Untitled - Bratislava, Slovakia
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 31, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

An afternoon in Vienna - Vienna, Austria
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 29, 2005
We arrived in Vienna around lunchtime, and were dropped miles from the centre, which isn't a problem, and not in sight of any form of public transport, which was. After walking a mile or three, we found a tram stop, and hopped on the next tram heading to the centre. We had managed to contact Kate's friendBojana, whom she had met in Russia, and after depositing our packs in a locker in West Bahnhof, we managed to meet her, and spend a lovely afternoon wandering about, sitting in a park, and exploring the international food festival that happened to be on (without actually eating any of it, as it was all extremely overpriced). As Bratislava was not far away, and we wanted to have time to spend with Bojana in Vienna, we decided to take a train rather than hitch. It also meant we didn't have to spend a night paying for accomodation in expensive Euroland, but could retreat back to Eastern Europe as quickly as possible!

On a mission - Prague, Czech Republic
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Aug 28, 2005
The reason we suddenly decided to take a detour into Prague was a) because Nicola offered to drive us as far as Wroclaw, and, more importantly, b) because Kate's backback, stolen the previous year in Prague, was being kept for her by a friend there. We didn't have any contact details for this friend, but thought we'd have a better chance of tracking him down if we were in the same country. We didn't manage to find him, but we did find a phone number, and leave a message on an answering machine. In retrospect we probably could have done that without going there. We arrived late at night, and the truck dropped us at a tram stop, which was handy. Even at nearly midnight, we managed to get to a campsite by public transport, and didn't get too lost, even with only the sketchy lonely planet map to help. As both of us had been to Prague before, and didn't particularly feel the need to see much, we only spent one day ambling about town and trying to find contact details for Kate's acquaintance, then left late that afternoon. Kate had hitched out of prague the year before (travelling extremely lightly after having everything stolen) and so we went to the same place of the highway she had, only to find it was now all being reconstructed and was impossible to get to. We found a way down to it eventually, and stood at a place that seemed safe enough to stop, and failed to get a lift. We found a few others also trying unsucessfully to get lifts, and decided to walk a bit to find a better spot. After what felt like hours, we tried a petrol station we could see not too far off. We eventually were offered a lift about 5 or 10k down the road, which we accepted gratefully. As we were driving, we noticed lots of hitchers on the highway, and one group seemed to have a white car parked next to them. We were dropped outside another petrol station, and stood on the road to try our luck. We hadn't been there even 10 minutes when a white car came and parked next to us, too. It said "Policie" on it. They told us off for standing on a freeway, which was apparently illegal. We explained we were sorry, but didn't have any other way to leave, and we were trying to leave as fast as we could. They fined us about $30 each (or something) and told us to go to any Czech police station to pay it. And to stop standing on the road. We retreated to the petrol station, figuring we'd just ask someone for a ride there. Turned out to be the least well patronised petrol station in all of europe. We were there about 2 hours, I think, during which time there were about 2 cars. It was getting dark, and I was off scouting tent spots for the night, and admiring the sunset, when a couple came to use the petrol station's car vaccuum. As they were nearly finished I went to beg them for a lift, explaining that we were stranded here, and need to be anywhere else but here. They were nice enough to take us about 30km down the road, to a big road side restaurant. We were only there 5 minutes before we accosted a young guy walking back to his nice car with german plates, and asked for a lift. He was going to Vienna, more or less, and, although we were aiming for Bratislava, we knew they were only an hour or so apart, so it was good enough! And that's how we finally managed to leave the Czech Republic.

