We left Kiev yesterday around midday and headed back to Warsaw. Had another relatively uneventful flight with Ukraine International Airlines, where yet again, passengers clapped when the plane touched down safely – over the years I’ve seen this in Turkey, Pakistan, Argentina, Peru, now Poland and Ukraine, and it still weirds me out. We were just transiting through Warsaw this time, so didn’t spend any time there.
We picked up a rental and yale set the GPS for Vilnius and off we went. It was a bit of a long drive – but when you’re from Australia, it doesn’t seem that far. Not like trying to get to Festival in a day or anything crazy like that. We passed through some pretty little towns on the way of varying sizes and modernity.
Some cute churches, and everything all sweet and fabulous… 
Until we encountered kilometres and kilometres of trucks all lined up in a dead stand still. For a while we thought it might be some sort of rolling blockade protest – people around here seem to be constantly protesting something. Or perhaps they were all lined up waiting for a weighbridge station, given how politely they were all lined up on the right and letting the cars pass them. We then came across this – the lane we had been travelling also at a dead stop of cars. Bugger, we thought – it was obviously the queue for the Polish/Lithuania border. So we pulled up behind the blue car in the photo below… 
At this point, one of the truck drivers (most of whom were not in their vehicles) came over and told us to drive around. He pointed to the licence plate of the blue car, Belarussian, and he gestured for us to go around (our vehicle obviously had Polish plates on it). So we dutifully went around and ended up at the top of the queue:
Whereupon it became obvious that we were in the middle of the military checkpoint to enter Belarus! Which meant we were miles from where we were supposed to be, and well and truly inside the borders of Belarus! Fark!
Now we knew when we set out that there were two routes to get us to Vilnius, one of which was slightly shorter and chopped through the corner of what is effectively the dictatorial presidential state of Belarus and the other which went only through the border between Poland and Lituania. Now, guess which route yale somehow programmed into Wayz…?
The border guard came over to our car and asked us where we were going, “Vilnius,” we replied. He then asked for our passports walked away. Then came back for the rental agreement on our vehicle walked away. Then came back for the registration papers for the vehicle and then he walked off again for what felt like an age. While he was gone, I was Googling looking for real-time info on any known delays at the Lithuanian and coming up empty. Now because we couldn’t read any of the damn signs anywhere, it was only about this point that we realised we were at the fucking Belarus border and not the Lithuanian one!
Eek… we had no idea what was going to happen here. We totally weren’t supposed to be in the middle of this border complex, we had no visas for Belarus (they’re difficult to acquire and expensive), and these guys obviously have complete control over what is effectively a no mans land.
Eventually, he came back. Handed us our passports and all the paperwork and said: “You have to go back.” Well, thank fuck for that. For all we knew there could have been serious penalties for attempting to illegally cross the Belarussian border?! We were laughing with relief as we turned the car around and drove off… and then we got to take a bit of the scenic route through some tiny villages as we made our way back to the route we were supposed to be on in the first place if yale only weren’t ‘the reason we can’t have nice things’.
The countryside was simply stunning though – there is a beautiful quality to the light here (once you get out of the cities).
Honestly, I grabbed these shots out the car window as we sped past and they have not been altered or had filters added or anything.
Stopped at a servo for a fortifying something something after our little run in with the Belarus Border Force guys.
WWII memorial in a little town on the way.
Oddly, the Polish/Lithuanian border was far more like what we had been expecting – almost non-existent. Being both part of the Schengen Agreement, there is pretty much borderless exchange between the two countries. We did see some guards in a jeep on the side of the road, but they weren’t doing anything at all.
The delay set up back a little arriving into Vilnius, but we arrived found our B&B and got settled pretty quickly.
The B&B is in an old building with massive oak beams, exposed brick and stuccoed walls and old chunky furniture, right in the middle of the city. 
After our adventure just driving here today, we decided to try and find some local food for dinner. yale scoped out this place on Trip Advisor and it had the two most desireable elements we could have asked for, 1) great reviews and 2) mega close proximity. Because it had been a long day already.
We walked in and there was a wait for a table. The restaurant didn’t appear to be very big so we were a bit disheartened and I was considering looking for other options, when it became apparent that there must be more space off to the side of the entrance and perhaps downstairs as well. We didn’t have to wait too long for a table and were led downstairs through a veritable rabbit warren on cosy dining spaces.
First things first – a drink! This place does paddles of brandy tasting so we thought we’d give that a go.
From the left, very drinkable with cherry flavours, quite sweet with honey overtones, something akin to metho, disgustingly strong liquorice shit, and slightly less strong but equally disgusting liquorice shit! Still, most of it went down just fine.
For entrees, everything looked really good on what is an extensive menu. We ordered a few plates to try – fried cheese with bell peppers (effectively jalapeno poppers – which seemed odd for Lithuanian cuisine, but my knowledge there is quite limited).
Next we tried the ‘thick and creamy wild mushroom soup’… which I tried and exclaimed “I hate this place! Best mushroom soup I have ever had, and it’s in bloody Lithuania!”
yale also ordered a second entree of meat dumplings served with sour cream and some sort of nutty soupy broth stuff. It was very tasty – somehow just the right amount of salty.
