got out our driving licences. The driver wasn’t happy with that and wanted to see our passports. We explained that we didn’t have our passports but we’d been told that we can just take ID (there are open borders between Poland and Lithuania as they are in the Schengen area, so we wouldn’t have to go through any border control). We had given our passports to Katy to take home to send to the Chinese embassy, as we left too early to get a visa before we left and we hadn’t had any luck getting one on the way round. We didn’t think it would be a problem had already done two international buses in Europe without even showing ID!

Well, the driver was having none of it and wanted to see our official ID cards, which of course we didn’t have, so we were chucked off the bus and our bags unloaded. And so we were stuck. Panic time!

Luckily,  there was a 24 hour Costa in the train station, so we went in and sat down while we made a plan. There were no other buses going to Vilnius until tomorrow night, and even then we weren’t sure if they would let us in, and there were no direct trains – so we were having trouble forming any plan at all! The best we could think of was to hitchhike over the border, but we didn’t want to do that in the dark so we decided to book a hostel for the night…. but despite ringing up as many hostels and hotels as we could none of them had any room. This night was not going well!

After a lot of deliberation, we looked at the next trains leaving the stations, and we made a plan to catch the first train at 6am to Bialystok, a city north of Warsaw which is closer to the Lithuanian border. From there a bus left at 9:20am to Vilinus, our train was supposed to get in at 9am, so we just had to hope it arrived on time, as it was the only bus that day. We figured we could always hitchhike from there if we needed to and we would be a lot closer to the border, but it’s not something we wanted to do, especially as the likelihood of getting picked up as two people with big bags in tow seemed slim. 

Excited to have a plan and our first train tickets since the Eurostar!

So we spent the rest of the night in Costa. Matt went for a cheeky nap, while I was on look out for the security guard – you weren’t allowed to sleep anywhere in the station and anyone who was caught was woken up by a shouting guard and then eventually the police come and get involved! We’d seen it happen to a few people that night and we definitely didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the shouting! 

At 6am, it was time to head to our train and we were really excited -even if our plan didn’t work out at least we’d be able to sleep on the train and that was enough to brighten our spirits!

Adamantly staying positive!

We slept the whole way on the train, got off at 9am, and ran to the coach station and bought ourselves tickets to Vilnius. We were pretty nervous as we handed the tickets in and got asked for IDs, we handed over our driving licences and….success! We were let on! We practically ran onto the bus before she could change her mind. 

Relief….

Followed by excitement!!

We spent pretty much the whole day on the bus, which we couldn’t complain about, we had a TV each which had loads of different movies, and we both slept a fair amount of the journey. We also drove through a national park half the time so it was really pretty! 

At 4:30pm, we finally arrived in Vilnius, we checked into our hostel, had much needed showers and headed straight out for dinner… We had only packed enough food to last us the night originally so we were pretty starving! We went to a mexican place as the girl at the hostel said they had huge burritos (lies! Expensive and small would been a better description!) and enjoyed being outside. We then wandered round town, stretching out our legs, until the sun set. 

Snaps from our evening stroll

The street with our hostel on

Matt’s revenge for me always taking photos of him with food

Took us a while to find this teeny hidden gate that led to our hostel!



Day 31: Wawel Castle and Onto Warsaw

As it was our last day in Krakow, we got up early to make the most of it. We still hadn’t made it to the castle, so that was our plan of action for the day. On the way, we stopped into the resturant we ate at yesterday, as we had seen they had a really cheap breakfast offer and we needed to power up for a day of walking.

Obligatory daily photo of Matt eating

Full and ready for the day, we headed to the castle and had a wander round. It was really pretty inside, with a big church and lots of green and trees.

We also climbed up the Castle’s tower, and at the top we got a pretty view of the city, and of the castle grounds themselves.

After visiting the castle, we went to down a steep set of steps to leave, which were labelled the dragon’s staircase. We thought this meant that it led to the statue of the dragon, which I remembered vaguely from when I visited a few years ago. But when we got to the bottom we realised we had actually gone into a small set of caves that were under the castle. This turned our to be the ‘Dragon’s Lair’, which legend says is where Wawel dragon used to live, and that when he was hungry he would go on the search for local maidens to munch on. In reality, the cave has been used by humans since the Stone Age, with it being a tavern and brothel in Medival times. Now, it is just a cool set of caves for tourists to walk through!

When we got out we did find the statue of the dragon, which breathes actual fire every 5 minutes. This was right on the bank of the river, so we walked along the river for a few minutes, until we realised it was probably time to get back and head to the bus station. 

We caught our bus at 4pm and had a 5 hour journey to Warsaw, and from there we had to catch two metros to get to the hostel. We got a bit lost on the way, and we must have looked it, as two separate people came and asked us if we needed help. Bit awkward as there were trying to talk to us at the same time, but still really nice and we would never have caught the right train without their help. We arrived at the hostel, and it was really clean and nice, and had a huge common area with big bean bags. We felt really happy that night, as the people and the hostel were so nice, and we were excited as we were sure we were going to have a really good day tomorrow. Oh how wrong we were…!