a brief visit - Wroclaw, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 27, 2005
We decided at the last minute to head for Prague next, instead of down into Slovakia as originally planned, and Nicola offered us a lift as far as Wroclaw. Wroclaw consists of an enormous, colourful, historical square, (with buildings in the middle, making it more of a ring than a square) and then a modern city built around it. You only have to go about 2 minutes walk from the square to find dull concrete modern buildings. Modern or communist, of course. We only spent a couple of hours here, and then got a lift to one of the highways out of town, having decided to get back to hitching. We stood for hours and hours before finally getting a lift by asking for short distances in a petrol station. A lovely young couple who spoke some english took us right to the Czech border, as they were going to visit relatives nearby (on the Polish side) anyway. We spent most of the last of our zloty on dinner in a road side restaurant, walked through the border, then failed to get a lift, or find anywhere suitable for anyone to stop for us. So we kept walking. It was about a kilometre before there was a good place, and although it was dark by then, we hadn't been there more than a minute when someone stopped for us. A truck driven by a polish man who spoke some german (they all speak some german) took us all the way to Prague. June 2007 EDIT: I have just found this post about the same day that I must have written and lost. So here it is again in different words! Wroclaw As we had suddenly decided to take a flying visit to prague (Kate's long lost bag was supposed to be in the care of a friend there, but we couldn't contact him, but hoped to be able to when we got there), when nicola offered us a lift as far as Wroclaw, we accepted gratefully. It was a pretty town, but funny because you only had to take about 2 steps off the enormous, beautiful, historical main square to find the familiar grey concrete box style of communist architechture. We only stayed a few hours, then nicola drove us to a service station half way out of town, and we spent the next several hours trying to get a lift. Poland is not easy for 2 hitchhikers! We finally begged a ride from a lovely couple who were driving to see one of their parents just near the Czech border, and offered to drive us right to the border point, which was great. There we stopped for a final polish meal before walking through the czech point (sorry, couldn't resist) and discovering there was nothing on the other side. At least, not for a long way. No where even for cars to stop. Or to walk safely. After a kilometre or so (by which time it was completely dark) we found a stopping bay, and were there approximately 30 seconds before a polish truck driver picked us up and drove us right to Prague.

Nicola's place again - Biala, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 26, 2005
While at Nicola's place, we also got the opportunity to sample more polish cuisine, which, like most eastern-european food I've sampled so far, I found fantastic. It's been too long for me to remember the polish names for things now, but the hearty, thick soup served in a hollowed out loaf of bread was definitely a favourite!

Auschwitz & Birkenau - Oswiecim, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 25, 2005
A Day Trip I was sort of in two minds about seeing Auscshwitz. On the one hand, I couldn't have missed it, but on the other, it is part of the sort of gruesome, disaster tourism I'm not particularly in favour of. Still, I'm glad I went. It was a beautiful sunny day, with a bright blue sky, which seemed all wrong once we were there. With that and the green grass that is all over the site, it was all way too cheery for the serious nature of the place. While Auschwitz was interesting, with most of the brick cell blocks turned into museums of different aspects of life in the camp, or related things, it was the sister camp, Birkenau, which is a couple of kilometres away that was most thought-provoking. Birkenau was established after auschwitz to accomodate the huge numbers of prisoners that were being brought in towards the end of the war. It is a huge area of shoddy wooden barracks, most of which look more like barns than anything else. It is cut in half by the railway tracks and platforms that were used for unloading and sorting the prisoners. On either side of the end of the tracks are the remains of two of the enormous, purpose built gas chambers. Although we got here quite late in the afternoon, we spent nearly two hours wandering around. Definitely the 'highlight' - if you can call it that - of the day.

Nicola's place - Biala, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 24, 2005
It was great to see Nicola again, and, as usual, she had a full schedule planned to keep us running around the whole time we were there. The twin towns of Bielsko-Biala both had their highlights, although I have to admit I can't remember which was which! One had an old town square with eccentric architecture, while the other had the kitchest pebble-crete fountain I have ever seen.

Sean's place - Gliwice-Sosnowiec, Poland
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 23, 2005
Sean's place was a welcome pit stop. We decided to take a train from Krakow to Gliwice - it wasn't expensive, and hitching in Poland had proved difficult (police are strict about trucks taking more than 1 passenger). Sean met us at the station for the short walk to his flat. We spent two days in his one-room flat, doing little but soaking up internet time. It was wonderful! We managed a half hour walk around the highlights of Gliwice - which is pretty, but quiet, it seems - and went to a few of Sean's favourite eateries. One was a creperie with delicious savoury crepes. Another was a cafeteria type place, where we had an incredibly cheap take-away meal of 'pigeons', giant polish ravioli and traditional tricolor salad (red and white cabbage and carrot). I should probably mention that pigeons are cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and meat, and are very tasty!

