Prague 3 October

Reasonable night's sleep but still waking about 3 am local time and then a struggle to get more sleep. Anyhow bags out by 7 am and down to breakfast where the three musketeers are already situated. The shuts sparkling Lambrusco was a pleasant entree to breakfast' but I still needed my Vegemite on toast. Weather forecast about 17 and rain but very unpredictable as we head off in the coach for our journey to Berlin. We pass some gorgeous little villages nestled into hillsides. We are climbing up into the hills and as there is very low cloud and mist, the countryside us quite breath taking. Light rain falling but as we are in the coach, who cares? As we cross into Berlin there is very little to indicate that we have left the Czech Republic. There are no buildings of any sort and only one sign that has a crest on it that I couldn't read anyway as unsurprisingly it was in German... Duh! It is a public holiday in Germany as they celebrate the coming down of the wall between East and West. We were meant to have a rest break at a service station on the freeway but it is closed so keep going fir about another 45 minutes until we got to a McDonalds. I suggested that Marcel our driver take us through the drive through but he wouldn't do it, spoil sport. So out we all get and head for the McCafe and toilets. By the time we head back to the coach it is raining heavily and so it remains for quite some time. But as we approach Spreewald where we are to stop for a canal ride and lunch, the rain stops and blue skies appear. Spreewald is a delightful spot with kilometres of narrow canals the join up lots of small 'islands that people have built small quaint holiday homes and some even live there full time. Most of the homes are accessible only by boat and even the postal lady delivers the mail via the canals on boat. we are very lucky in that although the weather is now fine, it is likely that many Berliners have stayed away expecting bad weather, otherwise the place would have been teeming with local tourists. But instead our group are able to get onto two of the canal boats where we thoroughly enjoy an hour long peaceful 'cruise' along the waterways where Bonnie our delightful 'driver' of the boat stands at the end of the boat and using a large barge pole, pushes us through the metre deep waters. It is just lovely. Mind you, there was one very hurtful moment caused my M. The seating on the boat which us like a really big canoe, consists of wooden benches facing each other, separated by a table. G, M nd Matej our guide are sitting on a bench opposite me, my roomie and D (we have our backs to the front of the boat). We are all taking photos and chatting and listening to Bonnie's commentary when M who is sitting in the middle of the bench leans forward to take a photo of something on the bank and promptly tells me, "Karen, get out of the way. I don't want you in the photo!' Well, I look at him (you can imagine the look he got), he goes Beetroot red, I say 'Hurtful' and our gang are all in fits of laughter. Por Matej didn't know what to think. I don't think M even got to take the photo he wanted but you can bet I tried to photo bomb every next one he tried to line up. LOL! we are having such a hilarious time that a couple sitting behind the boys asks them how we all know each other as we clearly all have such a great friendship. Sadly our lovely little canal ride has to come to an end. We wander down the Main Street and find a nice little outdoor restaurant for our lunch. The waitress doesn't speak English and the menu is in German only with no pictures so we did really well to order our meals. D and G chickened out though and only ordered coffee. ROomie ended up with a potato and sausage soup which she said was nice and she topped it off with an Irish coffe which apparently was even better. M and I had a bockwurst sausage in a tomato curry sauce which was just yummy. Time to head back to the coach,and we are all really grateful that the weather has remained fine albeit a bit cooler. I will finish with a few more pictures from Prague which truly is a beautiful city. And the last one is just to give you an idea of the struggle my roomie had in closing her suitcase.....