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Published: September 17th 2007
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Sigulda Latvia
Fairy Tale castle in the woods. 800 year aniversary of town. I can not believe that it is over one month since I wrote a travelblog. Time certainly has flown by and I am now finding it difficult to recap everything that has gone on. I though I had sent a blog in Lithuania, but I must be mistaken. Here goes anyway.
Since leaving Parnu in Estonia I headed for Latvia where I and had read in my travel guide that a place called Sigulda was a beautiful place. My lucky stars once again blessed me as when I arrived I found that they were celebrating their 800 year anniversary of the town. There were several very large free concerts which were great. There was a fantastic fireworks display and lots of famous artists performed including Monica Mancini. I met up with a Latvian girl who was visiting for the celebrations and need a lift back to Riga - the capital of Latvia. There is a fairy tale castle nestled in the forest of Sigulda which was a lovely walk as well. On the way to Riga, it transpired that Arita was actually heading towards Lithuania for a wedding of one of her best friends. The next four days turned out
Riga
Free Jazz to be a whirl wind tour of beautiful cities, a stately home, camping in a Lithuania backyard and lots of vodka. The couple getting married invited me to their wedding that was one of the most fabulous celebrations you could ever wish to attend. The food was wonderful and the vodka never stopped flowing. I think it is tradition to toast everything and everyone several times.
Following the wedding and nursing a headache until well into the afternoon next day, I headed to the capital of Lithuania - Vilnus. This is a lovely city with lots of history. The KGB headquarters is now a museum. There is a superb castle on a lake just outside of Vilnus in a town called Trakai. Well worth a stop over.
I then headed to Poland - Warsaw that also has an amazing amount of history from the war. Krakow was spectacular and again there were free concerts in the square. The next stop on my history tour was Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. Two days is not enough to take in the information that these two camps have. It is absolutely incomprehensible what happened here.
Moving out of Poland to the
Latvia
Stately home Czech Republic, I visitied several towns including Brno before arriving in Prague. I have for a long time wanted to visit this city as I had heard so much. I was not disappointed. The city is just beautiful. I have so many photos both in the day and at night. Climbing the cathedral towers reveals a wonderful city panorama. The night life is electric. I visited the best jazz club in town and had a great night.
After spending several days in Prague, my taste buds led me to the Pils Brewery at Plzen. They have a great tour and a special beer at the end. This beer can not be sold away from the factory as it is brewed in traditional wooden barrels and is not filtered or pasteurised. This beer earns the title of ‘Probably the best beer in the world’ in my book. Needless to say I could not leave without buying 2 crates of 24 (500ml) cans. I can say that 24 litres of beer did not last long.
Germany beckoned as I had a rendezvous with my Trans Siberian buddy and 2 wonderful girls we met previously in Beijing. I picked up my
Lithuania
Head table at Wedding mate in Munich airport after spending a day in Regensburg and met up with the girls. 2 turned out to be 3 and we all had a great time in Munich. A very very big thank you to Nina, Annette and Sabine. I very much hope to rendezvous somewhere in the world once again.
I also had a meeting with some ex work friends in Saarlouis which was great. Their local BBQ (Schwenker) is superb. Another very very big thank you for looking after me for the days I was there. Sometimes I do not believe just how lucky I am to have such good friends.
From Germany I headed through Luxemburg and Belgium to France as one of my oldest friends (in time I have known him, not age) was getting the Eurostar to Lille where we were to meet up.
The next few days were a blur of events happening one after the other. We headed to Lens for the England-USA rugby world cup. My 15 minutes of fame came when we were shown on Channel 3 French TV, met the mayor of Lens, made the 2nd page of the French newspaper (half a page photograph)
Lithuania
Trakai. What a beautiful castle on an island. and were bought a pint from a random French guy who recognised us as celebrities. We even had a French police escort in Big Red to a camp site after being moved off the car park of the stadium with several other campers. After a hard day walking round Lens, the next stop was to get tickets to the game from a tout. The first offer on Thursday was for 400 euros a ticket. Friday brought them down to 200 Euro and having left the timing to the last minute and realising that there were far more tickets available than people turning up on the TGV, a face value ticket of 65 Euros each was haggled down to 10 euros. We did not even miss the kick off. A well earned couple of pints followed in a bar where previously we had met the owner and we got some VIP treatment followed by a souvenir rugby ball as a mascot for the front of Big Red and a couple of very nice shot glasses. Not a bad couple of days. The photos have to be seen to be believed.
We then headed down to Reims to do some obligatory
Poland
Camped for the night with the big boys. champagne tasting. There is also a very impressive Canadian war memorial on the way in a town called Vimy.
Time has moved on so quickly since I had an email connection and so I have probably missed lots out. I am now heading to Calais to restock the roses and the Englan - South Africa game has been and gone (fortunately!). I got tickets to this game also for less than 15 quid. England did not score a point though!
Must go as connection limited. Will update again as soon as I can.
Bye for now.
Dave.
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Kevin
non-member comment
Great photos
Great photos Dave didnt realise you had made it into both rugby games so far. Looks like you and Jus are having a great time. In case your worried I am misisng out I will send you some photos from Australia when I get there :o)