Restaurants and walking tours - Krakau, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 22, 2005
Krakow was lovely. The hostel was seriously downmarket, true, but the location was good, more or less accross the road from the old jewish area (Kazimerz) and about a 15 minute walk (or 3 stops on the tram) from the centre of the old city. We hadn't realised this. After reconciling ourselves to at least one night in the tip of a hostel, we decided to treat ourselves to a restaurant meal, and decided to see if the guide book recommended one nearby. There appeared to be one practically across the street, listed as a "jewish style" restaurant, and, incredibly, it appeared to be one we could almost afford. We set out to find it, crossing the drab, ill-lit tram-lined street, we turned a corner down a dark alley, and emerged from the end into an amazing cobbled square, lined with bustling restaurants and beautifully lit by warm yellow street lanterns.The restaurant (Alef's) was winding down for the night (as was the rest of the square - it seems 10pm is a little late to eat out in Poland!) but the waiter kindly agreed to serve us, and we promised to order something that was quick to cook! The restaurant was decorated in a way I want to describe as "homey" complete with giant crocheted doily tablecloths, and dried flowers (or were they plastic? I can't remember now!). There was even a picture of Prince Charles on the wall - along with others I assume were celebrities I didn't recognise - all obviously taken in the restaurant. It was also full of cats. Very homey. While in Krakow we decided to take a walking tour - I did a couple in Berlin and found them really interesting, so seeing the famous jewish quarter of Krakow with someone who actually knew what to look at seemed like a great idea. As it turned out, we were the only people on the tour, so we had our own private tour guide, who showed us around for three or four hours. Krakow was one of the few places in europe that welcomed jews through most of its history, and had an enormous community before the second world war. They had been more or less given their own town (Kazimierz) just outside the city walls, which is, of course, only a ten minute walk from the centre of the old town today. It was once big enough to rival Krakow itself. The tour also took us to Schindler's factory, which hasn't yet been turned into a major museum and tourist attraction, but probably will be soon. We saw what was possibly his office (although our guide said it wasmore likely his secretary's office, but that's close enough). The Jewish Quarter tour was so interesting that we decided to take another walking tour the next day - this time of Nova Huta, the created Soviet suburb on the edge of town. We had the same guide, and again there was only the two of us on the tour, and we got the impression that Lukas (in polish it's pronounces Wukas) was getting a bit sick of us. The tour was nearly an hour shorter than advertised (perhaps we walk faster?) and there were only a couple of sights on it, some of which are interesting. including the completely hand made church paintakingly built during the communist period without any nails and with rocks carried in in buckets by the parishioners. We also spent at least half an hour in a cafe, for no particular reason we could work out. It was a cafe that communist party members used to frequent, apparently. It was all interesting enough, but not exactly what the brochure advertised!

A pretty city, a horrible hostel - Krakau, Poland
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 21, 2005
Rides: 1 train Before leaving Warsaw, we rang a hostel or two and found one that was reasonably prices, offered free internet and laundry, and free transport from the train station. Perfect! we thought. The Hostel Cadillac is a student dorm during the year. Poor sudents. In every sense of the word, I think. We were on the top floor which it felt like climbing a small mountain. I never did find a toilet in the place that had a properly attached seat. The showers were communal, which is quite common in hostels, it seems, but they were also unisex. There were plenty of washing machines, but finding the one that worked in the whole hostel was the challenge (they haven't heard of "out of order" signs). The first night i rang another hostel to arrange to move the next day, but by the ext morning we decided that having our own room (no one was ever put in the spare bed in our room) and not having to pack up again and lug our stuff across town made staying worth while.

