Day 237 - 17 Feb '23 - Vilnius. It was raining when we woke up, so any incentive of getting outside and exploring, dissipated almost instantly.
"There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes," I would usually say. But I still wasn't feeling that great, so we stayed in until the rain stopped shortly after midday.
With our raincoats and waterproof trousers on, we walked through the Old Town of Vilnius, admiring the narrow, winding pathways, and the cobblestone town squares.
"What shall we have for dinner? What shall we have for lunch?" I was asked.
"I'd quite like paracetamol and cough lozenges."
Because that wasn't very appealing to anyone but me, we found an Italian restaurant that had gluten free pasta, and treated ourselves to lunch made by somebody else.
After a delicious meal, we walked back out into the drizzle and made our way to Vilnius University and Daukantas Square, where we saw the Presidential Palace.
We carried on to Cathedral Square, the site of the Cathedral of St. Stanislav and St. Vladislav (to give it its full name), and it's separate belfry.
Inside was once again totally different to what we were expecting; it was more like an art gallery, with large framed paintings gracing the walls and columns. To be fair, even the outside didn't look like a 'traditional' cathedral, with its neoclassical columns.
Off to the sides of the main area, were lots of smaller rooms, each holding a relic or statue. One of the rooms had a full-size backlit replica of the Shroud of Turin, and another was an amazing alter room with its own miniature organ.
We next went to the castle tower, which gave us an amazing view over both the old and new towns of Vilnius. Unfortunately, the drizzle had set in and we were up in the clouds, so everything had a muted, fuzzy appearance.
We could also see the Three Crosses monument to some Franciscan monks who, legend tells, were martyred by some pagans.
By this stage I was done. Dan had already told me I shouldn't have walked up the hill, but I felt fine at the time. Back on flat land, I could tell my chest was having to do more work than usual, and my nose was running like a tap!
We made our way back to our apartment via a pharmacy to buy some of the earlier-desired paracetamol, and also went to the supermarket for dinner stuff.
I'd done a quick search online for 'one pot camping meals' to find something I could cook, and decided on a vegetable, bacon, and egg hash-like thing. Basically, fry up whatever you want vege and meat wise, also fry some diced potato, and scramble some eggs through the whole lot. It was very tasty!
Once the kids had gone to bed, thankfully quickly, Dan and I spent some time online looking at the next leg of our journey. I also spent some time staring blankly at things. Bring on tomorrow...
Day 238 - 18 Feb '23 - Vilnius to Warsaw. I woke up feeling slightly better, in that I didn't have a headache and hadn't woken too much during the night.
We had a slow morning as we didn't check out until 11:30am, and our train didn't leave until 12:30pm.
When we got to the train station, Alex and I quickly went across the road to a supermarket to get some food - it was an eight-hour train trip today, our longest yet.
"Are you going to the information desk to check the ticket?" I asked Dan.
"No, we've got seats. And that's the right train on the board."
"But it doesn't say Warsaw."
"No, it says the station in the middle."
"So, do we have to change trains or not?"
"I think so."
"But you said the number stays the same!"
"Our seat numbers stay the same but the train number changes."
A message in Lithuanian, that wasn't translated to English, came over the tannoy. We gathered it said the train was on platform one and could be boarded, which matched what the information board said.
However, the tickets said we were on carriage 13, and this train only had three. Not only that, but there was no signage on the train, either externally or internally.
"Why don't you ask someone?" Abi asked me.
"Daddy doesn't want to ask anyone. Besides, there's nobody to ask now!"
"There's a conductor over there," Dan pointed out. "Go and ask her if you want."
She didn't speak English; just 'okay' when I showed her our ticket.
"I am the LEAST confident in this train trip that ANY other we have taken," I said with a modicum of panic.
"Just sit down," Dan said with his temper in check.
There's nothing like going on an all-day train trip, when you don't know if you have to change trains or not, especially when there's only a seven minute changeover. I like to know where we're going and when, and not being able to have the tickets on my phone to look at (Eurail passes allow you to have them on one device only) has been very challenging.
An hour or so into the journey, I leaned over to Dan's seat so he could show me the ticket again.
"Okay, I've got one more question," I said, as I pointed to the stations on his screen. "How do we get from there to there?"
In response, I got a glare, a quick intake of breath, pursed lips, and then he shut his eyes.
It was entirely possible I'd asked that question before. Maybe even more than once.
When it neared changeover time, the conductor walked up and down the carriage, calling out the platform name. Lots of people were getting up, so we figured we were definitely changing, and got off the train too.
