Episode 14
Something we will mention here for want of a better time and place to do so. Its about the toilets, gosh, your’e thinking, how low can this blog get: Toilets in western Europe are similar to what we have in Aus, in Iceland, the US and South Africa. But loos, aint loos, in many parts of the world. The often only distinguishing factor is that they don’t take toilet paper. That you must put in a bin beside the loo and in good establishments its emptied often but in the main that doesn’t happen so in hot weather you can imagine the flies, then again, maybe you can’t: You’d b surprised at the countries where this is the case. In Europe it’s some of the former Soviet Union countries; the Balkans, Turkey, the Central Asia states, South American countries, and L can’t think of any more off hand. In the Baltic states it seems that now in many places the sewage systems may have been improved as we didn’t see so many signs requesting the placement of toilet paper in the bin, and in Poland we’ve not seen any. In these Baltic states and Poland we also see that now even the smallest of villages have a proper water supply and the village wells now seem to be fire hydrants befitting countries that belong to the EU. In Russia, even in some quite large housing developments people still have to go out to the well and collect their daily requirements. One thing about that system, people won’t be using 150 litre each per day, not if you have to collect it from the well and carry it up several flights of stairs, does wonders for water saving. Perhaps we should try that in Queensland:By the time we got to Riga the tipping rain had degenerated into a series of sudden heavy showers. We parked in a shopping centre and caught a bus into the city centre. This is my first visit here but my lot were here in 2006 so they tell me. Not that they seem to remember much.
The old city centre is World Heritage listed and is full of some lovely old buildings along cobble streets that are supposedly all pedestrianised. Except for works vehicles and delivery vehicles and any other vehicle that seems to want to come this way. We kept having to duck for cover when one of those sudden showers would come over. I just got tucked in L’s coat and kept dry but they weren’t always so lucky. By pure luck we came to the Tourist info office and popped in for a map. We were the only people in the office probably because once you’ve been there there isn’t any point in going back. L requested a city map and one was thrust at her while the fellow kept doing whatever he was doing at the computer. When she asked for other info on Latvia she got pointed to the stand in the corner. Then when D asked about something another bit of literature was shoved at him and finally when asked which way to the Castle we were told it was closed for restoration and pointed in quite the wrong direction. Deary me, how different to the attitude in Estonia where everyone was friendly and helpful. Those two in that office definitely don’t want tourists interrupting their time on the internet. For all its being World Heritage listed there really isn’t a lot on offer in Riga. It’s a pleasant enough place with the old city bounded by a stream through lovely shady parks on one side and the broad river on the other with a very busy motorway separating the river from the old city. The castle fronts that motorway and along with the tall leafy trees, the scaffolding and gauze it wasn’t even worth a photo. We did come across a monument dedicated to the children who were sent to Siberia between 1941 and 1949. This was the Soviets, but why the hell did they send kids to Siberia? It is possible L supposes, that they worked with some resistance force as the children in France and Belgium did. Again, it’s not surprising these people hate the Russians and they are none too fond of the Germans either despite being in the EU and now in the Eurozone. By the time we left Riga so had the rain. It was hot and sunny again when we visited the widest waterfall in Europe at Kuldiga. Wide it might be, by high it definitely isn’t, it’s a mere 1.8 to 2.2m high, and, depending on which sign you choose to believe anything from 254 to 270m wide. Back in the 1800’s the Duke who was the landowner here tried to build a canal around the falls but ran out of funds. He did have explosive used at one point only to find out that they did more damage to his castle than achieve major advancement of the canal building. Apparently the damage to the castle was terminal as we could see no sign of it anywhere around. Just downstream of the falls is a lovely brick 6 or 7 arch bridge:A couple of the smaller town centres that we passed through had lovely old wooden buildings, similar to Russian ones. Of these buildings some had been restored while others were in a sad state of disrepair.We went on to Liepaja: This was once a big military town. There are many old red brick buildings all abandoned and boarded up. These we were told used to be army barracks and date from the Tsarist period of the late 19th Century. In one such building we found the tourist info, and guess what, they were interested in the tourists and doing their job. My lot also took a tour of this building that was a military prison. Some rooms are set up as a small museum with lots of uniforms of all eras on display as well as equipment mostly from Soviet times. We got to visit the cells where the prisoner had a flat board roughly the size of a door to sleep on, nothing else, with winter temperatures around -5 inside. The bathroom they were only allowed to use twice a day for no longer than 2 minutes each time. Most likely the stench was so bad no-one wanted to linger longer.many of the prisoners here were deserters that had been caught and they were executed. The firing squad only visited once every two weeks so the prisoners were kept here till the squad came back.Along the coast here there are lots of bunkers and old war installations for WW2, not sure if they were built by the Germans or the Russian. Many now are right on the beach