Day 7 - Bratislava, Slovakia to Wien, Austria - 2486 miles

Vienna is just over 50 miles from Bratislava and so Kit and I took it easy in the morning and had a little more sleep. We’d paid 3 Euros for breakfast at the hotel, which seems cheap on the face of it but turned out to be a 3 Euros off the price of the hotel’s restaurant breakfast menu rip off. We had scrambled eggs and some bread before hitting the road. This is my third visit to Vienna and I was here last year with my brother Steve where we saw Longital and Vienna-based band Das Trojanische Pferd. We also came here in 2000 to see Rosenstolz, a favourite German pop band. On both of our previous visits we've had a great time and there are stories to tell, like the time I booked my brother and me into a hotel to find it was a brothel, but Vienna isn't my favourite city. I like being there but it is a place I couldn't live in. The centre of the city is like one big museum and people interact in a unnecessarily formal way that I don't understand. Then there are the artists and unconventional like a reaction. What's the point of living in a place that you are constantly reacting against?

It was another glorious sunny day in Vienna and it was time to relax especially after negotiating the car through the narrowest of gaps to enter the hotel's car park. We took an hour to organise charging our various batteries before heading out into the city. Very annoyingly we discovered the hotel's wifi only works in public areas, whatever that means.


Just adjacent to our hotel there was anti-Europe protest, which appeared to be organised by Austria's version of the twin-set and pearls brigade. The forces of conservatism at work was curious for me. I haven't seen any anti-EC politics on my travels before. I watched the two women for ten minutes or so and nobody stopped to talk to them so they didn't appear to have much support.

We caught a tram to the nearest railway station and bought a day ticket for the city's transport system. In Vienna you need to use trams and the underground to get around as they weave in and out of each other's routes. The tickets also cover the buses but I've only ever had need for a bus on one occasion before in Vienna.

Vienna is not a city where it is possible to see everything in a day so Kit and I sacked the culture and headed to the main shopping area, Mariahilfer Strasse, and decided to concentrate on buying some gifts for my wife and daughter. We spent God knows how long wandering around finding nothing amongst the generic shopping crap that is the same all over western Europe. The only shopping worth doing, in my opinion, is that for music so I took Kit to Vienna’s best record shop 'Recordbag' at Kollergerngasse 4. 'Recordbag' is a wonderful independent music shop of the very highest quality. It sells a wide variety of music related paraphernalia as well as well as any decent independent German CD you might want. I was hoping to get a copy of the Enno Bunger album I missed in Rostock but unfortunately they didn’t have it and had never heard of him. The shop assistant was most put out that I knew of a German release they didn't have and looked it up in a catalogue in an 'Oh no, there's no such thing' manner. She appeared even more put out that the release actually existed. I compensated by getting new albums by Die Sterne and Der Elegante Rest. The latter being by one of my current favourite bands and coming as a complete surprise as I didn’t know it was available, which was slightly annoying as I thought I knew everything.

On the opposite side of Mariahilfer Strasse is Vienna's best drinking venue, the 7 Stern brew pub on Sieben Stern Gasse. They brew great beer including two flavoured with chilli and hemp. Actually, the chilli and hemp brews aren't very good but the others are all wonderful. Well, now I come to think of it the smoked beer is a bit poor too. They also have a great menu of traditional Austrian food which is kind of like German cuisine only less so. When I was last here with my brother we ordered a knuckle of pork which is a traditional north German dish. The menu recommended that one knuckle of pork was enough for two people when in Germany you generally get one each. I questioned the waiter and he said one knuckle was definitely too much for one person so we followed his advice and got one between two. When it arrived at our table, yes you've guessed it, it was just the same size as you get per person in Germany, which is slightly disappointing after having had your appetite stimulated by all their beer. Despite the previous disappointment we decided to eat at 7 Stern and sat in the sunshine in the beer garden. Kit had a cream of garlic soup followed by a classic Wiener schnitzel and I had a Serbian bean soup followed by a baked pasta and mixed meat dish with masses of grilled cheese served in a frying pan. The soups were both delicious and the main courses were quite good, which the observant amongst you will notice is a less impressive description than delicious. I also managed a glass of the pub’s lovely seasonal beer. Seriously, 7 Stern is a great venue and I would go there every time I'm in Vienna but like all the best places it is not perfect. It is a fact that the next time I'm there I will not eat either of the main dishes I had previously.

