Rudesheim, Germany on the Rhine

We returned to our room after our champagne breakfast to prepare for this mornings shore excursion.
Our cabin steward, Dimas, had a surprise for us as you can see.

A dog made out of towels and Joe's sunglasses.

Our morning tour of Rudesheim included a visit to Siegfried's Museum of Mechanical Instruments.
This museum ranges from the quaint to the downright bizarre collection of musical oddities of the 16th century. All the instruments actually work.
A couple of them follow.

Following the museum, we hopped over to the Rudesheimer Schloss Hotel for coffee tasting. This is a brandy based coffee with whipped cream, sugar and chocolate sprinkles. Delicious.

Pictures of the coffee house and Bonnie and Dan at the coffee house.

Rudesheim is such a pretty little town that is summed up by the untranslatable German word, "Gemutlichkeit" which roughly means "cozy good cheer".

There are many wonderful shops on the street as well as beer and wine patios along the route.

Of course we have a couple of street scenes.

The Rhine River may be 825 miles long but the 40 or so miles of the Middle Rhine Valley between Bingen and Koblenz epitomize the romantic notion of the river. This narrow gorge has spectacular scenery including fortresses, castles, quaint villages, remote chapels and of course, many, many vineyards.

The next few pictures will show you the some of the views in this area.

It was a very relaxing afternoon on the sky deck as we slowly sailed through the Rhine Gorge.

This evening we had a performance by a string trio playing classical music. 

Off to bed to prepare for a big day at Cologne, Germany.

Miltenberg on the Main River

We cruised through the night on the Main River as we headed to Miltenberg, Germany.
The picture below is the river as we neared Miltenberg this morning.

You are all probably wondering what the difference is between a "berg" and a "burg" in Germany.
There is Nuremberg and Rothenburg. Well, the difference is that a berg is in a mountainous area and a burg is in an area with a castle.

We docked about 9:00 AM and the walking tour of Miltenberg started at about 10:00.
The town has 9,500 inhabitants and only 1 street. But what a long and picturesque street it is.

Of course you know that we will have some street scenes of the town.

These streets have numerous shops and outdoor cafes for coffee, wine or beer. Of course they have plenty of German desserts as well. Miltenberg is located on the Main River (pronounced Mine) between the Odenwald Forest and the scenic Spessart region. I am sure you all know exactly where it is now.
I think we need a couple of more street scenes.

From the Main Bridge you can see the panorama of the town as shown in the picture below.

I feel a little remiss that I have not (as far as I can remember) told you much about our ship.

The ship is called the Impression and was built in 2014. It is 443 feet long and 39 feet wide. This is the largest a ship can be to cruise the river owing to the size of the locks and the height of the bridges.
When we go through some of the locks we have literally, 1 foot on each side.
We have 83 staterooms and 47 crew members.

The ship has all the amenities you would look for including a sky lounge, 2nd lounge, whirlpool, hair salon, laundry service and a deck game area. It also has (for some of the fitness nuts) a gym.

We really lucked out on this cruise, as a group of about 50 people cancelled out at the last minute. That means we have 89 passengers and 47 crew members. We are really getting the royal treatment. Also the Avalon Impression is fully booked for the rest of the summer. Talk about good fortune.

A couple of pictures of the lounge area of the ship.

It is hard get a picture of such a long ship, but we did. Here it is.

All that being said what do you think the word of the day is? You are correct. It is "Impression"

Our onboard entertainment for the afternoon was Tomy Temerson.
Tomy Temerson is a zither player. He is one of only 5 professional zither players in the world.
For you non musical folks, a zither is a stringed instrument and Tomy's zither has 42 strings.

Here we are having a wonderful time in the lounge after another amazing dinner. Joe is either in the washroom or taking the picture.

The evening concluded with a hilarious performance by the crew.
Songs, dances and comedy skits had us laughing all the way to bed.

Tomorrow its off to Rudesheim, Germany and later the Romantic Rhine Gorge.

Wurzburg to Rothensburg

Today we land at Wurzburg, Germany, a small city on the Main River.

The picture below is the Main River on our way to Wurzburg.

Bonnie, Jane and Dan decided to stay on the ship for this excursion. Joe headed for the bus, parked metres away. As we settled in the bus (Joe, Robyn, John, June and Sonja), we looked to the right and realized that our curtain was left wide open. There was Bonnie, sleeping away on the bed, not realizing all on the bus could see in the window.  Bonnie woke up and saw people right outside the window and the curtains open.  She was not amused!