We boarded the other train already waiting at the opposite platform, and found our seats. Rather than have our four separate seats (which Polish rail got back to me about yesterday, and said they couldn't change), Dan had booked four additional seats all together.
He showed me the tickets, once again, and explained which station we were getting off at, once again.
"I'm sorry Dan! I'm not well! I've remembered every other train trip and station change and platform number, but my head is just fog at the moment!"
We were in a cabin with two other people, and even though we could have moved to the first class random seats, we decided to stick together as a family where we were. Besides, it was comfortable enough.
We gained an hour when we crossed into Poland, and arrived at the station at 8:15pm. It then only took us about 10 minutes to walk to our apartment, and the kids were in bed (and asleep) by 9pm.
We did get to see a lovely night-time view of a bit of Warsaw on the way to our apartment, and thought it very pretty.
Day 239 - 19 Feb '23 - Warsaw. Feeling much better (not so foggy in my head, no runny nose, and my cough didn't keep me up), we started our sightseeing of Warsaw while the weather was dry.
We walked towards the giant clock tower we'd seen last night - the building was massive and very grand in appearance.
"I wonder what it is?" I asked.
"It says 'tourist information centre' at the bottom," Dan answered.
"Ha ha ha, it seems a bit over-the-top for an information centre!" I laughed.
"You can see now why the Mount info centre cost five million!"
It turned out that the building was the Palace of Culture and Science, a highly controversial building due to its Soviet history. Still, it was very impressive to see, and quite a striking contrast to the very modern skyscrapers beside it.
There was also another intriguing building across the street from it, with a fabulous, undulating-bubble-like shaped roof (it turned out to be a shopping plaza roof).
We carried on walking across the city, past the Polish Army museum, to the Copernicus Science Museum.
"We're going to a science museum?!" Alex excitedly asked.
"Yep!"
"Is it an interactive one?" he asked in an even higher voice.
"Yep - over 450 different exhibits! And guess what?"
"What?"
"It even has a robot that can sing and dance!"
This museum was amazing! So many things to play with and try and enjoy. Not one of their exhibits was behind a piece of glass - every single thing could be picked up and held and manipulated in some way.
There were exhibits about gravity, water, visual perception, wind, light, sound, speed, biodiversity, magnetics...
A really fun acitivity was putting a simple four-piece jigsaw together; the catch was, your hands were in an enclosed space, and the televised view of them was backwards and upside down! Left was right, up was down, and the jigsaw became incredibly hard to do.
There was also an artist's impression of what travelling comets are like, by using pieces of dry ice on a sheet of water. Watching them bounce off the edges, but stick together when they collided, yielded some interesting shapes and patterns.
We even got to see a Mercedes F-015, a truly futuristic concept car. It was fully autonomous, had four swivel seats inside, and passengers would be able to use gestures or voice commands to control the car. And of course, it looked cool!
We had to leave earlier than desired, however, as we had our travel vaccinations booked. We caught a taxi to the clinic, and got there just in time for our appointment.
I spoke to the receptionist, who copied our passport details, then I started filling in the paperwork. I'd only completed Dan's before she called me back to the counter to pay the consultation fee.
"You need to pay the consultation fee to see the doctor, then pay the vaccination fee at the end. The consultation is 1072PLN, which is four lots of 268PLN."
"Yes, 268PLN. That's what was in my email. Not four lots."
"It's one fee for each person."
"It doesn't say that in the email. I'm not paying four consultation fees, when we only need one consultation!"
"I'll check with the doctor."
The doctor came out. Dan came over.
"You need to pay for four consultations because there are four of you."
"We've already had multiple consultations at three different medical clinics in the UK. We just need to have one consultation and the vaccinations. We know what the potential side effects are, and we don't need to discuss our travel plans."
"In this country we need to have four consultations."
Dan and I looked at each other. He shook his head.
"Thank you, but we're not prepared to pay for four consultations. That's a lot of money. Thanks for your time, sorry for any inconvenience, good bye."
I handed back the uncompleted paperwork, and we walked out the clinic.
"Well, they just lost out on a LOT of money," I said as we walked back outside to the street.
"Yep, and now they'll be twiddling their thumbs for an hour and more since we're not there. Besides, they didn't even have all the ones we needed."
"Yes, you're right. It's annoying though, as now I'll need to find another clinic that we can get an appointment at, in a different city!"
