This morning I thought Id be one of the first down for breakfast but alas Im a slow coach but at least there was plenty of food. Ive been adopted as an honorary kiwi for now it seems and Ive noticed I have started to say ay at the end of my sentences!
After breakfast we left Wurzburg and headed for a brief stop at Nuremberg (Nurberg) for an hour or so for a wander around. Most of the city was destroyed in WWII however some of the historical heart either survived or has been partially rebuilt so you can get a sense of the cobblestoned medieval walled city.
Managed to get some interesting photographs, there was a shop called The Australian Gourmet Homemade Icecream shop. Interesting!
We also drove past the building where the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi leaders was held after WWII, however as we were right close to it, the photographs will not be all that good.
After a few hours drive through the bavarian countryside of forest and hills and small villages off into the distance we approached the border with the Czech Rep. This was a new situation of our tour director Mark, as the last time he visited this way, the Schengen treaty had not been in force here.
As it was, there were no border controls or passport checks but we did have to stop to purchase essentially an e-tag for the coach that gets charged as we travel along the motorway.
We stopped just over the border at a McDonalds, not the best choice for eating but the quickest and most reliable as was explained to us. So for the very first time I ate McDonalds overseas (yes have photos), well, pretty much the same except with a big Mac deal here I got a friggin massive 1 litre bottle of coke plus also some mayonaise for the fries (nice).
As we drive though the Czech countryside there are many brilliant yellow fields of canola amongst the green fields and dark green thick forest. This will be the sixth country we have passed through in the past three days, so quickly racking up the score. Still a cloudy day here but at least there is no rain, hopefully the sun will break through later.
Tonight I am going onto an optional tour of Prague with the fountains set to music as highlights. I guess I will write about that later, not sure if I will find internet access to post this on the day though.
Ok ... writing this a few days later as catching up with diary entries, the Hotel Eliza where we stayed in Prague was a delightful little hotel tucked away down a residential street on the hills surrounding the city. Some of our rooms where out the back in little bungalows and there was even a pool which some of the braver kiwis jumped in. I was supposed to uphold the aussie flag but I am much older and wiser these days and merely watched the antics as I supped on a refreshing beer or two.
The city tour in the evening was interesting enough, and our guide (whose name I just cannot remember despite him saying it several times) spoke good english but went to great lengths to pronounce his words a little too precisely which lead to a rather strange accent that apparently I can do a fair impression of. He did have detailed knowledge of the history of the city and of the different types of architecture which whilst I found fairly interesting, I think the majority of the tour struggled to keep their attention levels up.
We visited a monastery, grabbed a beer, took some scenic shots and then headed to the fountains. Forty-five minutes of seeing water shoot up to classical music was perhaps stretching the amazed tourist routine a bit, however did get some interesting pictures and a little video.
Back to the hotel and a few of the younger kiwis were keen to head to a nightclub in the city, however settled (after a bit of convincing) to drinking the cheap and great beer at the hotel bar. Again, one lone aussie against four kiwis and I soon dropped off the pace (and indeed nodded off at the bar at one stage) before I called it a night just after midnight and headed to bed. Some kept going until 3am, and I pity the poor barman who stayed up serving them and then was up at the same time to porter our luggage!
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