yaleman.org

up earlyish for breakfast and to return the car. navigating the old town is much easier in the daytime when you’ve worked out the map beforehand. geeeeee

wandered back to the hotel, saw the markets and the people on the side of the road selling things. flower stalls and a sex shop.

the “four quarters” fountain which we’ll return to later in the day

picked up robyn in the hotel

long day today - out the door around 0630

Along the way, I noticed a dog in a window. That sounds pretty normal, except it was a Husky hanging out a second floor window, just watching the world go by… :)

drove to the wolf’s lair, in Poland

truly incredible fortifications, was great to be able to walk around and inside some - they were HUGE!

woke up, terrible case of the shits. not my usual ones where I’m grumpy - the real ones.

dinner at the hotel, was pretty good

Baltu Rotas - amazing jewellery place

st peter’s church, lovely quiet place

house of the blackheads

baltic way footprints

The Freedom monument - Brīvības piemineklis - watched the changing of the guard

national history museum of latvia

lots of things, great presentations of historical artifacts

driving to riga today

raaaaaaining

ran to car with my duffel on my back, got nice and wet

sleet started falling at a few points - was on the windscreen and the streets were like six inches deep in water - nearly soaked some pedestrians?

viking village

Viikingiküla

walked around a bit, completely empty except for some cute fuzzy bunnies

place is falling apart, would look good with lots of people

freedom square

baltic way feet

kiek in de kok

parliament of estonia

alexander nevsky cathedral

Piiskopi viewing platform

st mary’s cathedral

amazing organ music

hansa souvenirs

Kohtuotsa Viewing platform

Pika jala väravatorn

town hall square

lunch at ill draakon - https://www.kolmasdraakon.ee/index.php/en/food

so. fucking. kitchy.

snack plate with anchovies and smoked salmon and cheese and herring and all sorts of things pate and smoked meat and nutty bread an all sorts of amazing things

early start again today

had a mouthful of horrible oatmeal from a cup, gave up and drank some mineral water and left for the drive

I love the big medieval style door - only good if you don’t have to use it very often for cars :)

traffic was light - thankfully - if we were going in the opposite direction I think we’d still be in it.

stopped to stretch our legs and tried to get some food from the cafe under the Sermutas hotel, across from the Dominari factory. All we got was cold “hot” chocolate and some lukewarm empanadas. Upon leaving, the dashboard announced (in Polish) that we had tyre pressure issues. I found some

curious place, this one

quick breakfast provided by the hotel and went for a walk

statue of Monument to Grand Duke Gediminas

Vilnius Cathedral - busy

tower thing

Baltic Way Memorial - the granite feet - what an amazing feat.

made me realise today that the people my age and older had really been through some shit - and those younger had lived in the community full of people who had as well - what an incredibly different world we live in, just on the other side of this silly rock

woke up, excellent buffet breakfast in the novotel warsaw airport

cab to the marriott for the car

ford fuckus

goes OK, for a petrol 1.6

waze to vilnius

food at servo, trying to spend all our PLN, bought all the things, cost 50pln, still have loads

hey, why is there a huge truck line, this is weird. they’re all just parked…

shit why is some guy waving us to the front of the line

driver didn’t turn up, got a much nicer taxi (toyota camry) to the airport

drove like mad though, great soundtrack and looked like a mob goon

flight was OK, except the aircon cut out for the middle third and that wasn’t any fun. didn’t check ourselves in so we ended up one in front of the other, on the window.

got a lift with the world’s grumpiest free hotel transfer to the novotel warsawza airport

tour around the city

Stalinki buildings - 30’s era

Four mil people

Three metros

Palace of young pioneers - scouts

Famine 32-33

Three botanical gardens Main one has 60+ lilacs

Kyiv three brothers and a sister from a plain maybe, at river

Tree of happiness

~980 pagan coversion to Christianity threw the gods into the river

Motherland monument highest civil sculpture

Military museum entry

Famine 32-33 24k/day 7 million?

https://allthatsinteresting.com/holodomor-ukranian-famine - Holodomor