The vaccinations would have cost $786NZD, and the four consultations would have been $434NZD! By comparison, in the UK we paid a single consultation fee of £25 ($50NZD). (I realise that every country is different, but that fee was just ridiculous).
Another downside to not getting our jags, was we were now at a bit of a loose end. Because we'd gone to the science centre, we'd missed out on seeing the palaces and monuments that had also been on my list. It was also raining, and we weren't dressed in the right clothing, so we made the call to go back to the apartment via a supermarket.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with the kids writing their diaries, Dan investigating going to Jordan (decision: no, reasons: many), and me trying to find travel clinics. The tricky part was trying to find one close to the central station (so we can get there easily), be reasonably priced, have the vaccinations we need, be open on the day we were there, and have appointments available! Just a few requirements...
One thing we did manage to book, was a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in two days' time. Dan and i
Day 240 - 20 Feb '23 - Warsaw to Krakow (pronounced krak-oof). Dan has done a fantastic job of organising our trains to be as close to check-out time as possible. Therefore, today we didn't leave our apartment until 11:30am, which was a nice slow start to the day.
The trip was just over two hours long, and we were very pleasantly surprised to receive a free hot or cold drink, as well as an 'appetiser'! Dan, Alex, and I all had two chicken and salad brioches, and Abi had a tofu salad. Personally, I thought the tofu was rather tasty, but Abi cut up a leftover sausage from dinner and ate that with the salad instead.
It was not quite 3pm when we arrived at the building our apartment was in. It took us a further 10 minutes to find the apartment, by trying to decipher the English translated directions, while working out exactly which door we had to go through. The entire time we were also hoping we hadn't been led astray, as the building was exceedingly rundown.
Thankfully, once again, the contents were completely different to the inside, which had been very tastefully renovated.
We only had a couple of hours of daylight left, so went to the old town part of Krakow. It started raining on the way, so took shelter next to a wall that overlooked the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre. Even through the rain, it looked amazing.
"It looks like the rain is stopping, shall we go now?" I asked.
"Yep!" replied the kids.
We didn't get 100m down the road before it got heavier instead of lighter.
"It hasn't stopped, Nic," Dan observed.
"No, I realise that. Look, over there, in the square, all those people under the arches of that building. Let's go there."
The building in question was The Cloth Hall, effectively the world's first shopping mall. It was built during the Renaissance period and was where merchants would gather to sell and trade their goods.
On the other side of the Rynek Głowny was St. Mary's Basilica, where, from the top of the tower, we heard a trumpeter playing a fanfare. On the mark of the hour, he played the same short tune from all four sides of the tower.
We walked through more of the old town and saw the Sts. Peter and Paul Church, which had eight incredible sculptures on plinths outside.
Inside was also incredible, with beautiful gold cherubs and dark marble throughout. Yet again, there was a stunning organ high on the back wall, and at the front of the church there were steps leading down into a new crypt that had been built for important men of Poland.
We left the church and carried on up to the Wawel Castle and cathedral, which stood on a rocky outcrop and were an interesting conglomeration of building styles. We walked up the path to get some lovely views over the new part of Krakow, but as the light was starting to fade, we didn't stay long.
We walked back through the old town, trying (and failing) to find a restaurant that sold gluten free food but wasn't too expensive. As we were in the old part of town, everything was geared towards tourists, and therefore the prices were high.
On the way out of the old town we walked past the Wawel Sandomierz Tower (Krakow Barbican), which had more than 130 spaces for soldiers to defend from.
For dinner, we decided to have KFC. It turned out the chips were gluten free here, and it was an easy and relatively inexpensive meal to have. Our apartment had a two-burner hob, but the saucepans were big enough to boil three, maybe four eggs max, and the frying pan would have allowed us to fry two eggs. In other words, very small, and not at all suitable for cooking a meal for four!
When we got back to the apartment, Dan was again busy on his computer sorting out our trip. He checked his emails, and found one from the Auschwitz tour provider that said our pick-up time had changed from 9am to 6:20am!
"What?! That sucks! What a horrible time to meet. That means we'll have to get up before 5am. Can we change it?"
"No, it says the booking time was a 'request' and can be changed to whatever is available."
"That's crap. But, I guess it means we'll be back early afternoon so will have the rest of the day still."
"Yes, that's what I thought too."
Oh well, an early start tomorrow it would be!
Day 241 - 21 Feb '23 - Krakow. 4:45am is not a pleasant time for anybody to get up, but incredibly, the kids tolerated it remarkably well. Everyone was up and dressed and fed without any problems, and we walked out the door at 5:50am.