The kindness of strangers and crazy bus drivers. - Warsaw, Poland
2 Stars This place was Poor visited Aug 18, 2005
Our friend the Lithuanian truck driver dropped us off the next morning about 60km from Warsaw, with some story about not being allowed to go closer because he wasn't a local truck. This was fine, except he once again dumped us in an inconvenient spot - probably annoyed that we had refused to share his bed for the night, and had spent the morning reading instead of entertaining him with conversation! We seemed to be in a small village, and the locals looked at us a little strangely when we got our signs out on the side of their road. We hadn't been there long when a woman came up to us and started chattering in Polish. From the few words I understood (I'm so glad "autobus" is an international word) I gathered there was a direct bus to Warsaw that left from a stop about 1km down the road, and it would cost us 5 zloty (AU$2) or so. We thanked her for the information (I hope) and she continued on her way, or so we thought. 5 mins later we were still on the side of the road, thumbs out discussing if the bus thing was a possibility, considering we had no local currency and the thought of walking a kilometre with our bags and not sure where we were going wasn't overly appealing. The woman returned, and managed somehow to explain to us (only in polish again, gods know how we understood anything) that she had arranged a friend to drive us first to an ATM for money, and then to the bus stop! And the friend turned out to be a travelling chocolate salesman, and after making sure he was leaving us at the right bus stop, he left us with a huge handful of coffee-toffee chocolates! We arrived in Warsaw around 11 or so, exhausted, in desperate need of showers, and without a clue where the bus had left us, although the driver told us in no uncertain tones (no idea what he said, but we got the message) that we had to get out of the bus - I suppose it must have been the end of the line. We miraculously found a bus to take us to the centre of town - a bus with a driver intent on scrambling his passengers. Even the locals were hanging on for dear life as we screeched on two wheels around corners, and he slammed on the breaks for each stop before roaring off again. The poor lady sitting behind me very nearly ended up with both me and my pack in her lap more than once! Not surprisingly under those conditions, I didn't manage to get the map out in time to see the best stop we should get off at for the most convenient hostel in town, and we ended up going one stop too far, but that was ok. Warsaw is not Poland's most beautiful city. We decided to go there for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was a convenient place to stop in between Vilnius and the south of Poland where we are going to visit sean. Secondly, Kate's student visa for Turkey had been sent there, so our main mission was to find the embassy and pick that up. We did also get to do some sight seeing. Warsaw was flattened during WWII, but in the last 15 years or so they have meticulously rebuilt the old town from scratch, so that is looks identical to its prewar state. It's all a bit odd. After a wander around the "old" town, with frequent rest stops, we realised that the thing we most wanted to do was find a supermarket for dinner ingredients, and collapse in the hostel. So we did. The supermarket was in the shadow of the Soviet built "Palace of Science and Culture" which just happens to be Poland's tallest building. With the visa mission successful (despite a slight difficulty in trying to find a currency exchange place when we discovered that the only acceptable currency to pay for said visa was american dollars...) we felt quite happy that we had seen the little that Warsaw had to offer, and caught a train to Krakow Yes! A Train! Shock! Horror! But we've decided to skip the hitching until out of Poland where it's just too hard with 2 people. And the trains are pretty cheap, so we'll survive!

Well, somewhere near Bialystok, anyway - Bialystok, Poland
1 Stars This place was Awful visited Aug 17, 2005
The petrol station turned out to be a bad spot. It was on a sort of ring road, and everyone was going the wrong way for us. We were there 2 hours or so before a polish truck driver liked our "PL" sign and stopped, but said he could only take us to the border for some reason. We couldn't communicate so well with this one - my polish is pretty minimal, and the phrase book very inconsiderately doesn't have phrases like "Where do you plan to stop for the night?" and "Can we go with you all the way to Warsaw?". Still, the border was several hours closer to Warsaw, so we thought ourselves lucky and settled in. Just after the border, we were unceremoniously dumped next to 3 other hitch hikers. We should have realised something was wrong, but continued to wave a thumb at passing trucks. One of them even stopped, but then wouldn't let two of us go with him. It seems there is a pretty strict rule about trucks only having one passenger in Poland, which makes it very difficult to hitch hike with 2 people. 2 hours later, we were still on the side of the road. We had walked a kilometre or two away from the border, and were again assessing the local area for possibly tent sites, when a truck finally pulled up next to us. It was our friend of the morning - very smug about having caught up to us, despite spending 3 hours in Kaunas. He again offered to take us to Warsaw in the morning, providing we didn't mind stopping for the night. At this point, any lift away from the border was a good thing! 4 or so hours later, we stopped in a large truck pen - a fenced off area that was little more than a car park and toilet block. We declined to share the second bunk inside the truck - or as he suggested, he and Kate share one bunk and I have the other one - and took our bags and tent and found a discreet spot behind some trees in the vacant field next to the truck park. Glad we have a green tent! We had to be back at the truck by 7am, which is obscenely early, but did mean we were treated to a lovely dewy almost-sunrise over the dandelion field!