This city has been rebuilt from being reduced to smouldering rubble in the allied air attacks. The main feature in the town is the "Residenz of Worzburg". This is the Prince-Bishop Palace and is quite ornate.

We could not take pictures inside the palace but the next ones are the palace from outside and the surrounding gardens.

Next is a couple of street scenes in Wurzburg. Today was Sunday and all stores were closed.

A short (25 minute) walk back to the ship and onboard for another fantastic lunch.

The afternoon excursion was to Rothenburg described as one of Germany's absolute must see.
They are right.
There are numerous narrow streets off the square, Churches, and shops for anything you need. And open on Sunday. We had a couple of hours of free time in the city centre. It was our luck to have a marching band from a high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan performing on the square while we were there.
Shopping for the girls, beer for the guys, band playing in the background, what could be better.

Pictures below show the square, including the band, and a couple of more (wait for it) street scenes.

Wonderful country and the cities are so beautiful.

For those who care about these things, we have now gone through 50 locks. Only 18 to go.

Back to the ship for our "Chef's Dinner". Another fantastic meal that included specialties from our top chef Michal.

John came up with our word of the day and it is "Teutonic".
Why teutonic you may ask, well the short answer is "ask John".
This word seems to relate to the German people as much as any word we could imagine.
It especially describes the Franconian people to a tee.

After dinner it was up to the lounge to listen to Stefan on the piano and keyboard.
Bonnie and Joe actually danced tonight to a slow moving song.
Thanks to Sonja for the picture.

Tomorrow its off to Miltenberg, Germany. See you all then.

Bamberg, Germany

This morning Bonnie wanted to sleep in a bit, so Joe headed for breakfast about 7:30 AM and met up with Dan and Jane. Another terrible breakfast of champagne and eggs benedict (lol) followed by some fruit and cheese.
We had a tour of the city of Bamberg set to leave at 8:30. There was a light drizzle so Bonnie, Jane and Dan were staying on the ship. Joe grabbed an umbrella and headed for the bus.
The tour was a bus tour of the city, followed by a walking tour and free time in the city centre.

Bamberg is a beautiful city that, unlike Nuremberg, was not damaged during the allied bombing during WW2. But most important it is described as the beer capital of Germany.

Bamberg is also called 'The German Rome' because it is built on 7 hills just like Rome.
However, there are really only 6 hills in Bamberg, but the officials at the time did not want to be seen as the poor cousin, so they named 1 hill twice.

Below are pictures in Bamberg of a street scene, a river through town and a garden with ABC in the background. I hope you all remember what ABC stands for.

Back on the ship for our Bavarian lunch with regional specialties.
This is our waiter Mihai, dressed in Bavarian clothes with Bonnie and Jane.

Later in the afternoon the Chef Michal took us on a Galley Tour. (a visit to the ships kitchen for the non nautical folks). Amazing what they can do in a limited space.

And the kitchen was spotlessly clean.  Besides the food is always fabulous.  They are really very "efficient" so as you all may figure out, that is our word for today.

We proceeded to cocktail hour and eventually to another wonderful dinner.
After dinner, up to the lounge for live music by Stefan.

The picture below shows us relaxing as Stefan played the piano.

For those of you that don't know who is who, this picture is in order from left to right.
Jane, Dan, John, Robyn, our wonderful waitresses, Alexandra and Juanita, June, Sonja, Bonnie and last but not least Joe.

Tomorrow we are off to Wurzburg, Germany and Rothensburg. Stay tuned for more adventures at bonnie and joe on the go.

Nuremberg and the Main Danube Canal

Well, it was a leisurely morning as we were about to embark on the Main-Danube Canal.
For those nor familiar with this portion of river travel in Bavaria, Germany I will explain as well as I can. The canal goes from Kelheim to Bamberg.
The Danube and the Main River were quite a ways apart and over the continental divide.
The distance was about 106 miles.
The canal was started and stopped numerous times from the around 800 AD to final completion in 1999. The canal joins the Danube River to the Main River.  Now large cruise ships and tankers can go from the North Sea to the Black Sea with no problem.
That is if you discount the locks. The Main-Danube Canal of 106 miles has 16 locks. Some of the locks are quite high. Three of them are 81 feet from top to bottom.
Enough of the history of the canal, lets get out of this boring stuff.