It was still dark as we made our way to the pick-up point near the shopping plaza from last night. Our bus arrived (as did many other mini-vans), and we took our seats amongst the other 56 people on board.
"If this is how full the bus is at 6:20am, imagine how busy it will be at the camp!" I said to Dan.
Our guided tour started at 8:30am, and after going through security checks and receiving our headsets, we were led through a long concrete tunnel. The names of the dead were being played on speakers, and the tunnel felt rather oppressive and incredibly symbolic.
The first tour was of camp Auschwitz I. Auschwitz actually comprised 40 camps; the three main ones (of which we were visiting two), and many other sub camps.
We passed under the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' gate, and were led between the buildings that had been used for various purposes.
We went inside a few of the buildings. In one we were confronted by mountains of shoes, a pile of spectacles, suitcases marked with names and addresses, children's clothes, and a whole lot of human hair. The hair that was shaved off the heads of murdered women, was disinfected then sent away to be turned into felt and socks, that were used by the navy, as one example.
In another building, we were led to the punishment rooms. In a fully enclosed cell that was just big enough for four people to stand in, but had a door to crawl through, men were made to stand all night for simple infractions such as going to the bathroom at an 'illegal' time. In other rooms, they would stand 30 people with only one small window, and most would suffocate.
We were walked past two bathrooms, where men and women washed and removed their clothes, before they were led outside to be shot. Next we went to the small gas chambers, where pellets of Zyklon B were dropped through holes in the ceiling (not the shower heads you see in movies), which was right beside two crematoriums.
Parts of this camp were surround by two fences of electrified wire, with periodic guard towers. Because this camp was primarily one for workers, the fences were only electrified when the prisoners were within the camp.
Our tour of this camp took an hour-and-a-half, and then we had a quick 10 minute break before we drove to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
While Auschwitz I had been turned into more of a museum, Auschwitz Il-Birkenau had been left as it was. The remains of the wooden barracks went as far as the eye could see, the brick chimneys the only surviving elements.
The interesting effect this caused was, we could see easily the scale of the camp. It was absolutely masssive. 174 barracks that held 744 people each, meant there could be over 125,000 held at a time.
The train tracks that ran through the main gate and into the camp, we had seen photographs of at the first camp. The Nazis had decided it was too far from the gate to the gas chamber, so extended the track right into the middle of the camp. Here, prisoners were selected based on looks alone. Here, about 90% of the people who poured out of the cattle cars, were immediately sent for execution.
We walked the length of the camp to where there was a memorial that had been built in 1967. Nobody knows what the imagery means, as the artists never left an explanation, but there was an inscription duplicated in the 20 different languages of the inmates.
One of the remaining wooden carts was standing next to the kitchen. This cart was pushed and pulled by teenage boys every morning, the contents being buckets of toilet waste from the night before. They would go around the camp, collecting the full buckets, running from barrack to barrack in wooden clogs, slipping on ice that had been 'gritted' by human ash.
"Can you imagine having to push a cart filled with human waste in the...no, wait, I take that back...we can't imagine."
We got to go inside one of the remaining complete barracks, the so-called Death Barracks. This was where women were sent to die. Once they had become too weak for work, they were 'stored' in this barrack until there were enough of them to be sent to the gas chamber. They weren't fed during that time, and lots died while waiting. The bunks were three levels high, with the lowest level getting to sleep on the dirt.
This was where the tour ended, and we got back on our bus. Both Alex and Abi had done really well; Abi had only baulked at going inside one of the buildings, and had turned away from the pictures of the emaciated children, while Alex had gone everywhere and looked at everything.
Rather than do more sightseeing, or visiting museums, Dan and I decided that the rest of our afternoon would be a more lighthearted one. We watched some TV then all did some respective work before dinner time.
While eating our soup (my inspired idea of food that could fit the small saucepans), we had a big conversation about what we'd seen today.
Between 1.1 and 1.3 million people were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz and Birkenau, about 90% of them Jewish. We can never undo what happened. We can only make sure we continue to teach our children, and ensure it never happens again.
The politicians that have recently been elected in The Netherlands, and the ones up for election in Germany (which has incited recent riots), are starting the same way as another certain politician did back in 1932.
Day 242 - 22 Feb '23 - Krakow to Prague. No 4:45am alarm call today! However, we did get woken up a fair bit during the night, from the security light in the courtyard outside our window.