Our friend the Lithuanian truck driver dropped us off the next morning about 60km from Warsaw, with some story about not being allowed to go closer because he wasn't a local truck. This was fine, except he once again dumped us in an inconvenient spot - probably annoyed that we had refused to share his bed for the night, and had spent the morning reading instead of entertaining him with conversation! We seemed to be in a small village, and the locals looked at us a little strangely when we got our signs out on the side of their road. We hadn't been there long when a woman came up to us and started chattering in Polish. From the few words I understood (I'm so glad "autobus" is an international word) I gathered there was a direct bus to Warsaw that left from a stop about 1km down the road, and it would cost us 5 zloty (AU$2) or so. We thanked her for the information (I hope) and she continued on her way, or so we thought. 5 mins later we were still on the side of the road, thumbs out discussing if the bus thing was a possibility, considering we had no local currency and the thought of walking a kilometre with our bags and not sure where we were going wasn't overly appealing. The woman returned, and managed somehow to explain to us (only in polish again, gods know how we understood anything) that she had arranged a friend to drive us first to an ATM for money, and then to the bus stop! And the friend turned out to be a travelling chocolate salesman, and after making sure he was leaving us at the right bus stop, he left us with a huge handful of coffee-toffee chocolates! We arrived in Warsaw around 11 or so, exhausted, in desperate need of showers, and without a clue where the bus had left us, although the driver told us in no uncertain tones (no idea what he said, but we got the message) that we had to get out of the bus - I suppose it must have been the end of the line. We miraculously found a bus to take us to the centre of town - a bus with a driver intent on scrambling his passengers. Even the locals were hanging on for dear life as we screeched on two wheels around corners, and he slammed on the breaks for each stop before roaring off again. The poor lady sitting behind me very nearly ended up with both me and my pack in her lap more than once! Not surprisingly under those conditions, I didn't manage to get the map out in time to see the best stop we should get off at for the most convenient hostel in town, and we ended up going one stop too far, but that was ok. Warsaw is not Poland's most beautiful city. We decided to go there for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was a convenient place to stop in between Vilnius and the south of Poland where we are going to visit sean. Secondly, Kate's student visa for Turkey had been sent there, so our main mission was to find the embassy and pick that up. We did also get to do some sight seeing. Warsaw was flattened during WWII, but in the last 15 years or so they have meticulously rebuilt the old town from scratch, so that is looks identical to its prewar state. It's all a bit odd. After a wander around the "old" town, with frequent rest stops, we realised that the thing we most wanted to do was find a supermarket for dinner ingredients, and collapse in the hostel. So we did. The supermarket was in the shadow of the Soviet built "Palace of Science and Culture" which just happens to be Poland's tallest building. With the visa mission successful (despite a slight difficulty in trying to find a currency exchange place when we discovered that the only acceptable currency to pay for said visa was american dollars...) we felt quite happy that we had seen the little that Warsaw had to offer, and caught a train to Krakow Yes! A Train! Shock! Horror! But we've decided to skip the hitching until out of Poland where it's just too hard with 2 people. And the trains are pretty cheap, so we'll survive!

