Not many people ask me. ‘How do you get to Kaliningrad?’

Well, you can simply fly there. But where’s the fun in that. And it costs. So I tend to use cheap flight destinations to the ‘new Europe’ - like Kaunas, Tallinn, Gdansk or Riga - and then take a bus.

Downside of the bus is that it’s invariably a night journey. Which means that, just as you’re nodding off, bright lights will shine in your face at the border.

Upside is that the old border town of Sovietsk - formerly Tilsit - is largely blacked out. The once beautiful bridge over the River Neman is sadly now concrete and barbed wire.

It doesn’t help to remember that Napoleon slept here when you stand in line at the Russian customs. There’s nothing to see and only if you read Russian can you pass the time scanning the many bird-flu leaflets.

In Prussian times, Tilsit was a famous producer of Tilsiter cheese. The new post-war name of Sovietsk cheese was not a marketing success (laugh) and contributed to the decline in population. In this formerly thriving town of nearly 60,000 people, only two people got on at Sovietsk.

So, best to blackout on the bus with some konyak until the Baltic shores.

Tilsit (Sovietsk) in the 1900s