Episode 15 The extreme heat lasted a couple more days then overnight changed considerably. We were in the mountains of SE Poland by this. The summer hoards of young people and families had been replaced by the grey brigade. All the mountain resort towns seems to be full of the more senior members of society totting back packs from the sublime to the ridiculous and striding off into the hills for anything from a few hours to a few months judging by the size of s...

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 establishment...

Episode 13 On a lovely sunny morning with a cool breeze we strolled along the promenade of Haapsalu where once the Russian Tsars and nobility did the same along with people such as the Russian composer Tchicovski (L can’t spell it properly). Very few others were out and about this early 10am.The promenade has been rebuilt in recent years as it fell into disrepair during the Soviet period and an unusually high flood in 2005 nearly finished it off. We rea...

Episode 12 We had looked for the hotel my lot stayed in back in 1998, but hadn’t been able to find it amidst all the large new high rise housing blocks that seem to have sprung up around Odinsovo, now a large town on the outskirts of Moscow. We did however come across a brand new small hotel in a small town just a few k’s further out and as it was a reasonable price we chose to stay there for a couple of nights and have a day in Moscow. Perhaps I ...