Scene: A Petrol Station, somewhere on the outskirts of town... - Kaunas, Lithuania
1 Stars This place was Awful visited Aug 16, 2005
Rides: One truck Weather: Hot and Sunny. Sort of too hot and sunny, really. Not that I'm complaining of course... We knew we had found the right spot on the road out of Vilnius when we came across two other hitch hikers waiting on the side of the road. And then another girl came and stood in front of us, and of course got a lift in no time flat. An hour later we were still standing there, waving our signs at the traffic. By now we have signs that say "5km?" and the PL in the oval (the polish car sticker) and of course, the one that says "Istanbul", which tends to make people throw up their hands in horror at us! When someone did stop, it was a lovely brand new air conditioned truck, with a driver who really wanted to know if we were English. So suddenly I was. Luckily we could communicate quite well in a sort of pidgin German - his german was worse than mine! And it was littered with words from other languages like french and english, but that was ok too. He was just setting off on a long trip to England, and, once we convinced him we really didn't want to go to England, he said could take us all the way to Warsaw. But only if we waited 3 hours in the next town while he loaded, and then stayed overnight with him, as he wouldn't get to Warsaw til the next morning. The next hour or so was spent accompanying him while he did all sort of things necessary at the start of a long trip. He filled up on diesel (900 litres takes a long time when you go to a normal petrol station designed for cars...) and then waited for his wife to come to fill up her car with a siphon hose while we hid so she wouldn't see us. For various reasons, we decided not to go all the way to warsaw with him. For a start we had hopes of getting there by the evening, rather than the next morning. And of course, we weren't really interested in the dodgy dodgy lithuanian girly magazine he wanted to show us. Printed in black and white, or rather, blue and white. He dropped us off in what turned out to be an inconvenient spot in Kaunas (the fasted roads from Vilnius to Warsaw involve going in the wrong direction first) dissappointed that we wouldn't accompany him further!

Made it, just. - Vilnius, Lithuania
4 Stars This place was Great visited Aug 15, 2005
Country count: 36+1+half Another car and a truck later, we found ourselves at dusk on the side of a beautiful new freeway in the middle of the north of Lithuania, waving our thumbs at passing cars while admiring the sunset and assessing the local area for possible places to discreetly put up a tent for the night. We weren't really expecting another lift, but while standing on the side of the road, you may as well put a thumb out! We were in luck. A Lexus pulled up, and a young man with excellent english offered to take us all the way to Vilnius. Turns out he was a professor in law at the local university, spoke English, Russian, Italian, French and Lithuanian, was well travelled and provided fascinating conversation all the way to Vilnius. When he heard we hadn't booked a hostel yet, he asked us to stay in his enormous flat (we had a choice of rooms) and to show us around Vilnius the next morning. He had a red baseball cap that said in large white letters "I *heart* JESUS". So it seems he was a Jesus freak, or rather, Jesus Geek, but apart from the hat - and the religious art around his house - it didn't show too much! Having our own personal tour guide and chauffeur was a great introduction to the city. The next morning he rang the hostels we had mentioned we were going to try, arranged us two dorm beds, and drove us there. Then he drove us to the centre, through his university, pointed out some sights, and took us to the main cathedral square and the KGB prison museum, before having a light lunch in a cafe on the main street and then leaving us to finish exploring the town on our own. It was lovely. I've added a half to my country count, becuase while in Vilnius we visited the Republic of Uzupio, a small artists' enclave in Vilnius that has declared independence. Not that anyone has noticed, I don't think. But they think they are their own autonomous country, and even have a constitution that includes such things as "Everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat". It was a cute place. Next: Poland

The people you meet. - Riga, Latvia
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 14, 2005
Country Count: 35+1 Rides: Parnu to Riga: One motorhome all the way to the centre of Riga. Weather - Sun! We've had sun! At last! You meet strange people on the road. While we were standing on the road outside Parnu waving our "RIGA" sign at passing traffic, an older gentleman with long white hair came up to us, asked us where we were going, gave us a photocopy of an article about himself from a German newspaper, and then stood 15 metres behind us with a large "BERLIN" sign. We all ended up getting a lift in the same motorhome, and spent the next 2 or 3 hours discovering that we had the privelege of meeting Germany's most famous hitch hiker. He has been travelling by thumb, mostly within Germany, for the last 6 years, and has kept meticulous records of rides, people and distances. He has travelling the same distance in the time as 8 times around the world. He had some hitching advice. Amusing signs are apparently a good way to get a ride. So, somewhere between Riga and Vilnius we created a sign that says "ISTANBUL" which at least gets us noticed! After a day wandering around the old town of Riga (not as old or as contained as Tallinn, but nice all the same, and with one of the least elegant tallest church towers I have ever seen) we caught a bus to the edge of town, and tried for a ride to Vilnius. After nearly 2 hours standing on the side of the highway, we decided to ask in a petrol station, and the very first person we asked gave us a ride far enough down the highway to at least get properly out of town, and it wasn't so hard from there!

