fiona adam

As per usual the blog begins with an apology for its tardiness, especially as we are both home now but, as mentioned previously, the Ukrainians aren't too hot on their public internet access and frankly, we became somewhat lazy. But here we are: Simferopol Simferopol does not warrant much review, in fact we became bitter and twisted by remaining for the night. It has no merits upon which a recommendation is based and thinking back to the place evokes sore memories... Perhaps this is because we arrived after our 30 hour train ride and instead of entering beautiful Crimea were halted in an ugly transport hub. Simferopol is the point of entry/departure for the whole of the Crimea, and it looks it. There were holidaymakers everywhere displaying that inevitable behaviour, witnessed most frequently at train stations ... read more

Again we must begin with apologies to our regular readers for the lateness of todays entry. We have made it to the Crimea, but the lack of internet facilities in the resort town of Yalta is quite astounding...more on this southern tip of the Ukraine at a later date though, as we must fill you in on one of the most interesting places we have visited thus far... Minsk, Belarus All the guidebooks (including the one that was unfortunately stolen from us) have 'warned' that Belarus, and especially its capital, is like a soviet time-warp. We can but confirm that philosophy. However, it was not so difficult to enter as the books made out, in fact the passport officers at the Lithuanian border were positively intrigued by our wish to enter and the sight of a ... read more

Finally, Lithuania So we left Riga (again) hoping that, as nice as the city is, we wouldn't have to return - at least not under similar circumstances... It was back to our old friend Eurolines where for once the bus driver wasn't annoyed that we actually had baggage when travelling internationally and even whipped out some baggage tags which proved useless because it was still very much a save and grab at the other end anyway... The journey was fairly long at about 5hrs but there was some mild entertainment by watching a drunk lithuanian and chinese student communicate for almost the entire journey, language barriers are nothing it would seem. When we arrived in Vilnius it was fairly late at around 11pm but luckily our hostel wasn't far at about 3mins away, although even this ... read more

Oh dear. As 'regular readers' may have noticed, its been some time since we updated the blog. There is a valid excuse...apologies in advance for the lengthiness of this torrid tale. So as our bus to Klaipeda, a Lithianian coastal town, wasn't until quarter to eight in the evening, we decided to spend some time browsing round the uber-retro shop in the Hotel Fontaine. Full of soviet-era trinkets and dubious second hand baseball jackets, we predictably became rather enthralled. Having checked out of uncle toms cabin, our luggage was downstairs in the breakfast/common/eighties record room, quietly sitting on the sofa. We spent a reasonable - but by no means ridiculous - amount of time in the shop...returning downstairs, the horrible realisation slowly dawned...a bag was nowhere to be seen. My (adams) small and very recently bought ... read more

Rainy Times In the morning we headed into town for some more pastry loving and to make the trip to the tourist information office to get some idea of how to reach Liepaja. With the next bus at 3pm we had a bit of time to waste and inventively did so by drinking copious amounts of coffee and a lunchtime beer. Cautious of the fact we had no idea where the bus station was we headed off early and eventually found it hidden down a side road next to a field. The bus arrived and after the drivers obligatory cigarette break we left for Liepaja on the rural country roads. Unfortunately not long after it began to pour with rain which continued into Liepaja and pretty much for the rest of the day and night. Upon ... read more

Venta Falls Got up in the morning and headed out to the nearby pastry shop to stock up with lots of delicious goodies, actually considering setting up an export business purchasing these amazing bites for less than 20p and selling them to the desperate foolish british public for about two pounds, they'd still be amazing value at that. After monching down some of the aforementioned tasty goods we headed to the bus station to practice our best latvian and purchase a ticket to the provincial town of Kuldiga, home to the Ventas Rumbas - the widest waterfall in Europe at around 250m even if it is only 2m high (even thats dependant on water level or its only 1.2m high). However when we arrived in Kuldiga we weren't actually dropped off at the bus station but ... read more

Happy with our flying visit to Parnu, we boarded the evening bus to Riga and promptly fell asleep, only to be woken by the terror-inducing braking of the driver! Apparently latvia has one of the worst records for road accidents in europe...the journey provided much evidence to that effect. Arrived unscathed and eventually found the hostel, which is actually hidden behind a bookcase in a bar, probably the best entrance ever. Quite tired and hungry so we went to eat at a self-service pub, lovely and cheap but made the schoolboy error of sitting underneath the air conditioning. Monched down our slightly chilled salmon and sauerkraut, and picked our way back to the hostel, avoiding any groups which looked remotely like stag parties...fortunately, most of them were in no fit state to cause any sort of ... read more

A super early start - why schedule a popular bus route at 7.45 am? We were somewhat taken aback to discover we would be travelling to Estonias most popular seaside resort by minibus, rather than the spacious coach which had brought us to Kuressare, but it was nice and air conditioned. The journey went quite quickly, and we arrived in Parnu with plenty of time to kill before our evening bus to Riga. Parnu is estonias equivalent of blackpool or bournemouth or somewhere, except its really very nice. We left our bags in the (very small) luggage hold and tottered round the town, through a nice park dedicated to Lydia Koldiua, a bit like the estonian princess diana, and looked round the Parnu new art museum. Pretty interesting collection of modern art and photography housed in ... read more

Kuressaare, Saaremaa Island We left Tallinn somewhat earlier than we would have liked, and headed to the excitingly named Autobussijam to catch our bus to the island of Saaremaa. The 4 hour jaunt involved a short ferry crossing, which was vastly more pleasant and relaxing than any dover to calais trip has ever been. A sleepy drive past tumbledown farm shacks and through lush green forests brought us to the islands capital, Kuressaare...or at least, we thought so...possibly the quietest bus station ever... Not entirely convinced we were heading in the right direction, we eventually found our hostel and then strolled towards (and without realising, straight through) the town centre. Had a delicious and wonderfully cheap dinner at the John Bull Pub - featuring an old bus as the bar, and a terrace which looked out ... read more

Ghostwriter Firstly in response to James´ comment we have not taken a ghostwriter with us on holiday but as a joint blog it would be rather annoying to have to do otherwise... perhaps I (fiona) shall take up the royal we in future... Day Two The day started late as we slept in still rather knackered from the Stansted epic. Met up with Andres, a former Jasmine di Milo colleague, and went for lunch at the rather posh looking "Vertigo" restaurant which was on the top floor of a rather tall building as the name may suggest. It was all sleek and showy but had an amazing view over the city and was actually rather good value so we monched a delicious caesar salad each. In a rather unexciting portion of the day we made it ... read more