We had finished the brandy tasting paddle and the beers etc, so yale ordered a couple of meads and a homemade vodka. On the left honey mead, the vodka (average, but we may have been spoiled of late) and some god awful herbal mead shit that was 75% alcohol! Man that stuff is strong.
Dinner consisted of venison meatballs served with spinach mashed potato, loads of beetroot and a cranberry/blueberry sauce. Delicious.
And yale had some enormous dumpling things filled with mean and drowning in a thick mushroom sauce.
After dinner (and all those strong drinks) we barely managed to find our way out of the hidden tunnels of amazing foody goodness.
We want to get a full day to check out Vilnius tomorrow and both of us have laundry that needed attending to so we head back to the B&B for what was supposed to be an early night but it is already getting close to midnight. Again.
Looking forward to checking out the G-spot of Europe tomorrow. 😛
The Warsaw opera house that was built in1825 to 1833, is known as the Grand Theatre in Warsaw or Teatr Wielki w Warszawieis. It is actually a large theatre complex consisting of spaces for the national opera company and the Polish National Ballet. It is one of the largest theatres in Europe can seat over 2000 people. 
Warsaw’s Castle Square, Zamkowy w Warszawie, is located in front of the Royal Castle and a seriously picturesque and popular spot. It’s surrounded by historic townhouses and cute little cafes.
The Royal Castle in Warsaw, or Zamek Królewski w Warszawie, is a castle residency that formerly served for several centuries as the official residence of the Polish monarchs, including Tsar Nicolas of Russia when Poland became part of Russia after the Napoleonic wars.
The complex has been the primary residence of the Dukes of Masovia since the 16th century and has been the seat of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, being for the King and for the Parliament, with fancy Chambers for the Deputies and Senate. In its long history, the Warsaw Royal Castle was repeatedly looted and devastated by the invading Swedish, Brandenburgian, Prussian and Tsarist armies. Seems everyone wanted a piece of this Castle at some point.
The Great Assembly hall is the biggest and grandest room in the Castle. This is where royal audiences, state banquets, ball and concerts were held. 
Audience chamber where the most important visitors were granted an audience with King Stanislaw August, including foreign ambassadors, papal legates etc. The Throne Room has been restored with much of its original decorations and furnishings, including doors, furniture and wooden panelling. The Polish eagles in hand embroidered silver bullion over the back of the throne’s canopy were all ripped off the original embroidery by Nazi officers in October 1939. The 86 copies here were modelled on one of these original eagles that was retrieved from the US in 1991.
Beside the Throne Room is the Conference Room or Monarchs’ Portrait Room, which was used as a parade chamber. Dedicated to the seven monarchs of Europe at the time, it is decorated with portraits that were commissioned of their likenesses. The portraits were painted by Jan Bogumil Plersch between 1983 and 1786. The parquetry is amazing!
The King’s bedroom as part of the residential King’s Apartment. Some pieces of the room were preserved before the Nazi destruction allowing the room to be recreated accurately.
Ceremonial sword of state late 1700s.
The Small Private Chapel off the Kings Audience Chamber.
The Marble Room was designed in 1640-1642 during the reign of King Wladyslaw IV and was little used until King Stanislaw August commissioned it’s restoration to famous architect, Jakub Fontana. It served as a second antechamber to the Throne Room. Thankfully most of the painting in this room were removed before the Castle was bombed in September 1939, and saved from the great fires that followed.
‘Girl in a picture frame’, Rembrandt, 1641 (and detail below).
‘Johann Baptist Lampi the Younger’, Antoni Jozef Lanckoronski, 1817 (and detail below).
‘Still Life with a Celestial Globe’, Carstian Luyckx, 1660s (and detail below).
‘Francis I, King of France since 1515’, from the workshop of Joos van Cleve, ca 1530 (and detail below).
‘Adam and Eve’, Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1520-1525.
‘Mystic Marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria’, Flemish School, c.1605. (and detail below)
‘Prince Wladyslaw Zygmunt Vasa’s Kunstkammer’, Antwerp School, 1626 (and detail below).
Polish Organ c. 1640.
All up we had a much more positive experience at Warsaw Castle than we did at Krakow Castle – no restrictive timed ticketing, more than one person actually selling tickets, staff were helpful and interested in making sure visitors found their way around okay and even pointed out seats to us in dimly lit rooms. They allowed us to take photography AND they had exceptional books in their gift shops. Bonus.
The Old Town and Castle Square is just gorgeous little area to stroll around. But alas, we had places to go and borders to cross!
Flight was uneventful. People cheered when we landed, and some were doing that Chinese thing where you run down the aisle before the seatbelt sign was off to try and get off the plane first, only to be told they had to wait for a bus to take us off the tarmac. yale looked quite confused, he’d never seen that before. Then when they did get us all packed into a standing only space bus, someone had left their passport back on the plane so we all had to wait another 10 minutes.