We took a tram past Vienna’s museum quarter, so Kit could at least glance at some of Vienna’s grand buildings, to Stadpark where we strolled in the spring sunshine and sang a few songs by the statue of Franz Schubert my favourite classical composer.
As we did so a small audience gathered but there was no time to linger because we had arranged to meet Hans Wagner, cello playing genius of the bands Neuschnee and Das Trojanische Pferd. Hans had suggested a number of possible evening activities and we plumped for seeing a live art play for something different. The play 'Gob Squad's Kitchen' was a German/English bi-lingual production with a live art flavour to it. The context involved a group of 4 actors attempting to recreate Andy Warhol's 'Kitchen'. Cameras were set up behind the large white screens and video of the actors was projected onto the screens. During the course of the play audience members were drawn into the cast and took the place of or joined the actors. It was an impressive and ambitious project that you felt could fall apart at any moment but didn't.

www.gobsquad.com

After the play we talked to Hans in the bar for a while amidst a lot of noise pollution and smoke. Britain's no smoking rules haven't yet caught on to the same extent in most of Europe. I went to the toilet and on my way back to the bar an attempt was made to charge me a further 3 Euros for the privilege of getting back to my son, friend and drink. 'It is a new party now,' I was told 'The after show party has finished and you have to pay extra for the music.' The music was the usual rubbish generic shit music you hear evrywhere so I told them politely but firmly where to get off and it was time to go. Last time we were in Vienna my brother argued with a couple of guys who were talking over a band we were trying to watch and I pondered how different I would be if I lived in Vienna, constantly reacting against silly formality and people who don't know the meaning of live and let live.

Back at the hotel we were disappointed to find that the promised free 'wifi' in public areas did not work and so the blog fell further behind. I began to feel very tired but a bit wired and I found it hard to sleep. My eyes were very dry and itchy and I realised I was dehydrated. Now I look back at the video I realise I look really fatigued and maybe the ambition of the trip was taking its toll on me. If this were a work of drama my condition would get worse but I had a long drink of water and got off to sleep.

Day 3 - Rostock, Germany to Gdansk, Poland - 1257 miles

Our resolve to rise early failed us, of course. We left Rostock in fine rain but it had been raining all night and the roads were treacherous. I skidded the car on a sharp bend leaving the city and by luck, or rather superb driving skill, avoided colliding with anything solid. There are bound to be at least a couple of near misses along the way but despite my beating heart we had escaped the first. We couldn't get any coverage of the Malaysian Grand Prix on the radio so we eventually requested the results off my brother by text. Kit insists I was trying to tune the radio as we skidded but I don't remember it that way.

I expected crossing the Polish border to involve some sort of security level but there was nothing. We passed by some old rotting wooden huts where I suppose people used to show their passports. Within a 100 metres of crossing the border shifty looking men stood at the roadside trying to sell cheap cigarettes to anyone in a foreign car. We passed groups of people dressed in their Easter Sunday best heading for church. The town quickly morphed into a pine forest and what appeared to be marshland. The Sat Nav is programmed to avoid toll roads but not ferries and within minutes of crossing into Poland we found ourselves at what appeared to be a deserted ferryport on the edge of a river. For the second time we found ourselves at the mercy of the sat nav. I drove back to the border with the intention of finding another route but realised it was impossible without a map and time was already wasting. We returned to the ferryport and quickly noticed that while the ship directly in front of us was deserted the one to our left, only slightly obscured from our view, was gathering a small queue of customers. To my relief the ferry was free. Have I told you I hate paying tolls? I don't think there is such a concept as a free ferry in the UK. Nearly all the cars on the ferry and the consequent road to Gdansk were German or Brits and we found ourselves in a queue or around 20 cars winding its way through Poland at a terminally slow pace. The first portion of the drive was somewhat tedious and we had lost an hour waiting for the ferry. The road was infested with speed cameras as we drove through numerous small towns. We attracted the attention of a Brit in an Audi who constantly tried to overtake us despite the obvious properties of the autosnake we had become part of. I let him by but then past him at a junction when he chose the wrong lane which only resulted in further silly attempts to get past us again. I almost felt like I was at home driving to work but the Sat Nav came into its own and we turned off the main road by ourselves, lost Mr Audi driver and regained an hour touring through some beautiful Polish countryside all alone, blessed by some lovely spring sunshine.

