One week was all we managed to get off from our respective jobs, so we ensure we crammed as much as possible into it. On top of that we were fortunate enough to be invited to a wedding, in Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania). The bride to be is Lithuanian so a trip there was needed but of course, we took the opportunity to see the family in Warsaw.

Staying in Warsaw we managed to see the family and even the water works, thanks to my uncle, which have been around for more than 150 years and still in use today, along with other more modern enhancements.

 

We also managed to explore the city a bit and even visit the Warsaw Uprising Museum, an interesting but sad occasion. It was particularly interesting to see how citizens of Warsaw managed to survive during the war with the Germans and afterwards with the Russians. It was particular useful to see the external politics of the world powers and how that influenced the uprising.

The one night we attended a piano recital from a child prodigy, an American, who was playing as a manor house about an hour from Warsaw. There was a bus arranged by the owner to get all the guests over to the event. It was a good event with an intimate audience. After the recital we managed to speak to the young pianist, well mainly Izaskun did. Thomas Mitchell his name is. Poor guy didn’t speak any Polish so he was probably pretty pleased to speak to someone in English, in addition someone who was within 20 years of age. After a good dinner and conversation we headed back to Warsaw around midnight.

After our few days in Warsaw, my uncle took us out for a few days across Eastern Poland through Białowierza which is well known for its bison and natural forests.  However, along the way we managed to view some of the local castles and cultures providing an interesting contrast. And of course, drink some vodka.

What was interesting was the contrast of the western and eastern Poland where there is a definitely bigger focus on agriculture and forestry with a lot of free space available. Historically this was occupied by the Russians when Poland was split between Prussia, Russia and Austria-Hungary. A lot of history which I won’t go into here.

 

After exploring the landscape and dining our accommodation  turned out to be a bit of a surprise or misalignment to our expectations. Essentially the photo was for a cottage that was next door to where our room was reserved. Our rooms were above a petrol station that wasn’t exactly our desire. After a review of the premises and a few words with the unfortunate sales/hotel attendant we decided to stay. It was pretty modern and spacious so turned out not to be too bad.

 

That evening we went to visit an old Russian tsar’s personal hunting grounds which included its own palace, rail station and other servants facilities. Today there isn’t much remaining mainly due to the communists destroying it after the war. We dropped by in the humid forest, being bitten by various little insects, explored the old trains that are still around. However the main attraction is the original train hall which is now a posh restaurant and bar. We decided to have a small snack and a drink. The food proved to be excellent. Definitely a small gem worth seeing if you are in the area.

After a night’s rest we travelled into the more forested areas for our quest for vision (żubrów). We walked the short stroll into the park which was more like a zoo in the sense that the animals were contained in large pens, having expected them more to be in the wild. It is possible have a “bison safari” but as much with everything in the Kozlowski household (unfortunately Izaskun is now a full victim of this), things are always rushed and we didn’t have time to go on it but of course we managed to see the bison in their element. Fortunately for us they were being fed as part of some TV show or interview, so we go to see them really up close and personal. The enclosure had other animals such as wolves, lynxes, a special breed of polish horse (somewhat harder but smaller) and deer. Overall a nice walk through the facilities through the light rain that had started to form by then, well actually it started to develop into a full storm as we were leaving.

The next leg was to drive straight to Vilnius, due to the strange borders we had to drive north and then East as we were not interested in driving Belarus which is directly in the way, due to the requirements on visas but also because we weren’t sure how they would treat us with all this Russian saga going on with Ukraine. So we drove around a bit which proved to a bit long but eventually we made it to Lithuania and Vilnius.

We arrived to our hotel at about 10pm, the Best Western hotel. We were located north of the city centre, just on the north bank of the river. Fortunately for us the the wedding, which was the next day, will be just a few hundred metres walk for us… well the reception was. The ceremony was a short 15minute taxi ride to a great  park but before I go there.

 

The next morning we actually managed to wake up  relatively early, perhaps a side-effect from waking up at 7 or 8am (this is early for us) each day in Warsaw. We took in some sights of the old city centre of Vilnius, a splendid cute town. After our stroll around we went back to the hotel and as always, rushed to get ready and call a taxi for the ceremony. The ceremony was to start at 3pm but we were informed to arrive at 2:30pm so we pushed it and actually managed to make it on time.

 

The ceremony seemed to fly by, both shared their vows and a bird house was hung. We weren’t too sure about this tradition but the tree appeared to have several bird houses hung on it, so must be what they do there. We then moved to the buses to take us to the reception which was back in town. After the short journey and a bit of a wait the bride and groom arrived which marked the beginning of the festivities of drinking, eating and speeches. We stayed until about 2am when they eventually kicked us out, I am sure the bridge and groom just wanted to get to bed by then.

The next morning we slept a bit later but not too bad as we thought, we were tired from mostly standing most of the night but very luckily not hung over as we had actually controlled out intake pretty well. We checked out and met with my folks who were staying across town in another hotel.

We met and proceeded to drive around Vilnius to explore the sights, in particular we visited a lovely castle which was restored recently, called Trakai. It was about 30 minutes drive, not counting the bit where we got lost. It is a castle situated within a island surrounded by water. We proceeded to explore it and managed to see what it had to offer, my folks were happy as they could get by speaking Polish to the locals.

After our lovely day out we grabbed a bite to eat at an interesting local ethnic group, known as the Tartars. This group was ethnically Turkish but have settled in Poland and Lithuania for centuries. They introduced different cultures and food. We ate some interested food that we a mixture of local cuisine and Tartar cuisine. Overall very appetising.

 

The next day we had unfortunately wake up early and head to the airport. We had a great time but we needed to get back to work and London. We took a flight out of Vilnius but connected via Helsinki. We just made the Helsinki / London connection by a few seconds (we were the last people on the plane), however our luggage wasn’t so lucky which got left behind. We had to wait for the next flight into Heathrow before we could retrieve it. Oh well… with that we managed to get home.  An overall short but sweet trip.