We only had blinds over the window, and they were really odd - two large, vertical mesh panels, that didn't overlap, and didn't open past the window either (meaning half the window was always covered by the blind). The constant flashing on and off of the security light in the courtyard, certainly didn't help matters!
It was a six-hour trip to Prague today, and we experienced our first "please can you get out of our seat" situation, when we discovered an Australian woman sitting in our seat.
We showed her our ticket, which clearly displayed our four seat numbers, and she showed us hers, which didn't have any seat number displayed. She seemed reluctant to start with ("I'm so tired, I don't understand, where do I sit?") but eventually got up and moved ("I'll just sit on this seat over here").
Part-way through the trip, she had to move seat again, when a ticket person walked onto the train and inserted "reserved" stickers into some of the seat numbers, one of which was where she was sitting.
We arrived in Prague about 5:30pm, and walked up a long hill to our apartment.
"At least it will be an easy walk back to the train station! Who knew Prague was so hilly!" I puffed as we neared our destination.
"From the central station, anyway," Dan amended.
Our apartment looked very grand from the hallway, a vast difference from the last couple of places we'd stayed.
I did some laundry, and then we went to get food supplies. Another benefit of travelling in winter is all the buildings have their lights on earlier, and look really pretty in the dark. We walked past the National Museum, which looked stunning all lit up! If this was what places looked like at night, we can't wait until tomorrow...
Day 243 - 23 Feb '23 - Prague. A crappy sleep in a too-soft bed, followed by a lukewarm-would-be-an-overly-generous-description shower (thanks, Abi), doesn't gender the best start to the day.
I looked at getting a public transport ticket, but when we realised that the furthest point was only half an hour away, we decided just to walk.
First place was Wenceslas Square, named after Saint Wenceslas of 'Good King Wenceslas' fame.
(Incidentally, he was only ever a Duke while he was alive, and was proclaimed a king after he died, based on his piety and good deeds).
The next place we saw was the Powder Tower, one of the few remaining towers that formed part of the old medieval city gates.
We carried on to the old town square, where we saw the twin spires of the Church of Our Lady Before Týn, looming over the top of some other buildings.
We also the oldest working astronomical clock in the world, which was on the Old Town Hall. Apparently, every hour it plays an underwhelming 45 second melody, but we didn't feel like waiting half an hour for it, so continued our journey.
We then walked over a bridge to go to the narrowest street in the world! It is a tiny staircase with stop/go lights, as it's only one person wide. Unfortunately, it was closed, and it turned out it led to a restaurant - we think it was closed because the restaurant was closed. Oh well!
We next went to the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, which is situated entirely within the castle boundaries. Guinness World Records says the castle is the biggest in the world, taking up
70,000m2!
We got to enjoy an incredible view of Prague, and were there in time to see the guard marching through the square, wearing their fur-trimmed coats.
We walked through the castle courtyard to the cathedral, a monstrously huge building that needed tickets to get in. I struggled to stand back far enough to be able to take a picture!
"We can't see EVERY cathedral," Dan said. "The city before this had one, the city after this will have one. We paid to get into Westminster Abbey!"
"Yes, I know," I conceded, "but it looks like it would have been amazing from the inside. Remember, we didn't go into Yorkminster, and found out afterwards that it was bigger than Westminster!"
Dan was right though - we couldn't see everything, everywhere, so we walked back down the hill and went across the Charles Bridge, a pedestrian bridge with sculptures along the guard walls.
We then walked along the waterfront to an incredible building, the Dancing House, so named after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
It was quite a contrast to all the old buildings that we had been constantly walking past. The old buildings were all painted in different colours, and had lots of different embellishments and sculptures holding up the balconies.
"It all reminds me of your Sylvanian Families city houses," I said to Abi.
"Yes! I agree!" Dan said.
We headed back to the apartment via a Tesco Express (I know! Tesco in Prague!) for lunch, and rested there for about an hour, before heading back out to Wenceslas Square again.
I had found some nearby Pokémon Go 'routes' to incentivise the kids to do more walking. It was only 3pm, so far too early to call the day over!
We walked the length of the square and back again, popped into another supermarket for some oven fries for dinner (since nobody was really hungry), then went to the apartment again.
The rest of our evening was spent deciding where to visit in Greece, and working out how to get there. The train network through Eastern Europe was getting less extensive, and busses were becoming more infrequent, so planning was getting harder to do, and therefore taking longer to research.
Off to Vienna tomorrow, so hopefully tonight's sleep is a better one because...we're getting our jags!
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