We arrived at our hotel on the outskirts of Gdansk without difficulty although the narrow entrance to the car park required some careful driving much to Kit's amusement. Our room again included kitchen facilities but we were hankering after some of the best apple pie in Europe so there was no question of us wasting a second of time and we headed into the city centre.

The hotel manager directed us across the major roadway in front of the hotel to the nearest tram. A clearly mentally ill woman wandered up and down the station as we waited. I don't speak any Polish so I can't tell you what she was saying to everyone but it clearly wasn't polite or in touch with reality. A single journey in Gdansk costs 3 Zloty but I never saw anyone pay and the driver appeared surprised when I asked her for tickets. Maybe it was my immaculate phrase book Polish that phased her but I think not. We decided not to validate our tickets in the machine provided and instead saved them for a free journey back. Well, when in Rome...



We had a very pleasant family holiday in Gdansk a few years ago and Kit and I revised our memories of the place by visiting various old haunts. First on our intinerary was Pi Kawa, one of the finest cafes in the world and certainly the place where the best apple pie in the world can be obtained. It has a pastry base, a thick layer of stewed but firm apples laced with cinnamon and a thin apple crumble-type topping flavoured with cinnamon that is grilled into a chewy toffee-like consistency. It is served with cream and ice cream sprinkled with more cinnamon. Not forgetting lovely coffee although Kit plumped for Earl Grey tea as is his want. Pi Kawa is a lovely, relaxed cafe with a variety of seating and tables and a Bohemian feel. It consequently attracts a relaxed bunch of customers from all walks of life this side of suits and uniforms as well as family groups. I love kids in cafes and restaurants, I don't understand those who don't. I had thought we would sing our song at the gates to the famous Gdansk shipyard at the very spot where European history started to change in the 1980s but we asked if we could play to the cafe and much to our delight they said yes. On this occasion we did atract a small audience including a little toddler who swayed in rhythm to the song. Pi Kawa holds a special place in the heart of our family and to play there was the first special experience of this holiday.





We felt so high on leaving Pi Kawa, joyful even. We strolled through the town and took a look at the flat that we rented previously. We then walked through the main square to the waterfront and watched a man making candy floss in a variety of bright colours. Kids love candy floss and a small group of them bobbed around not very patiently waiting for their turn. Gdansk was quiet and most everywhere was closed including the majority of eating places. We guessed that this was because we had arrived on Easter Sunday. We had planned to eat in a traditional Polish restaurant we'd visited before but found it to be closed and more worryingly apparently tarted up. Not at all tarted up but equally closed was the milk bar we'd visited on our last trip. Milk bars are a throw back to communist Poland and a place where it is possible to eat a hearty, substantial meal in distinctly 1970s surroundings and ambience, subsidised by the state. For some inexplicable but delightful reason many have survived the transfer to capitalism and continue to do a roaring trade. The system in a milk bar is to grab a tray join the fast moving queue and choose quickly. If you can't speak any Polish then point at the dishes you fancy but peruse the menu beforehand to identify traditional Polish dishes such as tripe soup (Flaki) or stuffed cabbage leaves (Golabki). Fussy eaters should avoid the milk bars but anyone adventurous of stomach will find them to be a delight. The last time we were in Gdansk I had two very large and stodgy potato pancakes with a bright radioactive-green sauce which turned out to be tangy stewed apple.

