Vilnius

Tonight we travel by bus to Vilnius hoping that it will be comfortable enough for us to sleep the whole way there...no chance! The driver makes the bus feel like a boat and the woman in front of James seems to think that her seat is a trampoline. Worn out we arrive at the hostel 6 hours before check in but thankfully the room is ready for us. Putting the code into the door the receptionist stops suddenly...there is someone in our room! A bloke comes out half dressed and explains that he was moved there last night. The receptionist wasn't having any of it but we were able to go into another room while they fought it out. Waking up after a long snooze it was still light enough for us to explore. We walked to the old town which is beautiful and all lit up for Christmas with a beautiful tree and ice rink. We stopped for Indian food and had a few drinks in the Portabello pub which is an English pub with a phone box as a front door, heehee! As we leave it starts to snow, yippee!

Vilnius Old Town

Waking up to a picturesque snow filled view is amazing and it's still snowing, we can't wait to get out there. After a few snowball fights we find ourselves in Cathedral Square where there is a Christmas market on. It is only small but the smells and sounds are enough to get us excited for Christmas. Back to the Old Town to have a proper look around, we see the Gates of Dawn, a lot of churches and the impressive palace. The snow is coming down thick and fast so we duck into a place called Snekutis and have traditional deep fried garlic bread with cheese dip, lovely!

Snowy view from our hostel

Christmas market in Cathedral Square

The Gates of Dawn

One of the beautiful churches

The Cathedral

Today we are going on the free tour, we've enjoyed the ones that we've been on previously so are looking forward to it. However the stories are a bit boring and the tour guide doesn't seem to want to be there so we're losing interest. We're not the only ones and someone else on the tour starts to eat snow to amuse himself. After being told about a statue of a doctor who was famous for helping sick people (??????) we decide to ditch the tour and explore on our own. We go to the Barbakanas Bastion which looks pretty in the snow but unfortunately it is shut so we can't go to the top to experience the view of the city. Time to warm up in a restaurant called Cosy. It is cheap but posh food, result! Shame we can't eat everything on the menu. Shopping next (James' choice) but after a while we're frozen again, look...there's a specialist beer shop...hurrah! Back at the hostel we cook some food and chat to a nice German man who lives there.

A snow covered Old Town

Wrapped up warm and playing in the snow

James gets a little excited

The view from the bottom of the Bastion.

special beer for special people

Up for breakfast and the cleaning lady is cleaning the oven with a knife then she rummages around the drawers before triumphantly holding up the potato masher and disappearing out of the kitchen. I don't want to know what she needed that for.
There is a Christmas fair on in the town hall so we have a wander around that where there are lots of cheerful people trying to raise money for charity. We explore more of the city seeing the Easter Egg monument, the Frank Zapper statue and the statues on the green bridge. As we are near the funicular we take a trip to the top of castle hill and go into the Gediminas tower which has a small museum and great views of the city from above.

James hatches a plan

James meets Frank Zappa

Gediminas Tower

The view from inside

The museum told the story of the Baltic Way

Cold but still smiling at the top

Our last day in Vilnius and we decide to have a walk around the Uzupis District which is a republic of artists with its own anthem, constitution and 12 man army. It is guarded by an angel which hatched out of the Easter egg that we saw yesterday. There is a giant John Lennon statue and a mermaid preparing to jump into the river. In Cathedral Square we find the lucky tile, stand on it and make a wish while turning 360°, let's hope they come true! After a banana and nutella crepe at the Christmas market we take a trip on the Christmas train which is driven by elves. The conductor elf is a little grumpy, maybe he misses making toys. The train drives around the old town for half an hour and even though we have seen it all before we are grateful for the warmth and are kept entertained by a little girl who loudly shouts "WOWWW!" at all of the lights, heehee! We make the most of our last night by visiting a few bars and get a pizza on the way home. Back at the hostel the German man is in the kitchen again and has a good laugh at James trying to heat up the pizza in a frying pan.

The guardian angel

Dancing to Lennon

Its a bit cold for a swim!

Christmas train complete with Elves

Warsaw

Our first time using Wizz air where you spend longer on the runway bus waiting to be taken to the plane than you do on the actual plane. Still it was a straightforward flight and we arrived at our apartment where we were shown around by a Polish bloke who explained everything in Polish. There's a lot to be said for pointing, whoever said it was rude obviously didn't realise how useful it is in foreign! The apartment is very smart, 2 floors, a big TV and tiger print bedding, grrr!
The next day we had to brave the public transport to get to the city. The bus driver tutted and shooed us away when we tried to pay so we ended up with a free ride (he was a right grump).
Arriving in the old town we learn about the legend of the mermaid and find out that there is a mermaid hunt, yey! James picks up a tour book and I find a tour book for Children (which turns out to be much more useful), yey! Warsaw seems to be full of legends. There is the legend of the stone bear (who is a prince waiting for a kiss from his true love), the legend of the golden duck (a trapped princess who will make you rich) and the legend of the Basilisk which guards the treasures in a cellar and yes this was all written in my children tour book heehee!

The mermaid - protector of Warsaw (surely a difficult job for her on land)

The Basilisk (guarding a tasty restaurant)

Trying to wake the bear (it didn't work thankfully for James)

We decide to do a tour of the old town and learn all about the impressive buildings and monuments. Stopping for food we treat ourselves to pea soup with sausages which is served in a mini cauldron, yum yum. We finish the tour just as it is getting dark and finish the day with a hot beer in Polyester bar where a Manchester couple were telling the barmaid that they want to open a bar there that serves English Breakfasts and shows Sky Sports, she looked very unimpressed but more so when their drunk friend tried to flirt with her (and fails miserably). We decided to leave when they chose to play a  Coldplay album. Torture.

