Hi All,

Well the tour finished yesterday in Berlin and I'm now in Scotland catching my breath. The second week of the trip went by in a blur of late nights, early mornings, hot weather and epic train rides.

From Vilnius we had a 12 hr journey across Lithuania and into Poland via 3 different trains. Warsaw is a really nice city, it's a bit hard to know what is genuinely old and what isn't because something like 85% of the buildings were destroyed in WW2 and only after the fall of the Soviet Union were they reconstructed. Regardless, the old town is very pretty. The United Buddy Bears were on display, they are very cute and a smash hit with the tourists.

The next day we caught an early train to Berlin. As you would expect of the Germans, the trains was super clean and so quiet and smooth you didn't even know you were moving. We got delayed slightly by a forest fire but arrived in town mid-afternoon. It was very hot on Saturday but we got time to check out the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. The latter especially is a remarkable piece of architecture and well worth the queuing up to get inside.

I'm way behind with the photos but I'm going to make an effort to catch up this week...

Brad.