The pictures below are in a lock and just after we leave the lock.

As we cruised through the canal we had a fellow on board to explain the locks and navigation systems over the years and how the current system works.

We left the ship in the early afternoon at a small town called Roth to drive to Nuremberg while the ship

navigated a number of locks to join us in Nuremberg.

Below are a couple of street pictures, in Nuremberg, that look like the street pictures in a lot of the German/Austrian cities.

One of the blokes on the ship mentioned to the cruise director that we had seen another ABC.
The director said, oh, "Another Beautiful Church?" The bloke said no, "Another Bloody Church"
Well, here is another one.

Throughout our journey so far, we have encountered the most friendly people you could imagine. I mean from the ships crew to the local folk in Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. We could not have felt more welcome in these foreign places than if we had been with family. Thanks to all.

Our tour of Nuremberg was to be over in the late afternoon when we would return to the bus to meet the ship in Nuremberg. Unfortunately the ships progress from Roth to Nuremberg was delayed a few times due to lock congestion.
We had to stay in Nuremberg and eat sausage and drink beer or wine for a couple of hours while awaiting our ship.
This is some of us waiting to be transported to the ship.

With all this delay, all y'all (Texas talk) have probably figured out the word of the day.
No!!!  Well, the word is "patience". We needed that today, especially Sonja when looking for her red wine.
Happy birthday to June from Edmonton who turned 49 today.

Finally back on the ship, and a late dinner over, we were entertained by Thorston Lohrer with lively rock music and then off to bed.

Tomorrow its off to Bamberg and the end of the Main-Danube Canal.

Regensburg, Germany and the Danube gorge

Well, another fine day in Bavaria. We started with our traditional champagne breakfast. Chef Krum, once again, made an excellent omelette.

Regensburg is called a Bavarian Treasure as it has 1,300 listed buildings of historical sights. No, we will not be visiting and showing pictures of all of these sights.
The old city of Regensburg has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
So we may have a picture or two later.

First we headed out on the Danube Gorge tour. The gorge is the original way to continue on the Danube. The river narrows and the bridges are lower in this area. A canal was built to transport the large river ships.

We went on a smaller boat up the gorge to see what things were like on the original Danube River.
This picture shows part of the river.

Up river we stopped at the Weltenberg Abbey which apparently has the oldest brewery in Europe.
The monks at the Abbey have been making beer since 1050 AD. One would expect they have perfected it by now. Well, guess what, they have. We received a complimentary beer and pretzel while we were there. The good news is Dan and Joe got double beers as the girls are more wine drinkers.
This is us having the free beer.

Looks like a fun group except Joe was not there. He was either taking the picture or in the washroom from having too many beers.

Back to our bus and we had to navigate our way through a herd of wild sheep as you can see.

Once safely on board the bus we headed back to the ship for a well earned lunch.
Our lunch was grilled burgers and salads on the sunset deck. Excellent meal considering you cannot barbeque or barby (or as our Aussie and Kiwi friends on board say)
It was a very good lunch as you can see by the 4 satisfied diners' look.

After lunch some of us (Joe) headed into Regensburg for a walking tour of the old city.
The pictures below are of those streets and sort of mirror the streets in the other cities in Austria and Germany.

We (Joe) had a voucher for a plate of sausage and sauerkraut and of course a beer at a place called the sausage house.

While we were checking the shops in Regensburg we found a store selling lederhosen pants for men. We had to talk our friend John out of buying a pair. His wife Robyn was all for it.
Good move John to say NO.

Back on the ship we had a couple of local ladies (Hannah and Heidi) come aboard for beer tasting. They brought samples of 4 types of Bavarian Beer for us to sample. Again, good news for Dan and Joe as we got double samples.

After dinner we were entertained by a one man Bavarian Band.
His name was Humpapa Hansi and he was terrific. You can probably tell by his outfit the type of music he played, but he also got the whole audience involved as you can see.

You are probably wondering what the word of the day is today. We were as well.
With all the beer produced in Bavaria (and some good wine as well) we decided on "libation".

A full day of festivities that has worn us out. Time for bed to be ready for another exciting day on the Danube.
Tomorrow we go through the Main-Danube Canal on our way to Nuremberg, Germany.
Stat tuned for the excitement.