Gdansk is a beautiful city and we had a very pleasant spring evening wandering around. We ate dinner on the waterfront as darkness fell at the one traditional Polish restaurant that was open. We started with the famous Polish sour soup, Zurek, which is flavoured with smoked sausage and bacon and generally includes boiled egg amongst its ingredients. I had some ordinary squid for my main course and Kit had some gorgeous salmon flavoured with dill butter. After our meal we wasted another hour walking around this lovely city almost reluctant to leave.

Back at the hotel we had free wired internet access and I wrote some of this blog while enjoying a nice cup of Earl Grey tea. See told you it would come in useful.

And so to Russia. Tomorrow is the day I go to visit my mother's birthplace. I still don't know if I will get into Russia. No English insurance company will insure a private individual to take a car there. There are all sorts of scare stories about Russian drivers, Russian roads and Russian police. If we manage to get in then we will see which of them are true. Even if we do get in we have no guarantee we will find what we are looking for. I have no maps; just a collection of Google satellite images, some place names and the memories of my Auntie Ursal told to me over a cup of coffee in her kitchen in Eschweiler-Dürwiß. The place where she ended up after being chased out of her homeland by the Russians.

HOTEL INFO -
Pensjonat Agis
Drwecka 9
Gdansk, 80-110

Tel - _48583031688

Situated just off a big busy main road in a residential area on the edge of the city. The nearest tram station is a ten-minute walk away and reached via a complicated pedestrian crossing. Trams cost 3 zloty. The hotel is like a large house. It has a private car park at the back but the gate has to be opened before you can drive in. Entrance to the car park is a little narrow so take it carefully. The hotel manager was very friendly and helpful. He seemed to do everything and was the only member of staff we saw. The room was off a shared kitchen area where you can make a hot drink and where breakfast was served the next morning. Also in this area is free wired internet access. Our room had no TV but this wasn't a problem. There wasn't a great deal of space in the room and our luggage got in the way. Bathroom facilities were shared but we didn't see another soul so it felt private anyway. The breakfast was included in the room price and consisted sliced ham, salami, cheese and bread with some warm sausages and a chocolate bar.

Day 2 - Rotterdam Netherlands to Rostock, Germany - 909 miles

My resolve to rise with the dawn and drive like the wind to each destination didn't survive even the first morning. We rose at 9am and got ready while watching the qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix. We'll be on the road tomorrow so will miss the actual race unless the radio reception for radio 5 Live holds up, which I doubt it will. We had perfect reception listening to the end of the qualifying session as we set off for Rostock but I doubt it will stretch the further 500 miles inland. Funnily enough reception while driving down the M6 in the UK was awful.

I drove all the way to Rostock in my slippers. I'd hoped to spot a hypermarket en route but one didn't materialise. Some of you may be asking why we've brought our slippers on holiday but some European hotels, like houses, expect you to leave your shoes at the front door. Anyway, at least I've got something to drive in. The German motorways were plagued with roadworks and a much less pleasant experience than driving through The Netherlands. The only set of roadworks we encountered in The Netherlands was marked with smileys that initially wore a sad expression but got smilier the nearer we got to the end of the roadworks.







The drive to Rostock may have been a long one but it was fairly pleasant. I whacked the car into 6th gear and cruise control for most of the way and relaxed. We have a few thousand miles ahead of us so I've decided the driving being stress free is a major requirement. Our soundtrack is an iPod set to 'random play' and loaded with near 15,000 tracks from my collection. I'm also hoping to supplement the soundtrack by acquiring at least a few CDs along the way. Our opening track each day is going to be 'Rocket' by Goldfrapp because it's a great driving song and we like it. Our route to Rostock ought to have taken us through Leer according to the research I did before we left but didn't. Leer is the hometown of Enno Bunger a new German band who recently released their debut album. I saw them in concert in Köln (Cologne for foreigners) with my brother Steve in January and their marvelous performance boded well for the album. I was hoping to buy the album in the place it was created but it wasn't to be. To be perfectly honest I have no idea which way we drove but the sat nav took us East and then north to Rostock along autobahns the whole way. We are the mercy of the sat nav all the way and at no point did I have any sense of where we were.