and beginning to tumble into the sea. But tumbling, crumbling bunkers isn’t the only thing to be found on these beaches. Here, amber is washed up all the time but mostly after there has been a storm. On the beach too, are the lovely rounded pebbles, and these ones have been flattened on both sides. Some of the smaller ones are almost perfectly rounded and about the size of a 20C piece (aussie), about 2-3cm diameter. It looked like a storm might be brewing while we were here but it didn’t eventuate. The rain was again tipping down when we left Latvia and into Lithuania. This time it was a bit more persistent. Also, D wasn’t feeling all that well, had picked up a bit of a bug we expect so didn’t feel like doing much. We pretty well drove straight across Lithuania: It, like the other Baltic states, and most of Western Russia is predominately flat with just a few low rolling hills here and there. Lithuania is also much drier with less forest and large expanses of cereal crops many of which are in the process of being harvested. The maize here is still very green. We have noticed too that autumn is beginning to show its colours though it doesn’t officially start for a few more days. The streets of Riga were awash with fallen leaves while others were very dry to the touch and fell if you did so.Then we came into Poland, and here the autumn colours are even more pronounced and that we didn’t expect seeing as we are heading south. We also changed time zones and are now back on Western European time, Not that that bit of information will mean much to most of you but it does mean that now L will find it harder to make a business phone call to Australia at a convenient hour with the difference now being 8 hours to Queensland.the countryside quickly changes from the wide open spaces and dryish farmland of Lithuania to the lakes district of NE Poland. This part of Poland is really pretty with so many lakes and lush forest with pretty little villages dotted all around. The first thing you see are the church spires towering above the tree tops. L tried to get a photo but it seem to loose all the effect.It was a blazing hot day that we spent in Warsaw. My lot had been here in 1998 when there was still a great deal of re-construction going on in the old city. The Nazis had flattened the place in 1944 whilst in retreat from the Russians. The Soviet system had begun the reconstruction in 1971 when they started to rebuild the castle, that took until 1984 but don’t think much more got done under that regime. Now most of the old city within the old city walls has been re-built to match photos of its pre-WW2 look. The house have the same lopsided rickety look but have been built to 21st century building standards. We won’t be around in 500 years to see how good they may or may not have been.The castle was free to enter this day, not that it was expensive normally, so we went along with a lot of others and enjoyed a look at the totally reconstructed Kings apartments, built to the late 18th century design when the King, Stanislaw August, had the place remodelled. It has been extremely well done. Bits found amongst the rubble that were identifiable and usable have been incorporated into this reconstruction in their original positions. Some of the artefacts have resurfaced and are now in their correct place. They have turned up from everywhere having been spirited off during the dying days of the war. Some had been well hidden in Poland too it seems, a Rembrandt, for instance and it again is on display. Other works weren’t so lucky; in the late 19th, early 20th century when Poland came under Tsarist rule, the Tsar took exception to many pieces and confiscated them, destroyed many but kept some.The city was crowded, there was some festival in progress celebrating the end of summer this being the last Sunday of August. Numerous stages had been set up around the central area and they seemed to be competing with each other on the noise level. Spectators were sitting on the steps of building, the curb, or had brought their own chairs. Many in the blazing sun in over 30C; think my lot felt the heat worse than the locals, both of them were soon flagging. The squares were full of restaurants where people were sitting under the canvas shade enjoying huge meals and even bigger beers. The numerous soft ice-cream stalls had great queues of potential customers and their machines were coping amazingly well with such extreme heat, far better than my lot.One thing about Warsaw, they need to look at a better traffic system. both going in and coming out, in different places we got caught in traffic jams that are among the best of their type. One problem was two sets of lights 30m apart and totally uncoordinated. This was a Sunday, don’t even think about a work day:The hot weather got hotter. Digital temp signs adorn the highways in many places and we saw air temp of up to 36C and tarmac temp of almost 50C. Now, that’s nothing unusual in our tropical climate where the sun is overhead, but here the sun by this time of year is on quite an oblique angle casting quite long shadows even in the middle of the day.In order to find some cooler weather we have headed south through Lublin towards the Ukrainian border and should come into some mountains. Outside Warsaw we passed through a huge area of apple orchards where the crop is starting to be harvested, then as that gave out we had many plastic green houses mostly with truss tomatoes, now, south of Lubiin it seems to be wheat and barley and that has been harvested. The maize is drying off and anything else is suffering badly from the hot dry weather. Think it might be drier than usual for August. There is a thick dust haze and the setting sun is a bright red ball.Goodness me, if my secretary hasn’t bored the pants off all of you by now it isn’t for lack of trying, she does go on doesn’t she, I will have to give her a good talking too, not that she listens, after all I’m just a stuffed toy, and one in need of a good wash desperately so I am frequently told.
© Lynette Regan August 31st 2015