On the Polish coast Ruda donned a few more fenders, lowered her mast and headed inland towards Berlin, her 8th capital city. Her crew rather fell in love with Berlin – the raw WWII and Cold War history, the world class museums, and just the plain feel of the place. Ruda liked it too, once she’d recovered from the rather hair raising journey through the city centre with trip boats whizzing hither and thither, and bridges a-plenty to negotiate. Like Paris and Stockholm Berlin seems to ‘face the water’, and from the River Spree a boat’s crew is treated to views of many of the city’s most interesting buildings such as the Reichstag, the museums on Museum Island, stretches of The Wall and some fabulous bridges, old and new.
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From the city, Ruda headed north to the coast again and became a bird watching platform for the crew who had the intention of seeing every one of the birds flying south for the winter! After the treat of the chalk cliffs of Rügen at sunrise it was time for Ruda too to face the winter, and so she headed for Berlin which would be her home for the coming winter.
In the spring of 2013 the crew returned and Ruda set off on her adventures for the summer.