Tuesday 23 Sep – Zakopane We regrettably checked out of our palace and given it was still raining, made tracks to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, about 30mins out of Krakow. It has been a working mine since the early 1200’s and only stopped production in 1997. It is only open for tourism now, and they sure do capitalise on it with a horrendous entry fee (more than any other attraction we’ve been to). There are 9 floors within the mine ranging from 62m – 327m below ground, 300km of corridors and about 3000 chambers. All individual tourists are forced into a guided group, aka Auschwitz style. Unfortunately our guide was an older lady with a bored expression and a quiet, monotone voice with such terrible English that we could barely understand her. Whenever someone asked her ... read more

Monday 15 Sep – Malbork, Poland We left Vilnius and made our last stop at Trakai Castle. This castle was built in the 14th century by the the Dukes of Lithuania and sits on a beautiful little island in the middle of a lake. It was in use until it was damaged in a war with the Russians in the 17th century, then abandoned. It was in a very bad state by the time they started to restore it in the 1920’s. They only finished the restoration in 1994 and now it’s fully intact and a great little castle to walk around. The photos looking over the lake to the castle are stunning. On the way out we bought a large punnet of raspberries from a little local babushka lady for $2. We got into the ... read more

Monday, 8 Sept – Gauja NP, Latvia Bankwest sent me an sms overnight saying they’d blocked my card, despite speaking to me only yesterday. Yet another call to get it unblocked. Useless! Besides, how on earth does a €48 hotel charge equate to A$676,000 (which is why they were calling). I’m pretty sure there’s no exchange rate in Europe that matches that equation. Don’t call me about stupid amounts. I am not buying a chateau, and even if I did, we both know you wouldn’t approve it even if I authorised it. €2.85 = A$3.96. This was how much our delightful breakfast cost at Hotel Lacu Miga (henceforth known as Hotel Knowles). We bounded down the stairs at 9am to find a different lady from the night before, smiling and talking to us in Latvian, or ... read more

Travellers: Renae & Dwayne Knowles (R&D) Julie & Robert Ramsey (M&D for Mum & Dad) Tue 2-Sep M&D: TZ1 @ 1240, arr 1850 in SIN Wed 3-Sep Thu 4-Sep R&D: BA16 @ 1530, All rendezvous on AY82 @ 2335 in SIN Fri 5-Sep arr 0800 in TLL (Estonia) Sat 6-Sep Tallinn Sun 7-Sep Sigulda/Guaja NP?? (Latvia) Mon 8-Sep Riga (Latvia) Tue 9-Sep Riga Wed 10-Sep Riga Thu 11-Sep Rundale Palace > Palanga/Klaipeda (Lithuania) Fri 12-Sep Vilnius Sat 13-Sep Vilnius Sun 14-Sep Vilnius Mon 15-Sep Ryn or Mikolajki (Poland) Tue 16-Sep Malbork Wed 17-Sep ?? Thu 18-Sep ?? Fri 19-Sep Auschwitz > Krakow Sat 20-Sep Krakow Sun 21-Sep Krakow Mon 22-Sep Krakow Tue 23-Sep High Tatras (Zakopane, Poland) Wed 24-Sep High Tatras Thu 25-Sep High Tatras (Stary Smokovec or Tatranska Lomnica, Slovakia) Fri 26-Sep High Tatras ... read more

Friday, 22 June – Strasbourg, France Apparently Freiburg is the warmest city in Germany, and even after a thunder storm swept through during dinner last night, the temperature didn’t drop below 25 until later in the evening. I forgot to mention that we walked past an Audi dealer and saw a brand new TT Sport on sale for €38,990 (A$50,000). There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. You know you’ve left Germany when the road works stop, which happened at the French border. One thing is for sure – Germans certainly know how to build a road, pity they don’t know how to drive it! Speaking of cars, since we were in the area we couldn’t miss the Cite de l’Automobile (Schlumf Museum). It’s an amazing collection of 400 classic, luxury and racing cars in ... read more