Germany

Danke...(giggle) - this is Richard saying thank you and the shopgirl's response at a market we stumbled on in Dresden.

I quite enjoyed Germany. We spent 3 nights in Berlin, where it was very hot. The first day we started by going to visit the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall, with lots of famous graffiti art on it by artists from around the world. Richard decided he wanted a bit of wall from the guy who pulls it down and breaks it up.

From there we went to the Reichstag - managing to go the wrong way on the train. It was OK, we only went one stop out of our way. (By the way, today I'm on the words and Richard is on the photos - this is how we work it when we can get a computer each!)

Had a quick look around the Brandenburg Gate and the outside of the Reichstag. We decided not to go in because the queue reached out of the shade and into the sunshine and we (I) couldn't handle it in 30 degrees.

After a little rest we walked back through the Tiergarten to the Holocaust Memorial, which is I have to say my Berlin highlight. The memorial itself is pretty confronting but the museum underneath (free) is something else. It personalises the 6 million or so victims with letters, diaries, biographies, families and the background of the main concentration camps. It was the perfect follow up to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

Our second day in Berlin we mostly relaxed in our lovely private room - tiny, but shady and private! Later in the afternoon we started in on the cheap hostel beer and the rest of the evening went quite quickly.

The next morning it was back on the bus to Dresden, famous to me for its post WWI art scene and to everyone else for being flattened near the end of WWII as an Allied demonstration to the Soviets not to be too dominant when it came to dividing up occupied Germany. For those on the bus not getting off in Dresden and going straight to Prague it was a lunch break. While we were at the laundromat round the corner after checking in at the hostel, the Prague-bound Busabouters were heading back to the bus - while crossing the (main) road an Australian girl was hit by a car and sent flying. She was travelling with her niece (same age) who has ended up having to stay in Dresden. She broke her leg in two places, smashed her wrist and broke her upper arm in another two places. She's due to have a second operation on Thursday. The pair started travelling the same time as us and had as much as us planned, as well as a side trip to Greece - that's obviously all changed now.

So that was quite frightening and of course we offered the niece all the help we could. It was pretty scary.

We had one full day in Dresden, which we started by going to the VW Factory - a transparent factory made almost entirely of glass and with lots of interactivity for visitors. All they make there is VW's luxury saloon, the Phaeton, starting at around 79,000 Euros. Even I found it bloody interesting and lots of fun. The parts get sent in on a tram from the, um...parts place, with a special VW tram.

One of the nice suited bilingual petrolheads working there told us of a beer garden just down the road all the Dresdners go to so we headed that way only to be waylaid by the sight of tent tops and awnings - a market!!! Being near lunchtime we ended up getting jacked up on sausages and cherries, very cheap, very delicious, very German cherries.

Realising the day was runnng away and we still had 'important' Dresden stuff to see, we worked our way into town and found all the important buildings - the Royal Palace, the Opera House and others that actually all sort of blur into each other. Out of all the museums I chose the Old Masters one - I was going to anyway but it also came recommended by VW guy and eccentric hostel owner. Lots of Canalettos with views of Dresden, one of my favourite Jan Van Eyck works, a triptych altarpiece, another lovely Vermeer, more Rembrandts, lots of Rubens (I got to explain to Richard that my figure is 'Rubenesque', he he) and the very famous and very lovely Sistine Madonna by Raphael - oh yes, and Raphael's tapestries, that was a wonderful surprise.

Back into the sunshine and wandering through the buildings and gardens until we got to the Church of Our Lady, one of the special buildings rebuilt after the war with all the original bricks they could find in as much their original places as possible - for this reason many of the buildings in Dresden look patchworky. In return for making Richard look at boring old paintings he decided to make me walk up to the top of the church - we were dying to go in but there was a CD recording going on inside so we could only climb to the top. The view was absolutely worth it. And so was the nice cool breeze!

We met a talkative Australian girl in Dresden who started in Berlin and has much the same itinerary as us for the next few days at least. She happened to be there when the car accident happened and as a lifeguard helped the injured woman. We roomed with her in Dresden although here in Prague we've got another private room - we hadn't booked one but it wasn't that much more expensive.

The bus was over an hour late getting from Berlin to Dresden to pick us up - according to those already on it this was because the driver took a 'wrong turn' and they spent three quarters of an hour driving around Dresden. Nice.

Cut to Prague, after a one hour stop in the concentration camp town of Terezin (we didn't do the tour, it was raining and we're still saving ourselves for Dachau - they reckon it gets way way too overwhelming if you do too many concentration camps) and we drove around for over an hour after the driver took several 'wrong turns'. By the time we got to the hostel we felt very familiar with Prague!

At this stage we thought, hell, we need another private room! It's actually a four bed room with just us in it so it's really nice and roomy.

The next challenge was getting some Czech crowns - Richard managed to get some from an ATM but I wanted to change the Euros I already had. Being the weekend made it very difficult. Finally managed to do it at Prague Castle yesterday - no commission, but rotten rates. Never mind. At least everything's cheap. At the hostel beer is 25 crowns during happy hour - that's half a litre of Staropramen, the Prague pilsner, for one Euro, or 2 NZD. Nicey.

We'll talk more about Prague next time, but just quickly, we've done Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge and one hell of a lot of walking. We plan to go back into town tonight because everything's supposed to look amazing lit up. Richard woke up yesterday morning with what he thought was an attack of gout in his knuckle - it eased during the day but kept him up last night so we made a midnight trek to a hospital where no English was spoken, managed to get home again and tried a doctor today, who referred us to an orthopaedic specialist (we don't think it's gout anymore, it's behaving different, hurts more and doesn't really respond to gout drugs) who refused to see foreigners. So we give up. But along the way we've met some extremely helpful wonderful Czech people, including one of the taxi drivers last night and a marvellous old lady at the hospital who spoke English and argued with a nurse for us.

So hopefully the worst is over, no more beer for Richard just in case.

Tomorrow it's to Cesky Krumlov, yes, that's the place with the free keg at the hostel for guests.......everyone except Richard that is...shitty....he he.

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Big wet schmacky beery kisses,

Roho

xx

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