Just loving this country more as the days go by

Can't believe I haven't updated since Berlin. We had a great time there. On the last night we all said what our highlights were. Tracey thought Sachsenhausen, John the Jewish Museum and Geoff and I thought Wannsee. I also love the East Side Gallery which is a 1.3 kms section of the Berlin Wall which they retained and which they invited international artists to paint. It was fascinating - not so fascinating was the graffiti people had put over artists' paintings. We saw this on our last night after which we "coffeed" our way up to the Berliner Dom, the cathedral, and then down the Unter den Lindun (which Tracey found out meant "under the Lindun trees") to the Brandenburg Gate again to the Victory Column and then very kindly they taxied me to the Ka De We, the largest department store in Europe. Tracey and I had a couple of hours there while Geoff and John went to find a memorial church and have a couple of beers. Berlin was new and modern but it was nice exploring it with Geoff and Tracey and being able to swap travel stories. On Thursday morning, they headed off to London while John and I reunited with the trusty Skoda to head into Poland for Torun. This was a nightmare trip where once over the Polish border we took three and a half hours to go about 80 kms. They were doing up the road and we had about 40 trucks in front of us. Eventually we got to Torun and knew it was worth it. It is a wonderful mediaeval town - seems we love them and we had a delightful day wandering around. It is actually the place where gingerbread originated (don't know if that's a good or bad thing) and we went to an atmospheric place where we joined a group of school children for a hands on experience making gingerbread. From Torun we headed north for Gdansk. On the way we called in at Malbork Castle. It was a wet day and we wondered if it would be worth it. Well, was it ever. We had a fascinating four hours in this magnificent brick castle. John reckons it rates with the best he has seen.

We are now in Gdansk (had two nights here) where we have just had a relaxing day and once again been wowed. It was nearly totally destroyed during the war but they have done such a good job of rebuilding you would never know. It is totally delightful. We did a boat trip up to the place on the Baltic Sea where World War II started by a German ship firing on a Polish garrison and then spent time in the old city and at the beach. We were going to go for a swim in the Baltic Sea but it was just too too cold. This is really a town worth visiting. We are staying in a monastery which is set in the middle of Communist drab housing. The bells woke us at 6 this morning as the church is about 20 metres away from our room. Very interesting.

The Poles are great people. They have such delicious food why wouldn't they be great. It has been a treat being in this country. Off to Warsaw tomorrow for three days. Looking forward to that. Hope all is well at home. Loving this life.