Day 50 First impressions of Irkutsk were not great and was following a similar pattern to other Russian cities. Around the station area was chaotic and madness with the people, driving and buses etc. Eventually we found a tram to get us to the bus station as decided to leave immediately for Lake Baikal which is the major attraction in the area. It is some 600Kms long and 80kms wide (almost the size of Germany) and some 1600 metres deep in parts, so easily the biggest freshwater lake in the world! It supplies 20% of the words water and when we first saw the lake it was so foggy it actually looks like a sea as you can not see the other side. Pretty impressive and it is a big part of Tourism for this part ... read more

Day 42 Today we arrived to a cold, rainy and dreary looking Moscow. Temparture had plummeted and we arrived in rush hour for the metro. My night on the train was not a particulary good one, we shared with 2 older russians, one who smoked non stop and other was a big snorer! The train itself was a bit shabby, carridges were ok though with matresses and bedding supplied. Girls listen, the bathrooms on these trains are not good though! Will post pictures of these trains in the next blog hopefully. After risking the metro, people running everywhere it reminded us a lot of london also people not so helpful here. We then walked in the pouring rain to our accommodation, called the Nova Hostel. From ourside it looked terriable, run down building with so signs ... read more

After leaving western Europe we spent the next 3 weeks visiting Family in Poland, my wife is Polish and our last chance for a while to see them all. While here we managed to squeeze in a few cities: - Koszalin Visited friends on the Baltic coast of Poland. Lovely in summer no doubt, freezing when we were there! - Gdansk, northernly port of Poland. We also visted Westerplatte which where the first shots were fired in WW2. A german warship was on a friendly visit to Gdansk and opened fire on the guardhouses on the banks. This was expected to be a swift victory for the Germans but the Poles held out for 7 days with very little in the way of men or supplies. When they did finally surrender the survivors were taken in ... read more

Weather finally changed a bit todayand chilly but we were off to Lucerne further North for one night. Stopped here simply to break up the trip as the following day we were heading to Budapest which was some 15 hours away by train. We arrived to Lucerne early afternoon and stayed at Lucerne Backpackers, this was pretty much the only budget option and was still pretty expensive. (78 Sw Francs) Nice place about 15 mins walk from the station, had a view of the lake from our room as well. Did all the usual touristy stuff in Lucerne - Chapel Bridge, Lion Monument, old town and City walls on the hill. Not much else to say here except definitely prefered Interlaken but there was nowhere else to stop except Zurich was was really expensive. Day 9 ... read more

After a quieter day yesterday we started early as planned to tackle 4 of the Riviera towns on our last day here. We started with the bus to Eze, this is a village perched up high on the cliffs of the Riviera and highly recommended. Unfortunately it is hugely popular with tourists, we did it late morning and hit a huge school group so would recommend earlier. After about 30 mins we arrived and there are some amazing views to be had. The village itself has many alleyways and hidden passages up and around the viewpoints. It can be difficult to find a quiet spot though but worth it. Once done instead of continuing with the bus we took the track that goes all the way down, bit of a hike and takes about 45 mins. ... read more