We traveled 2 days south of Berlin, then made a run for the border..................the Polish border! Snuck into Poland under a blanket of rain and fog. Found a nice place to tie up and stayed for 2 days, went shopping and eating. Had to go down a 16.5 meter lock to get across the river into Poland.
Two days later we were 90km north on the Oder River and pulled into the small town Kienitz...................caused quite a stir! The inhabitants thought it was the second coming of the American invasion! Turns out they brought down the editor from the newspaper, the marina-meister, and town historian! We found out the last time there was an invasion in Kienitz it was January 1945 when the Russians came across the frozen river en-mass, captured the town, and proceeded to conquer the Eastern block of Germany and ultimately Berlin. All of the churches in town are missing their steeples. While the Russians built up their forces over the next few days, they used all the steeples for target practice blowing them completely off, so now Kienitz is known as "the town of no steeples". They insisted on our pictures with the mayor and our vessel flag, for next week's newspaper (attached)! They are extremely grateful the Americans sent Ronnie over to tell Gorbachov to "tear down that wall!"
We had a blast in Germany. We arrived last Wed. 7/9 and stayed at a hotel right on the old Berlin Wall. Shauna straddled the mark in the street where the wall was. Later we found Check Point Charlie, where she staged a mock run for freedom, then posed by the guard house. All the old photos of the era are along the street, just like in New York at the World Trade Center.
Weather was nice cool mid-70's, 1 day of drizzle.