Memorial to the children who helped in the war

All smiles in historic Warsaw 

Pea soup and sausage, yum!

The Warsaw Rising monument

Time for another tour, this time the historic tour of Warsaw which takes us around more of the city and to the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier where we watched the changing of the guards. Making our way to the newer part of Warsaw we spot Darth Vader having a stroll which makes James very giddy but not as giddy as me when I spot huge DONUTS!! We buy 20 and pig out in front of a film.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

James gets excited to meet Nikolas Copernicus

Darth goes out for a stroll

Christine gets Christmassy!

Mmm...donuts

Day 4 and we feel like we're running out of things to do. We go to the PNiK building which has a small science museum inside and then go to the teeny tiny Christmas market before finding a downstairs bar called Zakatek where we sample our first Polish vodka!

PNiK - A 'gift' from Stalin. Unfortunately it's not actually a space rocket

An original Enigma machine! Very cool.

Fun in the human kaleidoscope 

The boredom is definitely kicking in so walking around aimlessly and stopping for a drink now and again is our plan for the next few days before we discover the Science Discovery Centre. There are loads of hands on exhibitions, we go into a theatre to watch a robot play and a robotic arm draws our portraits for us. A brilliant place to visit and we don't leave until we get kicked out. If only we'd gone there sooner - definitely the most fun place in Warsaw!

Robotic Arm James

Robotic Arm Christine

Beautiful Budapest

We're feeling a little bit lazy so decide to go on the Hop On Hop Off tour rather than our usual walking tour. The bus takes us around Buda and Pest explaining the history of Budapest before stopping off at the Castle District for people to take pictures of the beautiful views of the city below, time for more selfies! After the tour we hunted down a quiet little cafe in a back street that did all sorts of different flavoured hot chocolate (we went for Apricot and Walnut and Banana, mmm) a perfect place for a rest. We make our way to the central market to see if we can find any bargains, all the food looks and smells wonderful. It's a night cruise next and we see how beautiful Budapest is all lit up, stunning.

Selfie Time!

Central Market - 3 floors of everything

A glowing city from our cruise

The castle (I know, it doesn't look like one!)

The next day we go to Heroes Square which is nice to look at but we're here for another reason...James has tracked down another flea market. Because we're too scared to ask for prices of things in English we only come away with a pin badge for James, last of the big time spenders! Heehee. We hop on the boat again but this time it's to visit Margit Island which is a huge park where only public transport is allowed. It's nice to have a peaceful stroll around the park, seeing the ruins of the old convent and visiting the tiny zoo that they have (think roundabout zoo, league of gentlemen fans!). After a bit of uncertainty staring down the river to see if our boat is actually coming it finally does and takes us back to the mainland, we're treated to another night cruise, we wouldn't get bored of them, its too pretty.

Heroes Square

Budapest's very own 'roundabout zoo'

Massively impressive parliament building. Probably a bit of a waste of money though.

Waiting for the boat back, and what a view.

Time for a bit of culture today so we planned (well James did) a trip to the Victor Vasarely museum and see a bit of Op Art so why not start with some Hungarian food first? We made a bit of a mistake by stopping for a cheap set meal; plum soup, schnitzel and potatoes followed by a weird coconut rice pudding cake (it's got nothing on the one at mark & Anais' wedding). Not a nice meal and another lesson for us; don't eat at self-service restaurants (added to lessons like; don't buy things with no prices, don't try and find our flat with no map and always go the opposite way to what James says). We had differing opinions about the art in the museum, James was interested and Christine was distinctly unimpressed. To be fair some pieces did seem a bit pointless but there were plenty of large colourful pieces to make our eyes go weird! And to end the day? A quick drink in our local...it was literally next door, where the beer was cheap and there was a magic pool table that somehow let Christine win!

Is she enjoying it? Probably not!

They make your eyes go funny

Today Christine is very excited because we're off too...the bear farm!!! Or to be more precise Medve Otthon, a bear and wolf sanctuary about an hour away from the city. It's a bit quiet and we're the only visitors for a while but we don't mind, we get the bears all to ourselves. Unfortunately we were both a bit disappointed as we were looking forward to the chance to feed the bears honey but as it was so quiet, the honey shop was closed. We felt sorry for the bears, they looked so disappointed when they got to us and didn't get fed. Poor bears.

Zombie Bear!

Where did my friends go? 

What do you mean no honey? Stuff you then.

Let me out, I promise not to eat you...

In the evening we went to find some of Budapest's famous ruin pubs. Szimpla was our first stop and it didn't disappoint: three floors of weird and wonderful junk on the ceilings, floors and walls, bathtubs for chairs, bikes for lamp stands and glass bottles for walls. We had to try another so we left for Fogas Haz next (House of Teeth) which didn't look quite so impressive but definitely had the better music. We did have a bit of a scare walking in though, as it seemed to be film night in one room and we walked in right next to the screen but we didn't know. Why are all these people looking at us?!

Bathtub chair

Szimpla bar, well one room. We think Manchester needs one

We're understandably a little delicate this morning but it's not going to stop us adventuring! We've got a train day ahead of us; first its a trip on the cogwheel railway to go uphill. It's a noisy one so there're a few regrets about last night's fun and games but it's all forgotten when we get out at the top and see everything covered in SNOW!!! But what we really came up for was another train, this time one through the woods down the hillside that's run by children. The only adult was the driver, the kids did everything else; tickets, conducting, whistles, paddle waving (to signal stop/go), it was quite an experience. And the view from the train wasn't half bad either! We decided to finish our last day with one last ruin bar, Ellato kert, and sampling their elderberry beer and tacos which went down very nicely!

the noisiest train in the world!

Waiting for the children's train so we played like kids