Before we left we found a cache actually at the hotel we were staying in. This gave us a brief history of the hotel in English.

This Cache is placed near by the nice villa in Prague, which is used for shooting the serial - Medical attendance in rosy garden . In present time it is a pension with 32 rooms. This villa was built in year 1930 in Art-Deco style and now it is reconstructed.

Therre was a lot more information on the cache site but in Czech. A later translation said it cost 45 million crowns to restore after it was bought for 20 million crowns.

I had also been looking at the crystal on sale here and bought as piece with a 4 leaf clover- they had one with a horseshoe but I was reminded not to get one upside down which this was.

We had an 8am departure and 2 birthdays – John of course and Renata, a woman from Australia. They both were given a small bottle of bubbly. However, we also heard that John and Bernadette, the couple that had been in front of us on the bus last night, had had to return home urgently and were already on their way, This made the tone on the bus a bit sombre as we all got to know them well as they mixed so easily and Bernadette had taken a number of group photos as we traveled . They are both country GP's and full of fun.

On our way out of Prague we drove past Mozart's former home. About 1 hour into the journey we could see Pilzen in the distance, home of the Pilzener style of beer.

The morning stop was at McDonalds and a service station. The challenge is to get to the border with just the right amount of money – today we had enough for 2 coffees or 1 cappuccino and it was John’s birthday so he had a cappuccino and Ronald McDonald House got the last 5 krowns.

We crossed into Bavaria, the largest German state with its own dialect. The German name for Bavaria is Bayern hence the name of the famous football team Bayern Munich. The weather is changeable because of the Alps and the 'Ferne’ (sp?) wind. We soon crossed the Danube and on to the motorway, with a self service lunch stop. The toilets here caused a lot of discussion. You paid 70 cents and had 50c back if you spent your 'pee’ voucher in the shop or café . However the toilets themselves were the best bit – after the toilet flushed the seat rotated through a cleaning process, while the bowl was sprayed with disinfectant. As a toilet seat is not round or exactly flat this was fun to watch. JB wanted to do a circuit on his. London has the London eye round trip and the hop-on-off bus trip, he reckons a circuit on the Bavarian toilet seat would be a great splash!! That evening we had a toilet discussion – one of the others said she had flushed a toilet 3 times on a previous trip and her travelling companions had also, just to watch the process. Bert (our Jamaican mate) said he got stranded in the dark during a ‘sitting’ while on tour when the lights went out. He struggled to find his way out!!

We passed by a number of attractive villages that would have had us all reaching for cameras on the first day. However we have learned that there are lots of them and they are hard to photograph in Germany because of the noise protection barriers at the side of the road. There were a lot of hop fields reminding us of Motueka.

Munich is a smart, new looking city as so much was rebuilt after WW 2. It is the most expensive German city and we saw the top street with its’ Guicci, Amani, Versace etc shops. The Football World Cup was starting today so there were a lot of flags – EU and German, as well as blue and white for Bavaria. We drove past the BMW headquarters, the big football stadium used in the previous World Cup and the Olympic Stadium, built to look like the Alps . The Berlin Olympics were famous of course for the massacre of the Israeli athletes.

We stopped at Nymphenburg palace, built by a Prince as a gift for his wife. It was huge although not fancy. The fountain was a home for a number of ducks and swans. It is now a museum with one part called the Palace of Beauties that has displayed 26 portraits of the lovers of one Prince. (JB wanted to know how he found time to paint!!)

We did see some older buildings at King’s Square as we drove into the city centre. We also admired the lampposts which had an old style look. There was a prominent obilisque (sp?) as a memorial to the Bavarian soldiers who died in the Napoleonic wars

We had about 2 hours in the city centre, mainly in the shopping street. We enjoyed just wandering, a bag of cherries in hand and watching the people who were watching the football through the shop windows. We looked in the cathedral but because mass was starting, we didn’t stay long . We did miss having information about the sarcopogus (sp?) which was very ornate. It was hot in the sun but the shade gave us some relief. Later we were told it was 35 degrees instead of the usual 25C.

At 5 o’clock I was in the town square to see the town hall clock. There were 2 parts to the display. At the top a series of people went around in circles and then a couple of knights on horseback. In the final circuit they jousted and one was unseated. Then the bottom part started with dancers going round in circles. This took over 5 minutes. John was watching the football but did see some of the display.


Anita had already booked us into the hotel so we fare-welled Giovanni (our driver) who was leaving us and went up to immediately turn on the TV. It was only after we had paid for the internet we realised the bag with the computer power supply and computer cables were in a bag still on the bus – which was not parked at the hotel. Thanks to Anita we were able to get it soon after 7pm so spent the time relaxing with the windows wide open and the fan on. We were in a corner room so the street scene was interesting – and the fan was nice instead of air con.

We made the mistake of having the hotel buffet - the food was poor - but we sat outside with others from the tour and enjoyed their company, and the price was OK. We then ‘Skyped’ Irene, caught up on emails moved the fan to the bottom of the bed and closed the windows and curtains. Unfortunately it was another night when we didn’t sleep too well.