My 70th birthday was magnificent! My wife told me she was taking me on a trip to Harrogate. When I got into the car, however, she took me to - POLAND!!! I have been learning Polish off and on for 5 years now. I was thrilled.

Poland is still recovering from Communism and it still bears the scars of that. Rude bureaucrats. Stalinist chimneys placed deliberately in religious shrines. And, every now and then, like the scars on the face of the Madonna at Czestokhowa, a wound. Like the memorial to Katyn. Or the statue of the Polish George Washington who so nearly made Poland into the United States of Eastern Europe. Or the Royal Palace which once housed the President (he was an elected King) before the country was stolen by the Austrians, Prussians and Russians in the time of the American and French Revolutions.

But the food was excellent - and the service at the Kosciusko Hotel was outstanding.

Much recommended as a trip. And no, I didn't visit Ausczwitz.