One week to go

 Just 7 sleeps 'till we go to Mexico.

Massive storms in USA. Flight cancellations (including the flight we will be on).

Weather report says it'll all clear up in a few days, hen looking good :-)

Buongiorno Milano

Lucky we have scarves & beanies, otherwise we'd be freezing to death, it's only about 32C outside. Unusually our room has Air Conditioning that actually works (I'm sure there is a law against that in Europe)

We had a 1:30 flight from Vilnius, getting to the airport was a simple bus ride ( no Sydney airport tax ), we hardly new we were near the airport until we were dropped of at the departure door, too easy.

Lufthansa to Frankfurt, where we may have ad a drink, then Air Dolomite to Milano. Air Dolomite serve Aperol Spritz which were acceptable :-)

Simple train ride to our accommodation (no Airport tax), and a few slices of pizza and some wine for dinner .... molto bene.

We found a cafe that serves good coffee!

Vilnius/Trakai

We caught a bus to Trakai on Thursday to see the Pils (Castle), there were a couple of long walks involved, so we managed to get our steps up for the day.

We have managed to find a few good eateries including Momo Grill (Michelin recommended). The duck sausages were quite rich :-), and "Fiona" for the compulsory Aperol Spritz :-)

Were on the Train to Vilnius

Local trains are good, and the freed WIFI works much better that trains in Sydney (IE they have it :-).

We have mastered the busses in Lithuania .. 1Euro per trip and pay on the bus with pay-wave... Simple.

Anyhow 4 Nites in Vilnius and then to Italy.

Kaunus, Lithuania

We arrived later yesterday, and did a few housekeeping tasks.

The hotel we are staying at is very artsy, which means that the chairs look good, but are really uncomfortable (I'm being unkind most of the chairs are fine, and the room is good).

We went on a tour of a KGB "Atomic shelter" from the cold war, however as the guide said it was a propaganda as there was no way it was atomic fallout safe, and the walls were not even painted with High Lead like those in Prague.

We found a nice Georgian restaurant and had large dumplings that spilled juice everywhere :-)

Neringa (Curonian Spit)

Neringa Municipality is a municipality of Klaipėda County in westernmost Lithuania.

It is on a peninsula however the land bridge is Russian, and, for some unknown reason, the border is closed, so we had to catch the ferry.

Some say they could build a bridge (the separation is only about 100 m at some points) but the government makes too much money from the ferry :-)

Its basically a beach resort area where rich people buy all the houses. However, it's UNESCO listing means that you can only tear down the horrible Russian built houses.

On the island there is the "Hill of Witches" with a lot of large wooden carvings of local folk laws.

Had a great day.

Riga to Klaipeda via Palanga

Currently sitting at Riga Airport having an exotic lunch, getting ready to fly Air Baltic to Palanga in Lithuania, and then to Klaipeda (there are a few ~'s missing in these names).

Our last morning in Riga, and we are wearing jumpers.... what happened to the hot weather (oh yeah we left Madrid :-)), still have not needed scarfs & such, maybe when we get to Italy it will be cold..

Only 1.5 hours left to wait.

Went on a tour of the old town, seems like any open spaces in the old town were caused by
1-) Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis, who was a "dictator" who wanted to leave an impression

or

2-) WW2 bombing, 'cos the Germans wanted to leave an impression.

Another lovely town with a lot of history.

On the weekends the bucks parties are in full swing, they have "beer bikes" where 10 or so drunks pedal a "bike" while drinking (someone else steers and another person gives them more energy via beer).

Riga

Arrived in Riga by bus, light rain :-).. No uber in Latvia so we walked to our hotel, nice and modern (on the inside, Art Nouveau on the outside) WITH block out curtains so sleep is a possibility.

Pretty much a travel day but looking forward to seeing some of Riga.

National Museum of Estonia

We spent about 3 hours at the museum, it was pretty amazing & well set up.

Most of the displays had e-paper readers with scanners, so you scan your ticket and they display in the appropriate language.

One of the highlights was the distribution of the Uralic languages through Finland, Estonia and the extreme far north of Scandinavia and Russia.

All in all worth the visit:-)

Arrive Tarfu

Train trip from Tallinn to Tarfu was easy and comfortable.

Rather than risk another bag destroying cobblestone based walk we blew 4Euros on a taxi.

Spent the afternoon in mindless walking around, lovely town.

Out hotel is quite modern (block out curtains & air con that basically works).

Walking in Tallinn

We went on a 2.5 hour (hot) walking tour and learned lots about Estonia, the history through multiple reigns by different countries.

Much of the history of Estonian is a rinse and repeat of Finland (with a little less Russian), please don't put this comment in a school history report :-)

We took a (long) walk around the old walls and through the tunnels under them, these were used during WW2 and the cold war as bunkers.

Tallinn

Caught the Ferry from Helsinki to Tallin.

After some confusion we found a place to sit and read. On the boat there was a "Supermarket" selling duty free smokes, chocolates & Booze, the prices were a lot better than Helsinki, but man was it busy.

It was a brisk walk to our hotel (should have gotten a taxi... cobblestones and wheelie bags are a VERY bad mix). 

Our hotel is in the middle of the old town, very rustic .. shame there are not block-out curtains as sunset is about 22:15 :-(

Last night in Helsinki

Last Night in Helsinki, went out to Suomenilinna (how hard is that to spell), an island about 15 Mins from Helsinki Harbour.

It was build by the Swedish to keep out the Russians, then captured by the Russians to keep out everyone. It's now mostly a tourist site.

Then we went church hunting, after sitting in Fazer Cafe (1891) and forcing down a pistachio cinnamon roll (was OK).

Alison had a nice Salmon sambo for lunch & I tried reindeer pie (Yummy bambi).

Walking Tour

 Sunday walking tour of Helsinki. 

Lessons learned

1) Finnish is a fiendishly difficult language to learn, For instance, one of Finland’s longest words is, “Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas”.  (according to https://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/longestfinnishwords.html this means "airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student".)

2) Because of this most blocks in Helsinki have pictures of animals on them, and this is how the Swedes used to identify the areas of Helsinki.

3) Finnish libraries are VERY different they are

-- meeting places, cafe, private rooms for meetings 

-- borrow books, games, drills

-- (I kid you not) book rooms to do podcasts, record Music (Borrow a guitar if you need to)

-- book a room to play the supplied console games with your friends (kids...)

-- book a kitchen dining room to make lunch with friends

-- use the supplied 3d printers to print objects (starts I think at 1.5 Euros)

-- use the supplied 2 Meter wide high quality printer to print posters

+ Much more ...... 

Arrive Helsinki

 TRAVEL DAY SURVIVED

Not too much to say started off in Madrid, ended up in Helsinki.

Both have good transport systems, spent a lot of time in queues :-)

Zurich

Swiss Air found Zurich with no problems.

Alison & I managed to get some sleep, and the Swiss inbound lounge allowed us to shower and change before heading into Zurich town.

We still got into town before much was open, so we waited till 10:00 to see the Fraumunster Cathederal.

As we headed back towards the centre of town we decided that it was perhaps it was time to head to the airport as our brains had fried :-) 

Bus, Train and Airoplane

Trains all out (thanks Les for an early morning lift to Thirroul Choo-Choo station).

Checkin was smooth, wine and service in Singapore airlines was great.

Got to Singapore and had 6 hours in the lounge.... ALWAYS FUN.

arrive in Athens

Room with a view 

Near Istanbul

Flying from Copenhagen to Singapore near Istanbul... 

We will be home soon 😉 and 😕