Saturday 22nd June After a late start at 10am, we walked across to the National History Museum, where we were guided through 2 rooms of the most exquisite gold & silver jewelry found in burial chambers of wealthy women ranging from 500 BC to 300 AD. The quality & delicacy of the material was quite breath taking & many of the designs were very fine indeed. We all were amazed at the quality & obvious wealth of the people & were told that in...

Thursday 20th June First stop today was the local market which was huge. The only new thing we saw was bales of sheep's wool for sale. We descended from the town to a huge plain, crossing many large dry riverbeds with the mountains to the north of us, some still with snow. After a fairly uneventful drive through the countryside passing at one stage hazel nut orchards & a processing plant, we arrived at the border with Georgia. Here we had our passports...

Tuesday 18th June This morning we took a closer look at Baku, starting in the Memorial Park overlooking the town & the sea. It reminded us of King's Park in Perth except that it had far more memorials from various conflicts. The most recent of these was the war with Armenia from 1992-1994 in which Ramin had served during his national service year. This one has not been fully resolved & the border between them remains closed & access to an isolat...

Saturday 15th June After a fairly ordinary buffet breakfast we asked for a local map only to be told they didn't have one. To our surprise the hotel doesn't have any brochures for tourists & all we could get was a staff member pointing out to us how to get to the old walled town. We walked across to the old town, had a coffee & then explored the lanes & byways of the place before retreating to the hotel for a rest. In the afternoon we received a...

Thursday 13th June Today we caught the bus along the north eastern side of the lake to our last castle Schloss Oberhofen, about 5km from Thun. It is an extraordinary place in that it has undergone so many changes since the original keep was constructed in the 13th century. After a succession of owners including a Russian Grand Duchess in the 19th century, it was sold to an American lawyer in 1940 who attempted to make it more of a 'Fairy castle' with mixed s...