Sunday 2nd June What a place we have got to, must be close to heaven after all our travels. Just in time, particularly for Dick, as he has brought some bug with him which is confining him to the bathroom for most of the next 2 days just dozing between visits. We walked into the town about 5 minutes away & crossed to the narrow island in the river but then had to return. Jane was smart enough to take a walk away from the unit to buy some supplies. Monday...

Saturday 1st June Up at 6am to fly to Zurich & or driver was early so we were there by 8am only to hear that the plane would be delayed, so we had a read in the airport lounge. We arrived in Zurich at about 1pm & bought our train tickets to Thun descending to the platform only for d*** to find he had left his hat in a café above. Retrieving it we caught a direct train to Thun via Berne & on arrival took a taxi to our home exchange. In Switzerla...

Wednesday 29th May Farewelled some of the group early this morning & then walked to the Choral Synagogue. This was a wonderful building beautifully decorated internally & in excellent condition. The synagogue manager gave us an incredible talk on the history of the Jews & their synagogues in Romania. He rattled off the facts including his memories of a massive earthquake in the 1970s which killed at least 1500 in Bucharest but the synagogue surv...

Monday 27th May After breakfast George, our local guide, took us on a walk around the town, explaining that in the 14th century the Hungarian king had invited Saxons from Luxembourg & Germany to come to the town to help defend a pass in the Carpathian Mountains between Transylvania. After WW2 most of the German speakers left the town to go to Germany receiving assistance from the West German government & now only 4% speak German as a first language. ...

Sunday 26th May We set out for Turda to see a salt mine. The Romans quarried salt here but abandoned it due to the collapse of the walls. Since the 13th century the salt was mined until 1932 & more recently the mine has become a tourist attraction. We entered the mine from a stairway which took us down to one of the old passages about 4m by 4m leading to various chambers a huge one housing the 'Crivac', a giant windlass installed in 1881 to haul up the...