A dog has the right to be a dog (part 2)

Ok so no bog to log just part deux of Eastern Europe. Sorry team.

Getting the view in from the castle over Vilnius (its not a great view so instead have one of us!)

Leaving Warsaw for another overnight ‘Ryan air’ esque journey was not one we relished, however, we were pleasantly surprised by this one. The coach proved roomy and the drivers actually seemed to give a shit. Not to mention each seat had a tv set with English films and Wifi. The modern world eh!

Arriving in Vilnius we passed out for a short while before heading out for a mooch around town. The next day we headed up to the castle for some awesome views across the city, after this it was a wander to the district of Uzupio. This is an artist’s haven which has decided to declare itself a state in it’s own right, issuing passports (or stamping yours), electing a president and writing their own constitution which included: point 12. A dog has the right to be a dog and point 13. A cat is not obliged to love its owner but must help in times of need. The final sight for the day was the ex KGB HQ. We have seen a lot of museums over past couple of weeks and you would expect overtime to become desensitised to the effects of war and genocide. However the padded cells, torture cells and execution chamber were still truly terrifying! Bullet holes in the wall of the execution chamber were particularly sobering. All I can say is thank god we didn’t go to see Auschwitz as we might have actually lost the plot by now. However, it has been a revelation to see WW2 from a variety of perspectives all subtly different.

Vi doing the snow jig

The constitution of Uzupio

That night we feasted at what would be a local gastro-pub, with fantastic beer and deep fried garlic bread and ‘dairylea’ type dip. Awesome. The menu choices included roast elk or beaver stew. Ben and I chickened out and went for the relatively safe rabbit stew and meat stuffed potato cakes. However at £20 for 2 mains, starter, 2 beer and 2 glasses of wine you can’t really go wrong!

Deep fried garlic bread and cheese dip. The weight is falling off us.

The next day we decided to escape from the city and head to a picturesque little town in the countryside called Trakai. It’s clearly a spot where city dwellers come in the summer to sun themselves on the shores of the lake and have a little play in the boats you can rent out. In the winter the lake is frozen and dominated by men who have the balls to walk out across the ice, drill a hole in it, drop a line in the hole and sit there for hours, waiting to freeze to death (or catch a fish, whichever comes first).

Ben tried to run away from the cutest little dachshund dog that was barking at him (apparently it had murder in it’s eyes) and we found another castle to go round. This one had been rebuilt in redbrick (??commie influence??) but was still pretty cool to look around, especially since Trakai had once apparently been a big centre for commerce before it sank into being a swampy little backwater.

Frozen lake.

When the soviets refurb something, they do it in red brick!

Its getting chilly now...

Yet another overnight bus journey which was probably the worst yet. This was entirely down to two Estonian women two rows behind us who were extremely pissed and spent half the night chatting drunkenly at maximum volume, the other half screaming for someone to give them some water (neat vodka not doing the trick any more, it seems) and then quite a long time vomiting loudly into a bag.

We cheated the Tallinn metro system out of a few euro (no idea how to pay) and then collapsed onto the sofa at the hostel for a much needed half hour snooze- interestingly this was about 10 mins after we downed a can of red bull each to avoid this very thing.

We had less than 24 hours in Tallinn but made the most of it as much as possible since it was a Sunday and the whole place was a foot deep in snow. We had a lovely potter around the old city walls and crept down various little cobbles street and into little cobbled courtyards. The whole place has a very medieval feel about it which is compounded by the shops and restaurants taking advantage of this and having people dress up in medieval garb and offer you grog or challenge you to mint your own penny with a piece of tin and a massive sledgehammer. Nearly had a culinary mishap early on as we popped into a café for breakfast. I ordered a croissant and then a pain au chocolat and as an afterthought just checked that it was actually filled with chocolate to be told it was actually a pain-au-cabbage. My croissant was cheese filled too. Grim.

Tallins, Orthodox Church

The overcast view across Tallinns old town.

Lots of little streets in the old town.

Best part of the day was when we were taking a tour of the walls and found some kids had sorted themselves a sweet slope for sledging down so we decided to strip off the down and join them in bumsliding down and getting facefulls of snow in the process. Awesome fun! Think we ruined the kids day though as they swiftly disappeared.

Bum slide!

Ruined some Europeans/americans at table football in the evening, watched a horror film and then off to bed before the bus to St Petersberg the following morning….