Excellent Adventure 2018 Day 5 - Changing Countries

Today was the day we were supposed to get on a bus and travel to the town of Decin in the Czech Republic and board our ship, the Beyla. And then wake up tomorrow morning in Germany.

Instead, we are getting on a bus and driving to Germany, touring the Bastei along the way.

So now the adventure really begins!

Traffic due to construction along the way turned the 2 hour drive to a 2 1/2 hour drive. The tour guide accompanying us to the Bastei was the same one from the Panoramic Prague tour on Saturday morning - Irene. So we got to hear her “history of Prague in a nutshell” speech, virtually identical word for word, a second time. It didn’t get any better.

There was a bathroom on the bus, but there was a sign on it stating it was closed while the bus was in motion. Well, when else would anyone need to use the bathroom?

Anyway, when we arrived at the Bastei we acquired a new, German, tour guide - Kristina. Very enthusiastic to see us, she announced that we would head towards the Bastei and check out a couple of easy to get to view points, THEN there would be a bathroom break. This meant after 2 1/2 hours on a bus, we still had at least 10 to 15 minutes to go.

It was about 5 minute walk from the parking lot to the first viewing point; as usual I was the one who complained enough and we headed to the bathroom first. What a concept!

Here is a link with more information about the Bastei - a national park in the Saxony part of Germany containing interesting rock formations that resemble the “hoodoos” from Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

The challenge is - to get a really good view of the rock formations, you need to go down a steep trail with 100 steps. Andy went with the group going down the trail, and I stayed behind and chatted with two other people on the bus with us, Pat and Caroline from Houston, TX.

Here’s some photos from the view at the bridge that’s at the bottom of the trail:

Right around 5:00 p.m., we were back on the bus heading towards our ship, the Astrild. We arrived right around 6:00 p.m.

It really is a tiny, tiny ship. There’s only about 70 of us altogether. The room is also very tiny (smaller than the staterooms we’ve had on ocean cruise ships), but it does what it has to do. We also have our tiny veranda - this is the view:

View from our veranda on the Astrild - the offices of the Prime  Minister of Saxony

At 6:45 we headed to the lounge for the meet-and-greet. Benne (finally found out how to spell her name) introduced us to the crew, made some announcements for the next day (e.g. options for the morning excursion), and then off to dinner we went.

We had great dinner conversation with a couple from Baltimore, and a guy from New York.

Tomorrow: Dresden!