For lunch we ate picnic food bought in the supermarket in Rotterdam. We had some flaky pastry type bread lined with cream cheese with slices of tasty cured beef. We also had garlic olives, cured sausage, spicy sweet peppers stuffed with cream cheese and an unimpressive tapenade which was left half eaten. We finished the meal with some disappointing sticky cinnamon buns that definitely looked better than they were. I hate it when cake doesn't taste as good as it looks. I'd like to say we stopped and picnicked in a sunny nook by the side of a lake but we ate on the move and pushed on to Rostock. Because of the time lost in roadworks we arrived around 6pm, an hour later than we intended.

Our hotel was in a large block of converted apartments that was very old-communist looking in design. It was in an austere part of town reminiscent of pictures I've seen of the old East Germany with rows of blocks of flats like boxes set out in strict military rows. Disappointingly the promised wifi in the room did not materialise so the posting of this blog is going to fall behind. On the plus side the room had cooking facilities and we shopped for our dinner in a cheap supermarket opposite the hotel in an attempt to balance out the expense of Rotterdam. We attracted some attention while shopping and noticed people pointing us out to each other with no attempt at being discrete. I heard one youth call us 'Engels' as he pointed us out to his mates. Rather curiously this is the Dutch word for 'English' and they were most definitely German boys. Kit said he heard someone commenting that one of us is fat which I can only assume was a reference to Kit in view of my own willowy frame. Funnily enough nobody noticed I was wearing a pair of old slippers with a hole in the right one where my big toe pops out.

It was already heading towards twilight as we headed into the city and our tram ride there took up 40 minutes of precious daylight. The tram was cheap, clean and graffiti-free but strangely a couple of minutes late. I can't remember the last time I experienced German public transport that didn't arrive exactly on time. We were a little apprehensive approaching the city centre and wondered if Rostock would be another Rotterdam but it was delightful with plenty of beautiful buildings and a lovely, friendly and welcoming atmosphere. Rostock was extensively bombed in the second world war and the centre has clearly been sensitively restored to its former glory.Kit and I immediately felt at home. This is Germany, the land we know and love. We were both immediately sorry that we didn't have more time here and that our hotel is so far away from the city centre. We resolved to return to Rostock at some point to have a good look around.

There was a fun fair and an Easter market in the town centre which meant we were able to have our first street sausage of the trip. We love German fast food and sausages are generally ubiquitous in different styles, sizes and even shapes. The Thüringer Bratwurst is the most common but I recommend trying them all. An old German friend of mine, Andreas Stetter, once said to me in all seriousness, 'Eddie, why is it the English think we Germans eat a lot of sausages?' I tried to explain that Germans eat more sausages than the rest of Europe put together but he wouldn't have it.

Luckily the shops were still open and I had a chance to look for some shoes. I was wearing Kit's trainers, which are 2 sizes too small for me. Unfortunately, all the shoes I saw were way too expensive. The only decent ones were around 100 Euros a pair and that is a price I absolutely refuse to pay. I'm afraid I'll be driving in my slippers again tomorrow. Just before the shops closed we had a quick look in a CD shop and I bought the new album by German band Revolverheld. They are a band that has fallen under my radar previously but I recently learned they morphed out of a band I previously loved called 'Privat' so I'm hoping the CD will be great. Unfortunately there was no sign of the Enno Bunger album.

We walked part of the way back to the hotel so we could enjoy a little more of the city centre. It was still pleasantly warm and there were plenty of people around enjoying the late evening.

Back at the hotel we ate a late meal of bockwurst and potato salad before hitting the sack. We'll play a song in the morning before we head off to our next destination, Gdansk. Despite what I wrote earlier, we hope to get up early tomorrow and make Gdansk with plenty of time to to see some of the city and to have a piece of the best apple pie in Europe.



Paddington bear, featured at the beginning of the video, is our mascot for the trip. We thought the bear that gets lost to be apt for the job.