Pärnu - Pernava, Estonia
3 Stars This place was Average visited Aug 12, 2005
Not sure why this blog insists that Pärnu is Pernava, but at least the spot on the map is right! Rides: 2 cars and a truck Weather: after more days of mostly rain, we finally saw some sun today! And my shoes are dry for the first time in days! Finally properly on the road. We had been standing 20m from the last bus stop along the road to Pärnu for approximately 30 seconds when our first ride picked us up. And took us about 20km down the road. To an inconvenient spot. A short walk through a long downpour later, and we got another ride for another 20km or so. Then we waited an hour before a polish truck driver picked us up and took us all the way to the outskirts of Parnu. We had hoped for some sun, or at least, lack of rain, in the supposedly sunny beach-holiday destination or Parnu, but all we got was more unsettled rain, then sun. At least we managed to pack the tent up after a dry hour, so it wasn't completely soggy! Pärnu is a small town, full of the wooden houses typical of this part of the world. The beach, which we were on for about 5 mins, seemed allright, although the water was about the same colour as the sand, which disturbed me a bit. And the sky was absolutely full of parasurfer sails - it's a pretty effect on mass! On to Riga next.

The Story so Far... - Tallinn, Estonia
This place was Great visited Aug 9, 2005
Weather: raining, no wait, sunny! no... raining, no, it's sunny! I think they call this unsettled? I emailed this to a friend, then realised it would make a good entry, so thanks to the miracle of cut&paste, here is a summary of my first 3 days on the road: _____________ We're in Tallinn now - I arrived in Helsinki on monday evening after 25 hours travelling (it usually takes that long to cross the world, but to cross europe, it seemed a little much), spent 24 hours there, and have spent the last 2 nights in Tallinn. We're still in Tallinn, but have moved from our pleasant but overpriced hostel to a much less pleasant but still overpriced camping ground 10 mins out of the city. It hasn't stopped raining for more than an hour or so since I left the UK. And it's freezing. I'm hoping I will start having fun soon. _______________ We are having fun. Really. Tallinn is really pretty in the centre - but after a day there I really felt I wanted to get out and see something outside the heritage listed medieval Old Town. It was beginning to feel a bit like Disneyland - full of tourists and souvenir shops. Very nice though. But it was good to get out and see where the real people live!

And So it starts - Helsinki, Finland

Rides: 1 plane, 1 bus, 1 ferry Country count: 33+2! Today I have been in three different countries. I started in England - a night on the floor of Stansted airport to prepare me for the trials and privations of budget travelling to come, and then a way-too-early flight to Tallinn, Estonia, where I caught the first ferry I could to Helsinki in Finland. Kate met me at the ferry terminal, and took me to the hostel, where I promptly collapsed from exhaustion. I think this travelling thing will take a few days to get used to! And so it's begun. Our mad plan to travel from Helsinki to Istanbul, hitch-hiking and camping our way through at least 11 countries in 6 weeks. The route goes pretty much straight south from Helsinki, but as we don't have visas for the seriously eastern countries like Belarus and Ukraine, we have to stay a bit west - in Slovakia and Hungary. We will try to get a Ukrainian visa though, at some point on the way. Photos 1&2: After years of playing and singing "Finlandia" it was good to see the monument to the composer Sibelius. This is one of Helsinki's main tourist attractions, and in the half hour we were there, several bus tours turned up to take the required photo - usually from a distance and missing the best view - the one from underneath it! Photo 3: While wandering around Helsinki, we came across some completely inexplicable random statues. And one was a moose. Actually, two were mooses, but this was the best on. Perhaps if we could read Finnish, they would have been explicable, as there were some captions on some of them.