Tempers begin to fray as the journey of Dick Warner and his family to size up the applicant EU countries goes off the rails
It seems that for several centuries kings all over Europe would come down to breakfast on a fine spring morning and say to their consort: "So, what will we do this summer?" And she would smile indulgently and say: "Why don't you go off and annex Pomerania, darling, you know how you enjoy that."
I was reading the history of Pomerania as we sped through it on an express train from Warsaw to Gdansk. We were trying to escape from Poland.
It's not that Poland was that bad. OK, the hotel in Warsaw had been bad. It had previously been some sort of hostel for female teachers. The attempt to transform it into tourist accommodation had resulted in something more like a jail. And the Poles are undoubtedly the worst cooks in Europe. The only decent thing they can make is scrambled egg - and it's hard to eat that three times a day.
Poland was proving difficult to get out of. We wanted to go to the Baltic States. The direct rail lines cut through Belarus. We had been warned not to attempt this without transit visas because one of the principal sources of hard currency in Belarus is extorting ridiculous sums from travellers who arrive on their borders without visas. So we developed the cunning notion of taking the train to Gdansk and then trying to find a ship that would sail up the Baltic and by-pass the dreaded Belarusians.
I thought Gdansk would be all grim shipyards and equally grim stevedores wearing Solidarity T-shirts. I was wrong again. The old Hansa town was charming and so was the hotel we had picked from the Rough Guide. The trouble was that there was some kind of festival on, the town was totally choked with street stalls and the hotel was full. The receptionist was a be-spectacled granny.
"Do you speak English?" "No, a little German." This was OK. Most Poles speak no foreign language apart from Russian, and none of us had any Russian. Her German was an exquisite, old-fashioned Prussian. She called "Gdansk" "Danzig". I chatted her up. She picked up an ancient telephone and organised us a hotel and a taxi and would not even take a Zloty for the calls. It was typical of the many acts of kindness a travel-weary Irish family received from Polish people.
The hotel was out of town and rather grand. The multi-lingual receptionist earned €53 a week. We worked out that if she spent her entire salary on buying breakfast in the hotel she would manage only six days out of seven.
The next chapter of our travels was bizarre and unexpected. There was no ferry to the Baltic States. We could only go to Sweden. So we did. The ferry was cheap and fine, apart from the Polish cooks. We arrived in a pretty village in southern Sweden that wasn't even on our excellent maps. There was a ferry to Riga, in Latvia, but it had just left and there wasn't another for three days. We should really take a train to Stockholm. So we did. There I discovered there was nothing convenient departing for the Baltic States, but it would be a good idea if we took a ferry to Finland - so we did.
"Dad, why are we in Sweden?"
"I don't really know."
"It's nice, can we stay?"
"No, sorry, we haven't time."
"Dad, why are we in Helsinki? They have euro here. They must be in the EU already."
Eventually we got on the jetfoil to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. There we could continue our mission of sizing up the applicant nations. I sat on the observation deck of the fast ferry, smoking and bird-watching. I was very pleased to spot a Pomeranian Skua. Then I was spotted by a Finnish lady of indeterminate age who decided to pick me up. Finnish women are shameless. Eventually Geraldine rescued me.
Tallinn is a totally wonderful town. The centre is a maze of medieval streets, mostly pedestrianised, full of cafés, restaurants and classy shops. Going for a walk in the evening is like walking through a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. The Estonians are also a wonderful people.
They have the most elegant women I have seen anywhere. They are the second most e-literate people in the world (the first are apparently the Taiwanese). I was in a bar having a beer and picked up a tent-shaped card from the table - it said, in several languages, that I was sitting in a wireless Internet zone. This was part of the Soviet Union and the Russians only left, very reluctantly, in 1994. In the short time since then, the Estonians have completely transformed their country.
They are also very worried that the Russians will come back. This is why they are so keen to join both the EU and NATO.
"I wonder what will change if they join the EU?" I was staring into an estate agent's window when Geraldine asked the question.
"There probably won't be too many seaside cottages for sale for under €10,000."
"Yes, a pity really."
"And no more duty-free - so the Finns will probably stop visiting."
The only trouble with Tallinn is the Finns. Some of my best friends are Finns, but the ones that pour over to Tallinn on the fast ferries every weekend are not the cream of society. They come for the cheap booze and cigarettes and Tallinn's flourishing sex industry. Many of them augment their social welfare payments by selling their duty-free allowances when they get back.
So we decided we had had enough of capital cities and we would take the bus to Pärnu, a seaside resort in southern Estonia, to get away from the Finns. We had to take the bus because trains are, for practical purposes, not an option in the Baltic States. In their rush to become western they have privatised all the railways. In one way this was a success, because the railways now make a profit. In another way it was a shame, because all they carry now is Russian oil and Polish coal, not passengers.
On the bus I tried to find out whether Geraldine was changing her mind about voting No to Nice.
She was evasive, which is very out of character. I took this to be a good sign. A while later she brought the subject up herself.
"I'm still a bit worried about the neutrality thing, particularly as Luke says he wants to join the army when he leaves school."
"Look, we have an army - only we call it the Defence Forces, which is a bit ridiculous unless you seriously think our shores are about to be invaded by Trinidad and Tobago or Bhutan. We don't use it for defence. We use it for peace-keeping and stuff and we've been doing this for the past 40 years in a pretty honourable and efficient way."
"Yes, but the world's changing."
"Sure, and it's changed since you voted No in the last referendum. That thing in Seville in June, it guaranteed there isn't going to be a European Army and that Nice will not affect our neutrality."
"Maybe."
Pärnu was a lovely clapboard town where we found a great restaurant. We stayed in a hotel beside a leafy park. We were sitting outside it under an umbrella on the sidewalk when a small bus arrived. Out they came. A very fat Finn waddled over and plonked down on the seat beside me. The impact forced a beery belch out of his mouth. Another sat down on the other side of me and sniffed both his arm-pits - presumably to ensure that he was not being offensive to anyone.
It was time to leave. We had another problem. The deal was that each one of the four of us carried his or her own gear in their own backpack. Geraldine's was by far the heaviest, because of all the shampoo, cosmetics and medical supplies. She had a whole pharmacy in a badly designed pack she had bought in the United States. As a result she had sprained her shoulder and couldn't carry it. I had to hire a bicycle taxi to carry the packs to the bus station. We walked.
It was a long bus journey to Riga, the capital of Latvia. And this was not the high point of our travels. The first part of our problem was that the bus had skirted the coast along the Gulf of Riga.
The pine forests swept down to lovely golden beaches with hardly anyone on them. Sam had spotted this.
"Dad, I want to go for a swim." "I'm sorry, we're behind schedule,we don't have time." "This is a crappy holiday. All we do is get on trains and buses. I haven't had a swim since we left." The tantrum lasted two days. I felt guilty.
I think we were unlucky with Latvia. I would like to go back and prove that my first impressions were wrong. But the bus station was grim. The hotel was Soviet era grim. The restaurant was okay but the kids were in bad humour. And we were behind schedule and had to get on another bus to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. We were trying to do too much.
Series continues tomorrow