HOTEL INFO -
Gästehaus Rostock Lütten-Klein
Warnowallee 23
18107 Rostock
Tel - 0381 776970

Situated in a suburb away from and a decent 40 minute tram ride into the centre although trams were cheap and frequent. There were public parking spaces along the front of the hotel and a free public carpark opposite. We were a little anxious about the security of the car but nothing untoward occured. The member of staff who checked us in was a less than helpful and openly irritable. The building is like a big old army barracks and the rooms were on long corridors. Our room was at the very end of a corridor and the promised wifi did not work. We were so far away from the hub we assume we were out of range. Our room was a decent size with kitchen facilities and a dining table so we took advantage of the supermarket opposite to shop for our evening meal. There are some restaurants and other shops also nearby. There was a good bathroom with a bath and shower. The hotel offered a buffet breakfast for 5 Euros but we found the set up quite confusing, customer-unfriendly and bought breakfast at the local supermarket instead.

Cost - 50 Euros
Score - 6/10

Continental Drifting - Introduction

My mother, Erika Schink-Cooney-Featherstone, was born in a small village in East Prussia then called Guwöhnen. It lies to the south of the Russian city, Kaliningrad near the town of Domnovo previously known as Königsberg and Domnau. She was born in 1939 as the second world war started and her life was defined by the history of that bloody conflict. After living the first few years of her life in a rural farm community her life changed dramatically. As the Russians invaded the Baltic states they took retribution for the atrocities committed by the Nazis earlier in the war and Germans ran for their lives. East Prussia was evacuated by the Nazis between January and March 1945. So as a 4-year-old child my mother became a refugee. With her mother and siblings she began a walk across Northern Europe that ended in a concentration camp in Sweden. My grandmother led the way. Like a lot of German refugees she had to survive without the help of her man. My grandfather was a farmer and his occupation was protected so he initially avoided being a soldier but he was sent to the Russian front after criticising the Nazi regime. My mother's sister's sweetheart, Franz, a Pole, was also sent to fight for the Nazis. Miraculously everyone survived. My family were reunited and Franz married Ursal. After the war, still not even 6 years old, my mother was repatriated to Germany. She grew up in a small town called Hitzacker which lay on the river Elbe on the Western side of the border between east and west. Hitzacker was not her home. My mother never had a home. She was a restless, bitter soul and maybe the answers to her enigma lie in her origins like so many of us.

This blog isn't about my mother but it begins with her. I inherited the feelings of being a lost soul from her and have always puzzled over my origins. Where am I from? Where is my homeland? I was born in a town called Prescot but I never felt at home there. So I resolved to go to my mother's birthplace to see with my own eyes the place that is partly my origin. I need to understand myself. Maybe the answers lie there. At the age of 30 I resolved to make the trip. Ursal, my mother's sister, had been. She told me it was unchanged from her memory. She took a peak through one of the windows of the house in which she was born and it still had some of the original furniture in it. Her brother, Ewalt, went to see. The apple trees that used be his were in fruit and he stole an apple for each of his siblings. They were after all the family's apples. He and his siblings could at least have a taste of home. My family are not alone in this psychological rootlessness. Over 12 million Germans were repatriated from places in Europe to modern Germany after the war. Thousands of them, like me, ponder their origins. Thousands of them are going back to see where they came from.

I failed to make the trip at the age of 30 so I resolved to go at 40 but failed again. This year I am 50 and on my way. East Prussia was dismantled after the war and the area my mother was born in is now Russia. It's not easy to drive to Russia. As well as visas you need to complete import and export documentation for the car and insurance has to be organised at the border. At the time of writing no English insurance company will insure a car in Russia.

My son, Kit is with me. I thought, if we go to Russia then we might as well see a few other places along the way so the trip to my mother's birthplace has turned into a road trip taking in 18 countries in 17 days. I never wanted to go to my mother's birthplace, have a look and then just leave. I want to feel the distance of her journey. And when I get there I want to leave something of myself. But what to leave? Of course, the answer is a song! A song leaves energy in the ether. It does not leave scars. Then I thought if we sing a song in Russia, why not sing a song everywhere we go? We shall leave a song behind us in every country we visit.

Hearing of our adventure an internet friend in Serbia sent me a message saying it was a shame we couldn't go there too. Of course, it only took the thought. Serbia, it turns out, is almost as difficult to drive to as Russia and that made us all the more determined to go. What follows is a chronicle of our adventures. There are bound to be adventures.