Berlin to Warsaw

I slept okay but not so much for roomie. Awake to grey skies and rain with maximum temp forecast of 12 but as we are on the coach for the most part today, no problems. Bags out by 6.30 and then breakfast. On the coach and away right on 7.30. The aim is to beat the likely very heavy morning traffic and we do that well. Marcel our driver is great. How he manages to fit our big bus past parked cars in narrow streets is amazing. Anyway about 15 minutes into our journey and I start sneezing and the nose starts running. What the??? Our first stop is at a Highway service station where we are also able to change Euros into Polish Zloty as we are already in the Polish Countryside. Grab a cuppa and back on the coach again. Light rain continuing to fall and it hasn't let up since we got underway. Lunch time stop at a McDonalds for 45 minutes then away we go again. I was concerned that this miserable weather would set in and that it would be the last of the sunshine we got to see today. Matej had decided to put on a video for us to break up the tedium Of the morning's journey but it was The Pianist and I had already seen it, plus as it was very grim and depressing I chose to snooze instead of watching it. At about 2 pm I said to roomie that the rain had stopped and this was the first time today that Marcel had been able to turn off the windscreen wipers. I also optimistically said that I thought the skies weren't quite as grey and could even be breaking up. Well, within half an hour we had blue skies and white clouds! Still cold outside, at times around 9 degrees but sunshine always helps... the countryside is slightly undulating, very green and lots of farming properties and the large areas of trees. Very pretty but nothing breath taking. Just before 4 pm we get into Warsaw which is a sprawling city with big wide roads that are starting to see quite heavy traffic build up. Our hotel for the next 2 days is the Regent which is right next door to the Russian embassy which looks something like Tara out of Gone With a The Wind. It is on property about 1 km square so the Reds haven't stinted on anything. It's bigger and more impressive than the President's palace! Although our hotel is some distance from the city centre, at least a 45 minute walk, it is near a lovely big park (will remember the name later) so assuming I'm feeling better tomorrow than I do right now, it looks a great place to walk around. But having settled ourselves into our lovely big room with a large and sensibly laid out bathroom, plus we can work the light switches, it is time for a much needed cuppa. As soon as my suitcase is delivered I have scrambled to find the Codral tablets as I'm feeling quite poorly and am sick of blowing my nose. There is a special dinner at a restaurant through the park, but I'm going to put myself to bed early tonight with the determination to throw off this bug so that I am back in the pink in the morning. We have a full day of sightseeing in and around Warsaw tomorrow and I don't want to miss that. I will end with a few photos of Warsaw taken from the coach as we drove in this arvo. Keeping in mind that most of the place was bombed to kingdom come during the war, it is an eclectic combination of old and very new.