Photos: Lithuania and Poland

Up Wawal Hill at the castle in Krakow

Auschwitz

View of Market Square from our hostel, Krakow

Warsaw Uprising Monument, Warsaw

Warsaw Old Town

View over Vilnius from the Hill of the Three Crosses

Trakai, Lithuania

Vilnius main square

Ahh-choo!

So to pick up from where we left off, our second day in Vilnius we took a day trip out to a place called Trakai, 45 minutes by bus. The main attraction there is the castle, Eastern Europe’s only castle on an island. It is a very pretty and peaceful place, and we enjoyed a few beverages at a cute little café overlooking the water. That night in Vilnius we cooked our own meal of dumplings, sausages and salad, and had a great night hanging out in the hostel kitchen chatting to our some of our fellow guests. The last day we spent exploring some more. Our first stop was the Uzupis Republic, a tongue-in-cheek breakaway state with its own president, flag and constitution. We then climbed the Hill of the Three Crosses for some fantastic views across the city, before sitting down to a delicious lunch of zeppelins (potato dumplings with a meat filling), cottage dumplings, and a dish the menu called Masters’ Chicken (Dave was happy to get a photo with that!)
At the moment we are in Warsaw, Poland, having arrived here at 10 to 6 this morning on an overnight bus which blasted us with unwanted air con all night. We dumped our bags at our hostel, and set off down the Royal Way to explore the Old Town, which was levelled during WWII by the Germans after the Warsaw Uprising and has been reconstructed. I swear, every school in Poland must be having an excursion today – there are large groups of children of varying ages EVERYWHERE. After, we took a walk over to the Jewish suburbs, where we visited the moving Pawiak Prison Museum, containing exhibits and photos of Polish Jews and their war experience under the Nazis, before a yummy lunch of Polish pirogi. Tomorrow we will jump on a train for the 3 hour journey to Krakow.
Pics to follow.